Survey of Software Systems

Week 6 Case Study 1. How important is the reservation system at airlines such as WestJet and JetBlue? How does it impact operational activities and decision making? The reservation system is extremely important to small airline companies such as WestJet and JetBlue. Since these companies are small and fairly new, efficient customer service is essential to their success. When potential customers visit the JetBlue and WestJet websites and view their competitive rates, it is imperative that they are met with a completely capable, efficient information system to book their reservations on.Also, the reservation system will impact operational activities because it clearly lies out how many reservations are currently booked which is essential in deciding on the number of aircraft to use for a specific block of time to a specific destination. It also provides foresight on how much fuel to have on the aircraft etc. Another thing that the reservation system helps is the ability to know when to advertise specials on certain flights in order to fill the roster and offer standby to last minute travelers. 2. Evaluate the risks of the projects to upgrade the reservation systems of WestJet and JetBlue and key risk factors.There are several risks associated with upgrading any information systems within a company. Typically the most difficult tasks involve providing training to the employees that are responsible for using, operating or receiving data from the upgraded information systems. In this situation in particular, one of the major concerns for these companies was that the information system updates would cause defects in the system and also that the time that it would take to upgrade the reservation system could cause a gap in services to the user.An outage in their web services would cause major setbacks for both companies and neither of them could afford the loss. The text states that WestJet had been running practice tests and training for over 100,000 hours in prepara tion for the live upgrade. Still, they encountered some issues that they had not planned for during the live upgrade. This caused the website to be inaccessible for quite some time during and after the upgrade. This caused an enormous number of dissatisfied customers.Users flocked to Facebook and other social networking sites to express their dissatisfaction with WestJet’s services; they also called customer service in an effort to gain a better understanding about what was going on. As a result of the increase in customer service calls that WestJet was also unprepared for, there was a major increase in customer service wait times, which then led to more angry customers. Luckily WestJet was able to redeem itself some time down the road and didn’t take too much of a hit financially because of that mishap.This goes to show that the risks associated with upgrading information systems within a company are extremely high and in no way should they be undermined. Companies sh ould always be prepared when attempting to upgrade information systems otherwise the loss has the potential to be devastating. 3. Classify and describe the problems each airline faced in implementing its new reservation system. What people, organization, and technology factors caused those problems? The problems that WestJet faced in implementing its new reservation system ran the gamut.They had a number of organizational problems which included the fact that they obviously hadn’t considered the possibility that the transfer could not go as planned. Although they trained and practiced for over 100,000 hours in preparation for the transfer, they failed to have a backup plan, which is something that every company needs to have should they need to employ other options. When the initial plan was foiled, there weren’t even enough employees to handle the commotion that the lack of web services caused.They also had a critical technology problem, and that was that the file tra nsfer didn’t go as planned. Another technology problem was that the unsuccessful file transfer caused the web services to be down for a number of hours. There should have been a backup webpage to mitigate that gap in service. JetBlue on the other hand, was very well organized based on the information that the text gave. They had a backup for their webpage that they ended up needing to use because their servers were down due to the file transfer.They chose a low web traffic day to initiate the file transfer; and they hired 500 temporary employees to man the call center in case they had an increased number of customer service calls. JetBlue also had technology problems which caused a delay in their data transfer but the reason that it didn’t affect them as bad as it did with WestJet, is because they were prepared, 4. Describe the steps you would have taken to control the risk in these projects.The risk associated with performing live data transfers is imminent. There wil l never be a way to completely mitigate that risk, but if I were in that situation I would handle it like JetBlue did. I would examine all of the possible outcomes and have a backup in place to control the possible damage. I would have definitely had a backup web interface and I would have hired temporary employees to help with the extra workload. Basically, I would have done the exact same things that JetBlue did.

Business plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Business plan - Assignment Example The majority of Canadian customers are not ready to accept reduced quality of commercial ice creams. Hence the potential for specialized ice creams is high in this market. By combining beverages as ice coffee, milk shakes, hot cappuccino and hot coco, with the desserts and ice creams, the SW&D offers a year round reason for customers to visit the outlet. The business model that would be used in the SW&D venture would be a Differentiated Value experience where even through the pricing would be up-market and above market averages, the exotic varieties of deserts, the freshness and natural ingredients will deliver a value package that will differentiate the company. The products will be exclusive and exotic in nature but reasonably priced to maintain affordability. The expectations is that SW&D’s premium image will offer a low price elasticity in terms of economic considerations and make customers willing to pay additional money to experience the SW&D quality. Combined expertise of the two partnering entrepreneurs, Neil and Susan Shucroft will offer culinary expertise in dessert making which Neil acquired in qualifications and experience during the years in Europe as well as Susan’s service management experience in food service field. The initial financial analysis points to a highly lucrative venture and the capital funding to be invested can be recovered within 2 years period of time. This is a relatively low investment venture with high profitability returns of around 50% GP margins and 15% average NP margins. Such profitability is common to Food service industry, if the venture’s operations are managed stringently and with cost and quality consciousness. This business report provides a comprehensive market analysis and prose the business and functional level strategies as well as a preliminary financial analysis for the review of prospective investors of this

Information Technology Buisness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Information Technology Buisness - Essay Example The store, however, lacked computer applications for supporting the business functions. In the following section, a discussion will be made on some recommendations for e-business systems and Enterprise Business Systems for supporting the growth of the online business. The management of the business should understand that today’s business strategizing calls for more flexibility than in the past. They also require to note that strategy development process needs to be much more dynamic. There is the promotion of new value propositions by new companies, and new technologies are being used to give companies a competitive advantage. The company will also need to take very informal and dynamic approaches which tend to degenerate from strategy into tactics. For instance, the company may create a website, so as to advertise its existing and new products. The website will reach a lot of potential customers from a wide area. This is because the e-business enables the market to become global. The general purpose of search engines like Google enables the potential customer to find all the products on sale. Through the website, the clients can also make enquiries about the products, relating to price and durability. The company may also decide to sell its current and new products via a portal without rethinking the nature of its products (Harmon, Guttman & Rosen, 2001). In connection to making use of the internet for the sale of products, the business needs to consider using mobile systems. The mobile systems make e-commerce time independent and user location. However, regulatory issues are to be developed, especially regarding the international e-commerce and guarantee questions. Of concern also are the legal issues on e-cross border transactions and e-contracting. In the development of e-business applications, it will need to create a plan linking the business applications with the steps it wants to take to get to the future state.

Make a claim on Hamlet play character Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Make a claim on Hamlet play character - Essay Example get to the root cause and after the revelation provided by his father’s ghost is involved in scrutinizing the moral and immoral aftereffects of his revenging action towards Claudius. When Hamlet faces the death of his father, he was too much disturbed as he intensely loved his father and his loss became a sort of suffering for him but this suffering was made manifold when his mother soon after his father’s death married his uncle, Claudius. In his first soliloquy, Hamlet showed his disgust with life and stated that we are here to die and if suicide would not be prohibited in religion, he would have committed it. He said, According to Hamlet, our body is not immortal as we have to die one day and he would have preferred to commit suicide and hug death if it was not made prohibited by religion. He considers himself chained and helpless. For Hamlet, the world appeared as useless and as a young man, he lost interest in life that was not only possible that he faced his father’s death, there was much more on his side that he felt intensely due to which, he said, For him, everything of the world lost value and there was no more attraction left for him in the world. Hamlet saw no profit in being alive and to live in this world and the reason for all this was his mother’s hurried marriage with Claudius. He lost belief in any woman on this earth because as per his perceptions, if a mother is not trustworthy, then who else can be as he said, Hamlet regarded his mother’s hasty marriage as incest because for him, she must have an extramarital affair with Claudius when his father was alive as such a marriage can only take place when both the members are pre-committed with one another. According to Hamlet, the tears that his mother shed on the death of his father were false and untrue as she soon washed her eyes and become betrothed to Claudius. Her marriage was there within a month after her husband’s death and as per Hamlet’s statement, her action was faulty

Aspects of Strategic Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Aspects of Strategic Management - Essay Example Therefore, a business venture is exposed to a number of factors that act as the judiciary in determining the direction that the business takes. In order to bring together all work processes and to develop a more etched direction that the business could take, by evolving plans and implementing them with foresight, strategies ate laid down and executed. The overall processes, inclusive of policies and programmes, ideas and plans, and the like together constitute Strategic Management. Strategic Management is extremely crucial for business ventures, since it helps prevent wayward movement and direction that the company takes, owing to internal and external factors. Firstly, strategic management helps companies come up with mission statements and policies. It helps company gain direction and momentum, while helping negate the impact of external and internal environments that have a huge impact on the business. Secondly, strategic management helps in management of resources. When a company has a set of resources, it cannot go overboard and get into insolvency, nor should it ideally under-utilise the available resources.

Social anxiety Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Social anxiety - Research Paper Example People experiencing from social phobia are not afraid of fear, rather they are afraid of what people think about them and how people perceive them. This fear is mostly associated with the negative perception or the belief that people perceive negatively about the person being evaluated. Due to this fear, individuals believe that they are going to be negatively assessed by others, will not be acceptable by others, will be bullied and people might disapprove them. Due to these perceptions, an individual may face the problem of social anxiety. Individuals living in US aging between 18 and 54 are most commonly affected by this disorder, around 3.7% of the total population which accounts for 5.3 million Americans are said to be experiencing this disease (Kahn, 2001, p.51). Twice the number of women are said to be effected by this disorder as compared to men but higher number of men seek assistance to solve this issue (Kahn, 2001, p.51). Mostly an individual is affected by this disease dur ing childhood; individuals who cross the age of 25 have less chances of developing this disorder. Social anxiety is one of the top most common forms of disorders experienced by US. Body During the 1980s, social anxiety was realized as a mental disposition by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder; this realization took place much later than other forms of mental issues (Kearney, 2005, p.11). Heavy amount of research and study has not focused on this disease but quite a lot of physicians and researchers are working towards this social and mental problem. Researchers have been able to identify two forms of social phobia, though it is unclear whether both these problems are similar or distinct. The first kind of social phobia is one in which people are afraid of conducting one of the several forms of social actions such as speaking in front of the public and working or eating while around people. The second division of social phobia is recognized as generalized social phobia, people experiencing this form of social phobia are afraid of conducting all sorts of social activities (Kearney, 2005, p.12). Media has paid attention to social phobia and has stated that pharmaceutical companies are trying to sell medication that is used to solve the issue of shyness and they believe that shyness is not a medical condition (Gambrill, 2012, p.67). The issue of pharmaceutical companies operating in an unethical way to make profits should not be mixed with the issue of social phobia as everyday several individuals throughout the world along with US experience this metal disorder and are not able to complete their social obligations. An individual should not be labeled as someone who is experiencing any disease if they are going through emotional changes that are important for their life. But proper importance needs to be assigned to someone who is actually experiencing certain mental issues. Social phobia or social anxiety itself is a label given to those who are actually suffering from these issues and these labeling aids them in obtaining help from physicians and gain support from others who are experiencing the same challenge. Experiencing social anxiety is not a huge issue, thus others need to accept such people and provide support to them and people suffering from this disorder want to alter the way they are living their lives. It is a myth that socially anxious people do not prefer to be social or are against

The Formation and Evolution of Sony Ericsson Alliance Assignment - 2

The Formation and Evolution of Sony Ericsson Alliance - Assignment Example The merger was also approved by the European and other regulatory authorities. The new company, headquartered at London, UK, envisaged total employee strength at the time of merger at 4000 of which Ericsson brought 2500 and balance contributed from Sony. The mission statement of the new company is to become the communication entertainment brand enabling everyone in creating and participating in entertainment experiences. The new company’s product line includes Mobile phones and handheld multimedia communication products. As per the data provided by International Data Corp (IDC), Nokia controlled 30.8 percent market, Motorola at 14.6 percent and Ericsson at 10 percent of market share in mobile market at the time of the merger. Thus, Ericsson’s market share is way below market leader Nokia. In forging the alliance, Ericsson had the benefit of access to Sony’s Japanese market, and Sony’s consumer experience particularly in digital screens, and Memory stick. Sony had the benefit of access to Ericsson base stations and 3G infrastructures. Moreover, Sony had access to Ericsson handset core technology and entry to US market. Informing a joint venture, Sony had the benefit of sharing Ericsson’s international telecommunication experience and chance to fill missing link in form of satellite, gateway, and phones. On the other hand, Ericsson had access to Sony’s design and production processes and facilities in China. Sony’s financial strength was in benefit to Ericsson in the long run. Research and development costs could be shared between the partners in the current competitive arena. Ericsson was categorical in its financial report of 2001 that Ericsson will have a chance of augmenting supply chain strength from Sony’s proven and established supplier resource base.