Implementation of an Information System for a Financial Institution

INTRODUCTION Background Ribeiro and David (2001) state that information technology over the years has had a number of significant impact on organizations. Such impacts are: †¢ It has created opportunities for competitive advantages amongst competitors in any industry †¢ It has improved the relationship existing between customers and organizations †¢ It has helped with the development of new products as well as services †¢ It has allowed organizations to perform tasks which would have remained impossible without the use of a computer system. It has reduced the total cost incurred in transaction processing for banks and other financial institutions. History of the I. T manager Having applied for the post of the I. T systems manager, listed below are my qualifications and information about my past work experience: †¢ A master’s degree in Information systems with technical background in Windows Server and Desktop technology †¢ Professional qualificati ons in CISCO and MCSE with an understanding of some server grade applications including IIS, Apache, SharePoint, DNS, SQL and Foundstone Reasonable knowledge of large enterprise LAN/WAN environments †¢ 8 years experience in project management, leadership and organizational skills †¢ 7 years IT managerial experience in other financial institutions †¢ 5 years experience with client technologies †¢ 4 years working experience developing effective IT for financial institutions History of Progress bank Progress bank was established in 1999 and up till now does not have any I. T department in place. Their customer base is relatively small as well as the number of staff. Recently, it mergered with another bank in a bid to make it stronger and this has led to increased operational activities, increased customer base and more staff and a decision to introduce and implement an effective I. T department for the bank. The board decided to set up the department in order to ease their work, to allow free flow of communication between the various departments, to hasten decision making processes, to improve the turn-around time in their daily operational activities. The board members of the bank want the I. T manager to report directly to the Head of Operations of the bank. About 10 – 12 information technology specialists would be required to work with him in the new department and the roles and responsibilities are to develop, maintain and support the banks cash and commercial product management systems, to reconcile accounts, to manage the cash systems and control disbursement of funds. Some recruitment consultants were consulted to help out with the recruitment of appropriate candidates and so far, 8 people have been recruited to work with the I. T manager. These people include network technicians, network assistants, and network engineers. Responsibilities of the I. T manager The major tasks and responsibilities of the I. T manager have been identified to be: 1. Development of an information system for the bank. 2. Coordination, monitoring and supervision of the supporting staff for the development, designing, coding, maintaining and modifying application programs for a limited area and small number of projects. 3. Extensively working with the business units of the bank in support of their business processes, electronic business communication and also transactional needs. . The provision of analytical support for applications-related activities including customer experience, marketing, technology, human resource and also the operations department. 5. Leading the deployment of advanced information technology solutions relating to commercial product needs. 6. Recommendation and suggestion of strategies as well as hardware and software enhancements to increase employee productivities. 7. Administering, recommending and im plementing changes to policies that affect the employees of the various departments. 8. Making the flow of information within the organization easier and faster through the development of the intranet. 9. Making communication a two- way thing i. e. vertical and horizontal. 10. Developing a customer database for the bank. 11. Selecting, developing and evaluating personnel to ensure the efficient and effective operation of assigned functions. 12. Ensuring that the project budget, schedules and performance requirements are completely met. 13. Regular interaction with customers and some peer group managers. 14. Ensuring that the organization operates fully in accordance with the established procedures and practices. How to measure the implementation success The success of the implementation of an information system can be measured by taking note of the following: i. User satisfaction with the system or with the outcomes of using the system. ii. Favorable attitudes on the part of the users towards the system. iii. The overall payoff to the organization. iv. The extent to which the system accomplishes the organizational objectives. Limitations The major limitation to be considered is the cost. It would be costly for the organization to fully introduce and to implement an effective information system. A major factor to be considered is the need for training and development of the existing members of staff of the organization. Training and development sessions, on-the-job training, meetings and discussions need to be arranged for the members of staff in a way that it would not interfere with the day-to-day operational activities. The whole process of change may be a cumbersome one for the employees because they would have to transfer the information and data from the various departments from files which were their major form of storage to the computers. INFORMATION SYSTEM This refers to the interaction between people, processes, data and technology. It refers to the way people interact with technology to support the business processes. Information systems are different from the information and communication technology (ICT) and also from business processes although it has an ICT component and it also helps to control the performance of the business processes (Zhu and Meredith, 1995). An information system can be defined as a work system involving activities that are necessary for the processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and displaying) information (Wang and Strong, 1996). An information system can be considered as a semi-formal language that supports decision making as well as actions. Components of Information System There are different components of the information system and they include: i. I. T comprising of the hardware and the software. ii. Data/ Information. iii. Procedures/Policies. iv. People. v. Purpose and vi. Communication Networks. Hardware Standards There are different standards of computer hardware, the hardware consists of the things that can be seen. The standards will be reviewed and revised occasionally based on the emerging desktop technologies and development in software (Avgerou, 2001). It is recognized that in the bank, the ability to share vital information easily and quickly is very important. Apart from the quick sharing of information, the software environment is also important especially those used for word processing, databases for the customers, spreadsheets, network browsing and electronic mail. Therefore, the development of a wide computing infrastructure which is based on good hardware and software standards will improve the day-to-day operational activities and interactivity between the various departments of the bank. The standards would also help facilitate the quick exchange of information as well as important documents both within and outside the bank. According to Stair and Reynolds, the hardware standards are based on the present technology that is available in addition to the present needs of the bank which then applies to both the windows and the mackintosh platforms. However, for each hardware configuration, some considerations have to be made which include: i. Easy connectivity to the bank’s network. ii. Easy connectivity to the external systems and other organizations. iii. The in-house experience with the chosen product and the configuration. v. The maximum period which the machine can effectively function. v. The presence of service provided by external hardware repairers. Different types of computers can be purchased but regardless of the type purchased, the minimum configuration should be: i. Intel core 2 Duo processor. ii. 2 G RAM because we’ll be using windows Vista. iii. 60 GB hard disk. iv. CD – ROM/DVD drive. v. Network connection. vi. 3 years warranty. Because of the nature of the tasks performed by the bank, there will be a need to archive data, so a DVD+R drive is recommended. Recommendations on what to purchase Monitors: Flat panel monitors with high resolutions are recommended due to cost constraint, but as time goes on, we could change them to dual monitors. Printers: HP Laser jet P2015dn (monochrome) and HP Color Laser Jet 2605dn (color) is recommended. Scanners: USB scanners are recommended. Other Peripherals such as Modems, NICs and Drives: From previous experience, a personal relationship has been developed with MNJ Technologies Direct so it is recommended that supplies be purchased from them. Software Standards The software standards have a lot of advantages and these include: 1. An improved data sharing to ensure: . The sharing of data between applications such as word processors, databases, spreadsheets and so on. b. That there are identical resources on each of the desktop to provide easy transfer of information and to serve as a consistent tool-set for all the bank workers. c. A consistency of file format to provide optimal file sharing between individuals, units and departments within the organization. 2. An improved training which focuses on: a. Team training in various courses and workshops for different levels of user proficiency i. e. the introductory, intermediate as well as the advanced stages. b. Computer – based training courses which is centered on selected software packages. 3. An improved support from the I. T support staff to focus on: a. The depth of knowledge of application instead of the breadth of the large number of applicants. b. Product expertise. 4. Smoother software installation and upgrades to ensure: a. The proper installation of the different software for the new computers usually making it a part of the initial hardware installation. b. That routine installation is made instead of a specialized process for each individual resulting in maximization of time and resources. c. That upgrades are tested and properly documented in order to reduce potential incompatibilities. Types of software standards 1. Fully supported software: it is my responsibility as the I. T manager to ensure that the appropriate software is installed, to troubleshoot software problems, to provide training courses and to provide the documentation of selected packages. Office productivity suite includes Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, PowerPoint, Access, and MS Office. i. Electronic mail/calendar ii. Web browser which includes internet explorer 6, safari 1 (Mac OS 10. 2), Firefox 2. iii. Web course development : Desire2Learn. v. Web page development: Dreamweaver MX. v. Image Editing: Adobe Creative Suite 2. 0. vi. Operating Systems: Windows XP and Windows Vista. vii. File transfer: Transmit, Filezilla 1. 7. viii. Other utilities: PowerArchiver 2000, Norton Antivirus 10. 15, Print Key 2000. ix. Network operating system: Netware 6, Microsoft server. x. Network clients: Netware client 4. 9 SP2 (Win XP). 2. Partially supported software: This may include some versions of the fully supported software and in some cases; it includes a new release of a standard application. These includes: i. Mathematical software: Maple 10, Matlab 2006. i. Telnet: Host Explorer (Telnet) 4, Putty (Win). iii. Operating systems: Windows 2000, Mac OS X 10. 3. iv. Statistics: SPSS 15. x, SPSS 12. x, Minitab 15. x. v. Office productivity suite: MS Office XP. 3. Non- supported software: these are some software that the I. T will not install nor provide follow-up support for because they are considered as obsolete. Examples of these include all Microsoft DOS and Windows 3. 1 based software. 4. However, changes will be made regularly by the I. T department to the computer hardware and software standards and this will be communicated to all members of staff. Sufficient time will be allowed for the migration to new standards; changes will also be made regularly to the hardware configurations as technology and prices change and would also be communicated to all members of staff. Operating systems Operating systems are the most important software which runs on the computer. Without it, the application software which is designed to communicate with the hardware through the operating system cannot run. There are different types of operating systems and these can be classified into: a. Single program operating system and . Multi tasking operating system The single program operating system is a type of OS that allows only one program to run at a particular time. This was later converted to the multi tasking operating system because it was found out that it was time consuming and not very practical and professional to close one application in order to open another one especially if you want to copy or transfer data from one application to anothe r. The multi tasking operating system is a type of OS that enables a single user to have more than one applications open at the same time. It usually gives the computer the option of determining how many time slices will be allocated to each program. The main program gets the most and the rest is distributed to the remaining programs depending on their rates of activity. There are basically three types of the multi tasking operating systems. These are: Single user multi tasking systems, real time operating systems and the multi user operating system. The real time operating systems are usually used to control scientific instruments, industrial systems and so on. The user has little control over the activities performed by this type of system. The single user multi tasking system allows a single user to open and run different applications at the same time. Examples of this type are Windows of Microsoft and the Macintosh of apple. Multi user operating systems are systems that give access to the resources on a single computer to many users at the same time. An example of this is the UNIX. However, the operating system that is commonly used are Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP (coming in two versions as the home and the professional), Windows Vista, Windows CE, Apple Macintosh, Unix, Solex etc (Charette, 2005). Network Security The computer networks can either be public or private. They are used daily to conduct transactions and to hasten communications amongst individuals, business and groups within an organization. The networks comprises of ‘nodes’ which can be referred to as ‘client’ terminals and one or more ‘servers’ or ‘host’ computers. They are usually linked by communication systems which could be private which could be used within a company and public which can be accessed by members of the public such as the Internet. However, due to technological advancement, most of the companies host computers can be accessed by employees within the offices over a private communications network outside the offices through normal telephone lines (Tatnall et al. , 2002). Network security can then be described as involving all the activities that the various organizations, institutions, enterprises and so on take to protect the value of their assets and the integrity and continuity of their operations. In order to make the network secure, threats should be identified and strategies put in place to combat them by making use of the different network security tools. Threats to network security There are different threats to network security and they include: a. Viruses: these are computer programs that have been written by programmers with the aim of infecting computers when triggered by a certain event. b. Trojan horse programs: these are delivery vehicles for destructive codes which could appear as a harmless software program or as a useful one. c. Vandals: these are some software applications that can destroy the computer. . Attacks: This could be information-gathering activities which collect data that is used to compromise networks, access attacks which exploit network vulnerabilities gaining entry to e-mails, databases and the corporate network and denial-of-service attacks which prevent access to some part or all parts of the computer system. e. Data interception: This involves the altering of data packets that are being transmitted. Some network security tools that can be put in place include: a. Antivirus software packages: These are used to counter most of the virus threats. They need to be updated regularly in order for it to be effective. b. Secure network infrastructure: firewalls and intrusion detection systems provide protection for all the areas of network hence enabling secure connections. c. Virtual private networks: these are used to provide accessibility control and data encryption between different computers on a particular network. It allows the safe connection of workers to the network without the risk of someone else intercepting the data. d. Encryption: these are used to make sure that messages cannot be read by anyone else other than the authorized recipients. . Identify services: are services that identify users and control their activities as well as their various transactions on the network. Services used here include authentication keys, passwords etc. However, no single solution can protect against the variety of the afore mentioned threats, as a result, multiple layers of the security tools should be put in place. Network security i s usually accomplished through the hardware as well as the software, with constant update of the software to further protect from the emerging threats. In order for the network security system to be effective, it is important to note that all the network security tools work hand in hand to minimize maintenance and to improve security. Client Server Computing Client server computing can be defined as a distributed computing model where the requesting of services from the server processes is done by client applications. Here, both the clients and the servers run of different computers that have been interconnected by a computer network. Basically, it is server software that accepts requests for data from the client software and returns the results to the client. The major focus in client-server computing is on the software. A common example of the client-server computing is the use of the internet which could be the collection of information from the World Wide Web. However, client server computing generally applies to systems in which the organization runs various programs that have multiple components distributed amongst different computers in a particular network. The concept is linked with the enterprise computing which ensures availability of the computing resources. Client server systems are important and useful in the banks because it allows easy accessibility of account information on a central database server amongst other things. This will be very useful in the day-to-day operational activities. All the access is done through a PC client which provides a graphical user interface (GUI). Data such as the individual account numbers can be entered into the GUI along with the different types of transactions made on the account be it withdrawal or deposits. The PC client validates the data, transfers it to the data base server and eventually displays the results. Client Server Toolkits It has been observed that a lot of software toolkits for the effective building of client-server software are available today. These toolkits are referred to as middleware and examples are the Open Software Foundation (OSF) Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), Distributed component object model (DCOM), Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM) and the Transaction processing monitors (TPM). Data Base Management System This is a collection of programs that enables effective storage, modification and extraction of information from a database. Its primary goal is to provide an environment that is convenient and efficient for the storage and the retrieval of information. Different types exist which range from small systems running on personal computers to huge systems running on mainframe computers. Examples of database management system are Microsoft Access, My SQL Server, Oracle and FileMaker Pro. Examples of the use of the database systems include: †¢ Automated teller machines(ATM) †¢ Computerized library systems †¢ Computerized parts inventory systems †¢ Flight reservation systems Employee information systems †¢ Company payroll †¢ Credit card processing systems †¢ Sales tracking systems and so on The internal organization determines the ease and flexibility of information extraction. The requests for information from a database are made in form of a question. This information can be presented in different formats. The database management system includes a report writer program which en ables the output of data in the form of a report; some also include a graphics component which allows the output of information in the form of graphs and charts. The major purpose of a database system is that it provides users with an abstract view of data. Data is usually stored in complex data structures bit users see a simplified view of the data. Model View Controller Model view controller is a design pattern that is used by applications which need the ability to maintain multiple views of data. It focuses on a separation of objects into three categories such as: †¢ Models: for the maintenance of data †¢ Views : for the display of all or a portion of data †¢ Controllers: for the handling of events affecting both the models and the views. Due to the fact that it can be categorized, there can be interactions between multiple views and controllers with the same model and there can also be interactions between new views and controllers that were never in existence with a model without necessarily forcing a change in the design of the model. Model view controller can be represented graphically as shown below: [pic] The controller can change a model or a view or change both due to certain events. When a controller changes the model, all the dependent views update automatically and similarly, when a controller changes a view, the view gets data from the model to update itself. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) This is a term that is used to describe the set of activities supported by multi-module application software that helps businesses and companies to manage the important parts of its business. It is a package that promotes the seamless flow of information in any organization. The information from the ERP system provides visibility for key performance indicators that are necessary for meeting corporate and business objectives. ERP software applications are useful in managing product planning, providing customer service, purchasing, inventories and tracking orders. Enterprise resource planning includes application modules for the finance and the human resources aspects of any business. Typically, it has both modular hardware and software units that communicate on a local area network. This allows a business to add or to reconstruct modules while preserving the integrity of the data. Some of the players in the ERP market are SAP, PeopleSoft etc, while the new comers include Oracle, IBM and the Microsoft. Before an organization implements the ERP, certain issues need to be addressed and they are stated below: †¢ The popular information systems †¢ Fluctuations in the choice of technology The ability of the market players to stay in tune with ERP †¢ The effective ways to implement business applications like ERP †¢ Ways to benefit from it in order to lead to competitive advantage †¢ The necessity for the innovation of software applications All these are important to take note of and will eventually determine the business mod el of the organization. The implementation of ERP is a very crucial factor in the ERP system. The success of a good ERP implementation lies in quicker processes making training very important. The speed and extent of the training eventually determines the worth and the value of the ERP. Decision Support System This is a term that describes computer applications which enhances the user’s abilities to make decisions. It describes a system that is designed to help decision makers identify problems and to make decisions to solve those problems by using information from a combination of raw data, personal knowledge, business models and communications technology (Hanna et. al, 2003). Information that can be gathered and presented by a decision support is: †¢ Comparative sales figures from one period to the other †¢ Projected revenue figures which are usually based on assumptions on new product sales A stock of all the current information assets which could be data sources, data warehouses, data marts etc. Components of Decision Support System According to Bhargava et. al,(1999), the components of Decision Support System can be classified as: †¢ Inputs: which include numbers and characteristics that are used for analysis †¢ User knowledge and exp ertise: which are inputs that require manual analysis by the users †¢ Outputs: which are transformed data that aid the generation of the DSS decisions †¢ Decisions: these are the results generated by the DSS Applications of Decision Support System Decision support system can be used and applied in various fields. Some of them are stated as follows: 1. It can be used for medical diagnosis in the clinics. 2. It is used extensively in business and management to allow faster decision making, better allocation and utilization of resources and the early identification of negative trends which could pose as threats to the organization. 3. It is used in agricultural production systems to facilitate decision making at the farms and at policy levels. 4. It can also be used in forest management for long-term planning. 5. It can be designed to make useful decisions in the stock market or even in the marketing department of the banks to decide which segment or target group to design a product for. It is basically useful in any field where effective organization is necessary. Benefits of Decision Support System Some of the benefits of an effective DSS include: 1. It helps to create competitive advantage amongst an organization’s competitors. 2. It facilitates interpersonal relationships between the employees of a particular organization. 3. It increases control in an organization. 4. It speeds up the process of problem-solving in an organization. . It recognizes the importance of training and development within an organization and it promotes this. 6. It encourages innovative thinking as well as discovery of new areas of the decision maker hence improving motivation of the employee CONCLUSION It is worthy to note that the implementation of an effective information system is a continuous process t hat starts from the period the original suggestion was made and continues in the system as new users are introduced. Implementation plays a major role in the management of information technology and as such steps should be taken that it is done properly. REFERENCES Avgerou, C. , (2001). The significance of context in information systems and organizational change. Information systems Journal, Vol 11, pp 43 – 63. Bhargava, H. K. , Sridhar, S. & Herrick, C. (1999). Beyond spreadsheets: Tools for building decision support systems. IEEE Computer, 32(3), 31-39. Charette, R. N. 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