Information Technology

Technology Management Plan

Student’s Name

Institution Affiliation

Date

Introduction

            Largo Corporation is the parent company of Rustic Americana. Rustic Americana features arts and crafts which represent the United States’ history, cultural heritage, folklore and geography. The company markets and sells its products directly to the customers. The company’s direct mail catalogue together with its unique line of products are the vital pivots to the company’s success.

            I was appointed as the acting Chief Information Officer of the corporation after the termination of the former CIO. The first thing which took my eye about the company was that it was facing a number of problems which were not being taken in to considerations. First, there were rumors everywhere from the employees concerning how my predecessor was so incompetent in his job and they were accusing him of running side businesses. Secondly, the annual sales of the company had been declining for the last three years as a result of many internal issues in the company. Third, there were views which were conflicting concerning whose responsibility it was to upgrade the systems. The manager of the call center, Prisha Khan, who had only been in that position for only two months had already begun complaining that the upgrading of the systems was the responsibility of the IT department while the former CIO was of the opinion that this was the responsibility of the manager.

            Depending on the analysis that I made, I saw that the operations of the call center are both business and IT related. The call center makes the arts and crafts which reflect United States’ folklore, history, cultural heritage and geography. The company has its specialty direct marketing and sales where it does this through the call center which include fulfillment of order, management and operation of the corporation, warehousing and the call center. Direct catalogue and the web store are employed during sales of the products. The IT operations are in charge the server which stores the database which keeps the record of all the shipping labels which are prepared through the web based systems with the use of the UPS or USPS which also gives the number which can be used by both the customers and the company to track the shipments. The call centers has two servers where one runs the Oracle database under a UNIX operating system while the other one runs on a windows operating system and uses the SQL technology for the database. Bar code scanners are used by the warehouse workers to keep track of the merchandise. When an order is selected, a conveyor belt moves it to the Shipping clerk where it is packaged, fixed the label, has its bar codes scanned and then placed in to a bin from where it is picked up for delivery. The dollar amount is entered in to the system during the final scan which is used for billing. Technology is required for all this process.

            The cost of investing in system upgrades is evaluated by the chief financial officer of the company. To ensure that the call center is operating efficiently and effectively and that all the services are of the best quality, the cost evaluation must be engaged and then get the upgrades installed in to the system. In my opinion, there should be establishment of an independent department whose main functions would be to keep track of downtime and ensuring the all the rules and regulations of the call center are followed by all the employees. The inventory management system should also be upgraded to ensure that they have quicker refresh rates, have wireless connection to Wi-Fi networks and be able to send notifications to the central reservation system of the products which have depleted before orders for them have been placed by the customers. The company should also place more staff in to the processing unit of the warehouse to ensure that printing and generation of shipping labels is done faster. The IT department should also train the warehouse members on how to use the current technology while handling inventory operations. Moreover, to ensure that the internet service is functioning smoothly for the call center business, the corporation should prohibit personal use of the internet services by the employees. The issues concerning the quality of the service should be handled too.

            The corporation’s business model specializes on the direct marketing and sales of the crafts and arts which they produce. The data system has a very strong technology where it uses the Voice over Internet Protocol system from Cisco, UNIX operating system with Oracle database for the data server as well as another data server which runs under windows and SQL database technology.

            The technology at the corporation cannot be said to be so secure since they were using old UNIX systems for inventory management. This led to very volatile refresh rates of the inventory system. There is therefore need to have mechanisms which are reliable to address the difficulties which are related to technology at all levels. The corporation also needs policies, effective and able leadership with an eye for the corporation’s future and sustainability communications which embrace transparency. The corporation should deploy the latest technology on the hardware used and also ensure that all the personnel have awareness of the strategy to innovate technology. The corporation should also enhance its delivery to be more effective by improving its support system so that there is timely exchange of information between the corporation and the customers.

Technological and managerial issues

The question about the accountable person for system upgrades brought about various conflicting reviews. Claims from the former CIO was that it is the responsibility of manager in the call center to spearhead the operations of system upgrade. Several complaints came out for the manager in the call center department saying that system upgrade operation was an issue for the IT department. The associated system upgrade cost and investment in operations upgrade was said to be the work of the IT department. It is the responsibility of the call center manager to ensure that call center is well staffed. Another issue is in the call center in regards to calls volume since there lacked enough staffs and agents to pick up the calls during peak volume period. Unavailability of the technological infrastructure to assist in mobile computing like the use of tablets by staffs used in the warehouse was another problem. In the workstation, due to the additional 10 older work stations on the call enter, there was an issue when handling calls. The data input clerk used the call enter to make updates to the record.

Best practices in managing technology and improvement approaches in the operations

Any organization should aim at upgrading and advancing in terms of technology in almost every area of operation and making it a priority to keep pace with the new and emerging technology by including it in the overall strategic plan (Lehner, Tichler, Steinmüller, & Koppe, 2014).

The first thing is the developing the management strategy plan and it is at this point that Rustic Americana management should acknowledge and collaborate by working towards achieving together. It is noble to ensure that the management plan is interlinked with the operations of the business and efforts of the IT so that the organizational goals and objectives can be accomplished. A team to ensure resources are maximally utilized need to be developed and this is necessary to ensure that individuals are assigned to one particular person who will be responsible for the achievement of the set targets. The person is expected to be part of the team, which is for the initiatives of the IT, and this is by ensuring that the team has mixed up both organizational resources as well as the other resources acquired externally. Also, the time limit for target attainment need to be set especially in areas where the solution is not recognizable.

Situational analysis is another important step to and the first step to undertake while coming up with an inclusive plan for information technology or acquiring a clear thought of the conditions of the organization which entails an inclusive inventory of all equipment, the details relating to the IT budget management among other details which have been documented relating to IT (Kapur, Kumar, & Verma, 2018). It is crucial to ensure every person has been examined upon development of the management plan and an initiative integrated leader or the team leader should be identified.

The management technology plan will be fully made when every initiative has been combined into document and the plan should therefore be summarized on a monthly basis to ensure that there is efficient flow and to promote accountability. It is also important for the IT managers to peruse through the budget on a monthly basis and make advancement on the technology and also to ensure that there is progress and make necessary changes and number updates in case of alterations. The industry standards for IT need to be reviewed by the organization management in terms of the application spending, infrastructure and equipment as well as staffing to ensure the allocated resources are maximally utilized well and there is accountability in regards to how money is being used.

Skills required for the management of people in enhancing effective operation

The managers should ensure that their subordinates are treated well and this will guarantee a productive business operation. To make sure that this is done correctly, it is good to take time and make estimation and conduct training to the staffs. The employees should be rewarded when they perform better since this will act as an incentive of raising the morale of the employee and consequently their effectiveness (Holbeche, 2015). The working condition should be favorable and conducive as to grant employee a chance to give their best and also avoiding bureaucracy to ensure that information is easily transmitted throughout the hierarchy to the intended person at a reasonable time. Getting the right people for the job is an advantage to the business and therefore managers should aim at sourcing qualified individuals to work for the organization as to enhance the growth and profitability of the organization. The human resource and all departmental managers should be properly trained to equip them with necessary skills and knowledge require to enhance the operation of the business such as training on how to disseminate and communicate with staffs among other trainings.

Ethical requirements of individuals in an organization

Ethics is a very crucial topic of discussion and therefore ethical theories play an important in our life. Ethics are standards that guide a behavior. It is the responsibility of every professional to know their boundaries and also the manner in which they should act in a given sector and this is through the guidance of the ethical values (Bian & Caliyurt, 2018). The technology has taken up the world of business today and therefore it is becoming difficult to define the ethical codes of the field. The IT professionals are facing critical challenge in regard to effects of computer ethics. Ethics is ensuring integrity and honesty in the profession and being accountable for own actions. Following the stipulated guidelines and procedures as well maintain organizational standards is considered as standing with the moral objective of the organization. Workers should therefore aim at building the reputation of the organization in producing superior goods and services by ensuring they do what is acceptable and following organizational guidelines.

Call center management

To run and manage a call center requires a lot of restructuring and implementation of rules which assist in building successful team. It is significant when hiring call center staff to ensure they are individuals who have good opinion for customer service as well as effective communication and listening skills. Staffs for call center should have a friendly attitude to approach customers and a memory which can retain information for a longer period (Sushil., Bhal, & Singh, 2016). The individuals hired for the job will have various expertise and therefore they will bring a breadth of knowledge to the call center which will be necessary for providing superior services to customers.

Proper employee training is always advocated for immediately the right employees have been hired for the job. The training should be conducted comprehensively to ensure that employees are well equipped with the information and knowledge required to conduct themselves effectively. The employees should be well trained to enable them handle the complaints lodged by customers. Customers are among the most important stakeholders in any organization and therefore an experienced and knowledgeable person is required to handle calls from customers with a lot of enthusiasm.

The schedule should be planned smartly. The quality of the services offered by employees will tend to reduce if employees feels like they are being overworked. It is therefore crucial to make proper scheduling to ensure that customers are attended to immediately they need the services and the services should also be friendly. It will be appropriate if the performance of the staffs is measured in terms of quality rather than the volume of the calls received or attended to. This will enable the staffs to concentrate on delivering quality services to customers. The call center need to be evaluated on regular basis. Assessing the quality of services delivered to customers will make the agents in the call center active so as to maintain quality. The evaluation should be made for all calls each individual employee has made to gather sufficient information useful to assess the quality of the services offered accurately. The evaluation should be made regularly to ensure that there is persistence and consistence of the services offered.

Employees should be provided with incentives which will encourage then to give their best to enable them attain daily goals as well as the overall organizational objectives. Highly motivated employees tend to deliver quality services as compared to less motivated workers. Incentives work as an inducing factor and thus employee morale will be raised leading to improved productivity due to the services offered.

Being the Rustic American acting CIO, various improvements for the call center operations need to be introduced. Firstly, the call center need to be staffed with the right people who have the right skills and competencies. The individuals hired to work in the call center should have good communication skills, friendly approach and always eager to help and serve customers with their best enthusiasm. A well-structured set of questions should be made to ask potential employees before hiring them for the job since this will help in revealing appropriate candidates. Employees hired for the job should be able to respond to questions effectively by ensuring no tricks are used while answering the questions.

From the article “Technology is Shaping Future Call Center Operations”, there are various recommended improvements to be made in the Rustic American operations:

Rustic Americana should adopt the remote and home based technologies for easy monitoring and supervision of staff in the call center operation office. Instead of the supervisor to keep strolling around to listen to the agents and how they respond to their customers, these tech technologies will be helpful because the supervisors would easily monitor the agents in real time vision right from the agent desktop and the way they handle their customers. Using these technologies will allow the supervisor to respond immediately to any noticed misconduct by the agent while still afresh. The prompt response is crucial in agent advancement and improvement of the services offered.

A software to manage quality will enable supervisors and analyst in the call center to inspect and evaluate the operations of their agents. The tool will be useful in identifying the agents who overspend their time speaking with their customers and thus it will help in resolving such problems. The software will allow the agents in the call center to be trained on a daily basis since it will provide relevant information to the supervisors about the performance of the agents.

Dealing with Ethical conduct

The organization strategic plan should be congruent to the principles, guidelines and rules of controlling. The principles should be intertwined to the management adopted instructions to ensure individuals are held responsible for their own actions. The instructions or rules should be adjusted to ensure they are consistent with the strategy. An agreement should be made to ensure that employees agree with the stipulated rules and regulations and to display their acceptance and understanding of the organization ethic strategy. Employees should be properly trained on how to deal with ethical dilemmas and other difficulties evolving from ethics.

Need for IT support

            For both small and large corporations, the role played by technology during the operations of the call center is very vital. This technology is employed in the corporations to enable communication with the customers, conduct transactions, compile reports and secure storage and retrieval of sensitive data (Lehner, Tichler, Steinmüller, & Koppe, 2014). Therefore, regardless of the size of the business, it is vital for the organization to support the technology used in the call center as it helps in improving the efficiency of the system and management of any issues which may arise. Support for strong and secure IT systems should also be embraced to ensure that the files and data saved in the databases is safe from any harmful attack or virus. The technical support for IT can also offer customers with some technical services like remote troubleshooting of system issues. IT support is also important in that it will help in regularly updating the business owners of the current technological advances and updates which will enable them to offer suggestions on which technology to go for while doing upgrades.

Need for Upgrades

            As technology advances, newer versions of software which are more secure as well as newer versions of hardware which is faster, more efficient and         reliable are brought to the market. It is therefore important to upgrade the technology which is used in the organization, especially at the call center. Blokdijk (2007) suggested that it is important for company to consider investing in newer technologies in the call center since the price for technology keeps on falling making it easier to acquire more efficiency in the business as well as serving customers in a better manner. Automated voice, data middleware, scheduling and call routing are some of the upgrades and improvements which should be done on the system. Best (2011) urges that upgrades in the voice technology would enable 5-30% increment in call center interactions while still maintaining the satisfaction of the customers.

Conclusion

            By working on Rustic Americana’s case and developing the technology management plan of the same, I was able to improvise ways through would enable solve the problems which were facing the organization. Through this project, I realized it is very important for any standard organization to outline clearly the roles of each and every department so that there are no cases of conflicts arising over who is responsible of performing a particular function or task. More importantly, to avoid downtime and ensure satisfaction of the customers, it is important to ensure that the technology employed in the organization is upgraded regularly and up to date. Largo corporation just needs a communication standpoint and creation of strategies based on the principles of the company in order to overcome its problems. This together with upgrade of the technology used in the corporation will help the governance of the corporation to be of the highest standard and increase its productivity.

References

Best, G. A. (2011). 42 rules for outsourcing your call center : best practices for outsourcing call center planning, operations and management. Cupertino, CA : Super Star Press.

Bian, J., & Caliyurt, K. T. (2018). Regulations and applications of ethics in business practice. Singapore : Springer.

Blokdijk, G. (2007). Call center 100 success secrets. Brisbane: Emereo.

Holbeche, L. (2015). Aligning human resources and business strategy. [Place of publication not identified]: Routledge.

Kapur, P. K., Kumar, U., & Verma, A. K. (2018). Quality, it and business operations : modeling and optimization. Singapore: Springer Verlag.

Lehner, M., Tichler, R., Steinmüller, H., & Koppe, M. (2014). Power-to-Gas: Technology and Business Models. Cham: Springer.

Sushil., Bhal, K. T., & Singh, S. P. (2016). Managing Flexibility : People, Process, Technology and Business. New Delhi: Springer India.