Strategic information systems (SIS) are systems that contain information that are used by the companies for their corporate benefits. It is called ‘strategic’ because of the crucial role it plays in enhancing the image of the information services within the organization. These strategic information systems are generally incorporated within the organization as a response to the corporate business strategies, which in turn help in giving the companies a corporate advantage.
Department specific tasks such as payroll calculation, storing employee personal as well as professional details in HR management portals are being carried out with these task specific information systems. There are five categories of information systems that are generally incorporated within the organizations, which are systems that help in transaction processing, Management processing strategies/systems, Support systems for decision-making and an expert system of neutral networks.
In this research, the chosen company is Toyota Global, which is one of the most successful and technologically advanced automobile company in the world today. The different aspects and technologies involved with the implementation of strategic information systems within the organization will be studied in details in this report. The technologies such as MRP, EDI, and as well as MRP II will be studied along with the different financial as well as non-financial aspects associated. The potential threats such as data theft and breach and other security issues associated with SIS implementation, will also be discussed in details. The report will also contain an organization chart in a formal way, which will help the reader understand more in details about the chosen company – Toyota Global.
Before understanding in details how information system can be implemented within the company, it is of utmost importance that the reader first knows the different success factors for the company. These can be summarized below as:
The TPS which stands for the Toyota production system, is the well-known production model used by Toyota internally. The principles associated to this model are often referred to as “lean manufacturing.” Established shortly after the Second World War, this model was developed by Toyota to understand and analyze how to derive the most out of any available resource may it be a human resource or a machine. ‘Waste elimination” was one of its major focus points. This model believes in the elimination of ‘Muda’, a Japanese term that means wasteful involvement of employees (Routroy and Pradhan 2013).
“Kaizen,” again is a term, which means “continuous improvement” in Japan. Toyota follows the philosophy that aims at constant employee betterment and constant innovations within the company rather than sudden overnight ideas of “game changing” (García et al. 2014). Kaizen is considered just not as a philosophy or way of working within the organization, but it is also considered as a responsibility of all the employees in and out of the workplace (Coetzee, Merwe and Dyk 2016).
“Genchi Genbutsu,” is one of the most important core values being implemented by Toyota, which can be translated as “go to the spot.” It is an extremely innovative and employee friendly technique being rightly implemented by Toyota wherein any situations or their outcomes are being confirmed based on personal observation or interpretation rather than blindly relying on computer or second hand electronic data, which is followed by most of the companies in today’s world. This is where Toyota stands apart from other companies and is so successful in any of its business operations. For example, if there is any such circumstance or situation within the company wherein a manager or a higher authority needs to interfere, the manager has to go to the factory site or the floor himself to understand and observe the situation to make any decision, instead of just relying on computer data (Yang and Yang 2013). Chairperson of Toyota Global Akio Toyoda is known for often visiting unannounced dealerships, outside the Toyota factories in order to carry out personal inspection of newly manufactured vehicles (Gao and Low 2014).
Often the most important success factor for Toyota, which is its own employees, is overlooked. According to Kaizen, all the employees within Toyota goes through trainings and processes of self-development, which can in turn cause the company to improve as a whole. Kaizen insists on the valuable contribution by the employees towards the growth of the company, which is only possible through the self-improvement of the employees. Wastefulness can be eliminated by keeping the employees and the workers in the factories completely updated with the recent technologies. Toyota has always believed in such a work culture that always stays updated with the recent trends and technologies. Teams are formed and small groups of employees work together in harmony and correlation in order to solve complex tasks together (Aguado, Alvarez and Domingo 2013).
The success factors mentioned above have a common objective, which is nothing but the overall development of the company. The objective of TPS, which is the Toyota Production system is to enable the company have a proper relationship with its suppliers as well as its customers. The model organizes the manufacturing tasks as well as the logistics and eases the work of the different employees working within the production department of the company.
The objective of Kaizen is to keep the employees under a constant process of improvement and self-development rather than a sudden plan of any sort. This ensures a systematic and constant growth of the company. The objective of the “Genchi Genbutsu” philosophy is that it aims at equality within employees and real-time decision making based on personal observation instead of going by second hand data. Similarly, employee contribution aims at providing the company the best possible work force and human level involvement in operational tasks to reduce any kinds of errors.
Therefore, in order to evaluate the success factors of the company, it is extremely essential to identify the factors influencing these objectives. It is important to know the working principle of the employees working in the production department, which is the TPS. It is important to know how the rest of the organization including the human resource management handles issues related to the TPM. Job satisfaction of the employees also play an important role in the success of the company, because often Kaizen stresses on overtime and extra work, which can be physically tiring for the employees. It is important to understand the mentality of the manager and the leaders and the conditions and circumstances under which they have to take decisions, under the philosophy of Genchi Genbutsu” (Mostafa, Dumrak and Soltan 2013).
The organizational structure of Toyota is extremely well defined. The central board consists of the chairperson, vice chairperson, the president and the executive vice president. They are guiding leaders for the rest of the Toyota offices spread across Europe, China, Asia Middle East as well as other parts of the world. Under the operations group of North America different operational units are present in Europe, China and Asia as well as Middle East and Africa. The business development group has multiple units such as administration, technical accounting as well as purchasing. The TPS or the Toyota production system is also one of the aspects being used extensively within the company in the manufacturing units and the production engineering groups (Rüttimann and Stöckli 2016).
The present working system within Toyota is a socio-economic process-driven strategy, which is also known as lean manufacturing. The major driving principle in the production department is the Toyota production system as well as the value stream mapping (VSM) terminology. Toyota believes in ‘Kaizen’, which means constant self-development of the employees. It also ensures that the managers and other higher authorities always get involved in any situation personally to eliminate the risk of taking any wrong decision by just relying on computer data (Jones 2013). The company also stresses on identifying the valuable employee contribution towards its constant growth and keeps tem motivated with rewards and recognition at the work place. This is the present working system of Toyota and this present working model has a number of weaknesses as well. These weaknesses have to be addressed by the company management in order to ensure better business outcomes and a better work culture within the organization (Ward and Sobek 2014).
Some of the major issues within the internal working of the organization are listed below:
This is one of the major weaknesses of the present working system within the organization. The different roles and responsibilities are so widespread that it prevents the company from attaining maximum possible flexibility in taking business decisions, especially at a regional level. Often a language barrier occurs within the employees working in regional offices due to which there are lack of communication within the employees themselves leading to employee unrest. Th in turn causes employee job dissatisfaction (Moeuf et al. 2016).
This again is a major issue within the work culture of Toyota, which causes increase in the response time to any business situation. The management seems to take much more time in understanding a situation right in the first place because of the secrecy maintained within the employees, since the higher management is ignorant of many concerns or issues, which are not spoken about.
The company had started massive recalls within its decisions starting mainly from 2009, which in turn questions the business capacity and decision making quality of the company. The company can revise its organizational structure and working policies in order to address the recalls that can be prevented or the recalls that are controllable.
A newer system of working can be recommended which will just not eliminate the above-mentioned weaknesses but also address other issues which are presently untapped by the organizations. There are a number of opportunities and areas of improvement that the organization can presently focus on. Some of these new implementations can be summarized below (Cresswell, Bates and Sheikh 2013):
There are different segments of cars such as sports cars, luxury cars, low maintenance cars for general transport and other categories of cars across the world. Toyota should start focusing on manufacturing high mileage yielding fuel-efficient vehicles that should be able to cater to the needs of the common traveler. It should focus more on developing newer models, which are affordable for an average consumer and not manufactured presently by any of its market competitors such as General motors, Honda and ford. This will considerably reduce product recalls since the basic needs of an average customer will be addressed. This is a basic success factor for any given organization. Based on this information (Liu and Meng 2017).
The advantage that Toyota always had is that, since its inception it had developed a global presence and a very strong brand image. Earlier it was more focused on its home base and marketing their products within their home base itself. It was never much innovative in coming up with newer strategies in product exports. It was only concerned about the sales in its home bases. Then, due to dissatisfaction within its customers and lot of product recalls since 2009, it had come up with the strategy of exporting and marketing its products in other parts of the world. It started making use of information systems in order to build and implement those strategies. It started focusing on a global network and which in turn would develop the local bases (Kiser, Leipziger and Shubert 2017).
This is a technique of production planning, which is software based and a control system for the inventories, used in the manufacturing units and their internal processes. Although it is not much seen in the organizations now a days, still it can be implemented manually by hand as well. MRP ensures to meet three main objectives, which are summarized below as:
Financial factors:
Information systems can be considered more efficient that computers:
It effectively understands the requirements of the organization especially in the operations of management, information technology and handles all employee as well as customers’ needs on one single common platform.
This view includes the effectiveness of a supportive business culture, an appropriate model for business decision-making, authority decentralization and a very strong team that handles the information systems operational tasks within the organization (Kootanaee, Babu and Talari 2013).
This is a view as provided by employees, which should comprise of a very strong management system of the higher authorities, mainly in the human resource teams. It should be able to rightly judge and reward employees and their incentive systems as well as recognitions within the organization and emphasize on teamwork and harmony. This also addresses the needs of a non-accounting user (Chang 2016).
Access by unauthorized hackers:
Unwanted hackers intrude using advanced technologies into sensitive computer systems that store important business data like tax files and financial sheets. This is one of the major threats faced by the organizations today (Scheiblich 2017).
Viruses like Trojan horses and worms, which are, specialized computer applications designed by hackers to attack computers and steal data or corrupt important files.
Damage caused deliberately to the computer hardware or sensitive software applications that help in business decision-making processes is a serious threat to information systems, especially in a company like Toyota, which is known for maintaining a strange employee secrecy within the work culture, which is not at all a good practice. This can be a result of an individual sabotage of any given employee as well as an unintentional sabotage (Wilson 2014).
Human errors and unintentional accidents can always pose threats for the information systems. For example, employees being careless and leaving behind their sensitive mobile devices unattended can lead to data theft and breach (Card 2017).
The new information system in Toyota can make sure it does not have the above-mentioned threats in its working operations. It can ensure to have an audit trail system in all its sensitive mobile devices like laptops and other servers to keep a track on who accessed what. They should have more advanced firewall and anti-virus programs in the systems to reduce virus attacks and hackers from getting into the systems. Toyota can also ensure more advanced and strict employee policies within the work culture so that they take utmost care of the devices that they are provided by the company for business tasks (Venkatesh, Brown and Bala 2013).
Conclusion:
There it can be concluded from the above paragraphs that information systems can be effectively implemented in the working of Toyota due to its multifold advantages. Technologies like MRP, MRP II, EDI, which can be implemented in the information systems, and it has been found that these technologies will immensely ease the operational as well as managerial tasks within the organization. However, there are different threats like data theft etc. that has to be kept in mind by the management before implementing the information systems and should first undergo a phase of testing within the organization before a final implementation.
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