Assignment Overview:

Introduction

Management Information systems are very important and can be a vital resource for competitive advantage in any organisations. Any organisation can benefit by employing a competent IT/IS strategy to meet its goals. The purpose of this paper is to develop an internet strategy for Columbian, an island in the Caribbean. Columbiana is an underdeveloped island, which can gain immensely by creating a website for its promotion. The website in this regard can be considered as key operational system when scrutinized under the application portfolio and is essential in achieving the business goals (Ward & Peppard, 2002). The internet strategy developed is based on the goals of the organisation, industry and competitors.  

The paper opens up with describing the business strategy of Columbiana on the basis of Internet business model given in the case study and Porter generic strategies. The next part includes the critical success factors for the organisation, followed by the advantages and peripheral benefits of using internet in this business. While addressing these points, it is also the purpose of this report to develop an IT/IS strategy incorporating the functional specifications along with implementation plan recommended. The IT/IS strategy formulated is based on the critical success factors and benefits from using the internet.

Business Strategy

Caribbean Islands form a group of more than 7000 islands which are in the Caribbean Sea situated between east of Mexico and stretching till north of South America. Out of these islands, there are 13 independent countries islands and rest are territories of other nations (Caribbean). It is argued to be a heaven on earth tourist destination with its beaches, boats and bikinis as its selling point (Caribbean vacation, 2010).

One similar type of an independent island which shares the same beauty along with other tourist attractions is Columbiana. Apart from its rich history and historical buildings dating back to 800 years when the island was a colony of British Empire, Columbiana is blessed with natural scenic attractions such as white beaches, rain forests, rivers, mountains and the list goes on. Columbiana has a lot to offer and is competent enough to give its tourist a Caribbean style vacations. Apart from having accommodation that fit every pocket, tourists can indulge themselves in native food and fresh sea foods.

In addition to this, Columbiana has a huge untapped market of its agricultural products. Columbiana can benefit by increasing trade and generating markets for its agricultural goods and other products that are abundant here. They can also endeavour themselves in practices that catch the attention of foreign investors. In spite of all these advantages, Columbiana has still not managed to acquire any interest by tourists or by any foreign investors. The major reason for this can be predicted as lack of exposure to the target market (Zimmerman, 2011).

As it is a government venture, the business strategy in this case should be in favour of all the shareholders including the inhabitants of the island. The business strategy should also focus on increasing the infrastructure of the island along with promoting tourism and trade. Tourism and trade can work as a technique to gain foreign capital which can be used to develop the resources of the island. The business strategy should aim to reduce the unemployment in island, increase the quality of life of the people while regarding the environment of the island. They should frame a strategy which aims to develop Columbiana’s infrastructure, protect its environment, increase tourism, trade and provide more growth opportunities and services to islanders.

After studying a brief overview of the situation, it can be inferred that Columbiana has enough potential to increase its market both in tourism and trade sector for overall betterment of the island and its people. The basic hindrance to their growth is lack of knowledge in their prospective customers about their services and products. Therefore, the business strategy should be such that it facilitates efficient transfer of knowledge of their services and products to their customers. Columbiana business strategy should be to develop an internet strategy and develop an information based website.They internet model that is best suited for Columbiana is Content Provider  where the website gives information about the product and services of a business and the transaction of acquiring that services is completed in a different place and manner (Zimmerman, 2011). The website could give information about tourist attractions, special deals, hotels, food and at the same time extent it to include information about government rules, quarantine laws, products available to foster trade and foreign investors. It can generate revenues by selling advertisements space to business that are already in Columbiana and can work as an interface for communication between the islanders and the rest of the world.

The other difficulty they face is lack of uniqueness. As stated Caribbean islands are made up of thousands of small islands, and hence Columbiana has to differentiate from them in some way to give them competitive advantage. According to Porter, they should adopt a differentiation strategy where they provide services and products that are different from their competitors and preferred by their customers (Turban et. all, 2008). Their focus should be to generate a brand name for themselves.

One strategy is often difficult to explain the overall strategy of an organisation. Considering the generic form of these strategies and complex nature of the organisation it can be appreciated that an organisation often employs combination of different strategies to meet their goals (Turban et. all, 2008). If we consider the broader aspect of Columbiana’s business strategy it can be endorsed that they should also adopt a growth strategy to enhance their development as a nation. In a nutshell, Columbiana which is an underdeveloped nation should employ growth strategy, and can also take benefit from differentiation from their competitors.

Critical Success Factors

Critical Success Factors can be described as those essential issues that need to be met to achieve organisations goals and gain competitive advantage. The identification of critical success factors is a very important step in implementing IT/IS strategy. By generating these factors the IT/IS strategy can be formulated to target these issues according to their priority to meet the goals of an organisation (Ward & Peppard, 2002). 

Benefit for the Community

As suggested in the case study (Zimmerman, 2011), Columbiana is a relatively backward economy where most of islanders are unemployed. The first and foremost priority of the government should be to keep their shareholders interest in mind which includes their citizens and other businesses that are already present in Columbiana, and increase their standard of living and ensure economic stability of the island. Their prime focus should be to improve the infrastructure of their island.

Trade and investments

The most competent method to ensure job opportunities and creating infrastructure in the island is by promoting trade and foreign investments. Columbiana should try to make a target market for its indigenous goods that are abundant here. Trade in addition to providing job opportunities would automatically result in foreign capital which can be used to built infrastructure or provide a better standard of living for the citizens. Columbiana should capitalize on its cheap labour and plenty of business options to attract foreign business into the island. 

Tourism

Apart for adopting above techniques, Columbiana can also exploit its natural beauty to become a popular tourist spot. It can extent its scenic beauty and add other activities such as fishing, snorkelling, mountain climbing etc. They can also expand their market to encourage movie or documentary makers to shoot in their island like their competitors (Dominica home page, 2011). This will benefit them in generating finance and will also market their island to the viewers. The immensity of this tourism market can be appreciated by observing that close to 823,000 tourists visited Dominican, a major competitor of Columbiana, in first three months of this year only (Latest statistics, 2011).It is then safe to say that trade and tourism as explained earlier are core competencies for Columbiana.

Creating a website

As identified earlier, in spite of having all these prospects Columbiana has still not managed to simulate any attention from their customers due to lack of proper marketing and knowledge about their products and services. Hence, it can be concluded that creating a website based on Content Provider internet model is one of the most critical success factor that needs to be fulfilled for Columbiana to achieve its goals. The website should include following aspects:

• Relevant information. The information provided should be relevant and attract customers focus. The information should cover every aspect of trade and tourism prospects and should be aligned with the business strategy.
• Marketing. The website should be well marketed and be linked to major search engines and the common Caribbean website. It should be easily accessible and have a simple URL address.
• Layout. It should be easy to use so that anyone can effectively grasp information from it. The layout should be such that it is appealing to the customers and follow a generic pattern where each sector of the website is well differentiated and provide specific information about different aspects of business.
• Differentiation. As explained before, it can be endorsed that the key to their success lies in the differentiation strategy pointed out by Porter(Turban et. all, 2008). If they can distinguish themselves from other islands they will gain unparallel competitive advantage. They can make their website that can separate them from their competitors and should be convincing enough, so that customers remember their website and information on it.  (Website CSF, 2011)

Transportation

Columbiana needs to promote their transportation facilities to assist their tourism and other industries. They need to draw other major airlines and cruises to their island to increase the exposure of the island. Without a healthy transportation, it cannot hope to improve its tourism or trade industry.

 Benefits

It is argued that internet hampers a business as it reduces profitability and diminishes differences between customers. Internet is also condemned for removing barriers to entry, increasing the bargaining power of customers and threat of substitute goods. However in spite of these drawbacks, it is also advocated that internet also provides unrivalled benefits and should be used as a complement to existing strategy (Porter 2001). For Columbiana the benefits from going on the internet can be summarised under:

• Global connectivity. Internet biggest advantage is that it provides global connectivity and increase the target market. By creating a website Columbiana can not only reach customers that are in its vicinity but customers that may be spread world-wide(Kauffman & Wang, 2008).
• Promotion. A website is an excellent tool for promotion if used wisely. Apart from distributing information there website can also act as a useful technique of promotions. The biggest advantage it provides is that a website works 24/7 unlike other methods and provides a better customer service (Web design expert, 2011).
• Inexpensive. Internet marketing is very economical as compared to other techniques considering the ease and reach of this technology.
• Feedback. It can work as a competent platform for feedbacks and discussions between the customers and service providers. It can be used to predict the preferences of customers and also clear and doubts they might have (Internet business, 2007). This feature will be essential for investors and trade partners where they can interact with the Columbiana’s government.

In addition to these inherit advantages; internet presents various other peripheral advantages which can help Columbiana’s cause:

• Local businesses. While endorsing the tourism and trade, internet will also play a huge role in businesses that are already present in Columbiana. It can promote their businesses as well as providing them with a platform to communicate with their customers. By planning an extranet system they can affectively connect every station in the island to one another.
• Communication. Internet can also play a big role in initiating communication between the islanders. They can develop an intranet system to facilitate connectivity in the organisation.
• Align with internal IS. Internet can easily be aligned with existing IS system of a firm. If they develop any other Information Systems in the future, they can easily couple it with their website (Internet business, 2007).
• Advertising. They can also sell advertising space on their website and generate income from it once their website is well established (Kauffman & Wang, 2008).

In a nutshell, it is appreciated that a website will put Columbiana on the world map and provide all the exposure they currently strive for.

IT/IS Functional Specifications

After generating the business strategy and identifying the critical success factors and the benefits from a website, the next step is to decide the functional specifications of the required website. This is a part of formulating IT/IS strategy as given by the framework in Appendix.1.

The website should be designed in such a way that it serves all the necessary CSF’s and adhere to all the benefits identified. The required specifications can be summarised as:

• Home page: It should have an easy to use home page with an introduction about Columbiana’s tourism and trade and have pictures of Columbiana which express its natural beauty. It should have easy to use tabs which allow a customer to navigate to different sections of the website. The homepage should be designed such that it markets the entire website and compel customers to continue and come back to the website again. It should portray Columbiana as a beautiful country with enormous potential to grow economically.
• Routing and Consistency. The home page should contain links to subsequent web pages each addressing different services. The most important service should be on the left and least on right. It should also incorporate key functions such as how to contact the organisation under “contact us” tab and a search engine for the contents in the website. The subsequent web pages should be consistent and follow same template of design. Each tab should include further subdivisions of web pages aimed to provide information about the specified topic (Tech guide, 2007).

The required subsequent web pages are listed below:

• Tourism. This section should include an overview and maps of the island along with the history and tourist attractions. It can also include list of hotels and their costs along with the cuisines available. Any festivals or special offers should be presented in a different sub heading. They can also extent this to include information about the cruises and flights to Columbiana, and reservation options in hotels all under this tab only.
• Trade. This section should contain information relating to the rules of the government and tax which is associated with trade. It should also give its customers an overview of the industry and goods produced along with the cost involved. It can include a section of common questions and answers related to trade enquiries and provide a feedback option to any new query.
• Investments. Rules and Regulations pertaining to investments and the kind of investments allowed should come under this section. It should give an overview of investment options available and the process associated with it.
• Extranet. This section should include information about existing business and an option for local businesses to communicate with their potential customers. Email option with Columbiana domain name can be assigned to every business which can be accessed from this section.
• Intranet. This section will be used by internal organisation for effective distribution of information between them. It should include information relating to the tourism options, custom laws and other rules and regulations of the island which will help in effective communication in the organisation.
• Contact Us. This is a very important part of this website as explained before also. It should clearly give information as to how a customer can contact the organisation. Instead of a common channel they should have different contact options for different queries. The feedback and discussion section explained before can be included here.
• Language. A look into tourism statistics reveals that except for US, Canada and Europe other countries are also a huge market for Caribbean (Latest statistics, 2011). Hence, the website should contain different language options to attract customers from different parts of the world.

A pictorial description of what the website would look like is given in Appendix.2.

IT/IS Implementation Steps

It is well documented that the IT supply should meet the IS demand, and the business strategies and IT/IS strategies should be aligned for implementation of an information system (Ward & Peppard, 2002). The implementation strategy formulated is based on the critical success factors identified and other peripheral benefits which will be included in the portfolio at a later stage.

1)     Information creation. The first step would to gather the relevant information that will be available in the website. Gaining extensive information relating to tourism, trade and investments is the first step. This information will be provided largely by the government in Columbiana and some by private companies. The information concerning hotels, cuisines, goods etc will be provided by the local businesses in the island.

2)     Managing. After generating this information it has to be managed by adopting necessary management information systems (Allan, 2001). They can also look into Strategic information systems such as inward system that maintains transparency from competitors, at this point to gain competitive advantage in accordance with differentiation strategy (Ward & Peppard, 2002).

3)     Creation of website. In this step the website is created keeping its functional specifications in mind. The steps involved are selection of web host, registering a domain name and creating the website (Tech guide, 2007). The tourism, trade, investment and intranet section of the website is created at this stage.

4)     Marketing. This is a very important step in the strategy as this website will be beneficial only if customers are aware about it. Columbiana can link their website to the main website of Caribbean islands like their competitors (Dominica home page, 2011). They can put their website in popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo. They can even extent it to market their website by social networking sites such as Facebook.

5)     Extranet. After successful implementation of the basic functions of the website, they can then include the extranet option in it. They can also tie up with the cruises and flight operators and provide their information at this stage.

The website will be focussed to educate the prospective customers about their offerings, and once this is done it will extend its approach to promote the existing businesses as well.

Conclusion

The business strategy identified for Columbiana is a mix of differentiation and growth and the pursued internet business model is content provider. After identifying the critical success factors it can be concluded that for Columbiana business is focused on betterment of their island, infrastructure and shareholders. In order to fulfil these objectives, they have to capitalize not only in the tourism industry but also the trade and foreign investment opportunities. An internet website is essential for their cause and can help them to meet their goals. It can be classified as innovation with the aim to protect the business rather than a strategic application. The IT/IS strategy developed will aid Columbiana in coping with the competition, benefit from existing core competencies and will open up new markets for business.

References

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Appendices

Appendix.1

(Ward & Peppard, 2002)

Appendix.2