Business Information Systems Case Study Report Bognor Marine Essay

Business Information Systems Case Study Report Bognor Marine Watercraft - Essay Example Just because of the luxury element of the brand, some of these products are even purchased by non boat owners. Recently the brand has received significant media attention as several high profile celebrities have bought BMW boats. The owners of BMW desire to exploit this new opportunity and after holding several strategy meetings, they have recognized the potential areas for investment. Prior to creating their development plans, the investors and bank have asked a third party management industry to make a companywide evaluation, so that they can invest in the industry when it is officially deemed viable. One of the features that the bank looks for is the capacity for the organization to make quick progress in a competitive market. BMW basically comprises nine departments, which are: warehousing, manufacturing, human resource, finance, sales, marketing, design team and support departments. Warehousing departments take care of each delivery made by dealers with regard to raw materials a nd specific equipment that the industry purchases. Manufacturing departments give necessary instructions to suppliers for resources as and when required by the organization. The HR department runs full time and in order to be more effective and efficient the same jobs are assigned among two individuals. The team utilizes skills which are complicated to replace and this thus proves to be the biggest strength of the organization. In order to counter possible loss of skills BMW makes use of the apprentice method. However, the communication among the finance department of BMW and its employees is seen to be poor, this resulting in several mistakes that could be avoided if there were improved sharing of information. In the case of sales department, the manager is based in the major office and has responsibility for mainly two lines of actions. The sales personnel are field based and are dependable for the sale of BMW’s better volume manufactured ancillaries to various national dea lers. One sales individual is based at the office and he or she is responsible for the sale of the craft. Due to the price and nature of the luxury craft, customers pay great attention to details and will discuss at length the available features and choices of the craft. Marketing departments of BMW include mainly two people for exhibitions, design and additional marketing tasks containing campaign management. They work widely with third party experts who are trusted partners in the business. The distribution department consists mainly of four people. The important area of responsibility is the delivery of the better volume goods supplied to chandlers, luxury stores. Design team of the BMW includes several boat architects and contract designers. The support staffs of the company include two managers, secretaries, cleaners and drivers. BMW requires modifying and adopting information systems for a quality management. â€Å"An information system is a collection of hardware, software, data, people and procedures that are designed to generate information that supports the day-to-day, short-range, and long-range activities of users in an organization† (Types of Information Systems 2000). These are categorized into five types, namely: office information systems, management information systems, transaction processing systems, expert systems and decision support systems. Every organization requires information system