BUSİNESS INFORMATİON SYSTEMS

Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Information systems support customer relationship services allowing building and maintaining competitive advantage. IT system customer relationship management module (CRM) compiles information on customers to manage and analyze interactions and data along the customer lifecycle. Thus, customer service representatives respond quickly and efficiently to customer calls.

In the first phase of System Development Life Cycle, scope, opportunities and goals of the problem represented by the information system project are determined. The success of the rest of the project depends on the correct definition of the problem. In the scope of the problem; size, borders, vision, constraints, limits, stakeholders, budget and timing of the project are determined. System users are not involved with this phase.

During the feasibility study stage, these questions should be asked and answered:

• Is the new system really necessary?
• What are the benefits and difficulties?
• What is necessary to realize the system?
• What is necessary to make system suitable for business operations?
• How long will it take to realize the system?
• What is the estimated budget?
• What are the legal issues to realize the system?

Operational feasibility: In general, the new system is designed for faster access and effective sharing of information. In this step, the questions must be answered such as: Is the suggested system suitable to the structure of the business? Will it be operable after the development?

The following behaviors are the key points for a successful observation activity:
• Determine who, what, where, when, why, and how of the observation.
• Receive permission from managers.
• Inform those who will be observed.
• Take notes during or immediately after the observation.
• Review observation notes with appropriate individuals.
• Don’t interrupt individuals at work.
• Don’t make assumptions

Observation of the Work Environment: The system analyst observes people and activities to learn about the system. It is often used when other techniques cannot answer all the aspects of the system.

Advantages of discovery prototyping:
• It allows system users and developers to try the system and get information about how the system works.

• It helps to understand of the feasibility and benefit of the system without having high
costs.

• It could be used to train the users.

• It helps to develop test plans and scenarios that will be used during systems’ test processes.

• It may shorten the requirement finding process, it helps to define more stable and
reliable requirements.

Goals of an interface design are; to adapt interface with the task, to form an effective interface, to provide proper feedback convenient queries to the users, and to increase the productivity of information workers.

Parallel: The old system continues to operate until it is determined that the new system operates completely well. Letting the old system to operate enables the analyst to compare the results of the old system with the results of the new system. Operating both systems at the same time requires additional personnel, hardware, time and other
resources. Therefore, the cost of the strategy is its disadvantage.

In-House Development is defined as the development of information system by using the sources that exist in the firm.

The SDLC model used in this book consists of 6 main phases. These phases are: scope and planning, requirements analysis, design, realization and test, setup and distribution, and operation and maintenance.

Operational feasibility: In general, the new system is designed for faster access and effective sharing of information. In this step, the questions must be answered such as: Is the suggested system suitable to the structure of the business? Will it be operable after the development? Will the users resist to the new system? Will the administration support the project? Is the performance of the proposed system higher than the performance of the existing system? Where will your business be located?

Data can be collected from many individuals via surveys. Advantages and disadvantages of the surveys are given below:

Advantages: • Surveys can be answered very quickly. • It is a relatively cheap data collection technique from many people. • Surveys allow the respondents to be anonymous. Therefore, people may answer the question as they want rather than the answers that the employers wish. • The answers could be quickly tabulated and analyzed.

Disadvantages: • In general, the number of respondents is low. • It is not guaranteed that everyone answers all of the questions. • Surveys are not flexible. Analyst cannot receive voluntary information from the people or cannot rewrite the misinterpreted questions. • It is not possible for the system analyst to observe and analyze the body language of the respondent. • There is no chance to expose blurry or incomplete questions. • It is difficult to prepare a good survey

Giving up the old system and starting the new system requires a careful planning and setup activity. Transition strategies are realized in four different ways depending on the degree of giving up the old system. These strategies are: parallel, pilot, phased, and direct. 

In parallel transitioning system the old system continues to operate until it is determined that the new system operates completely well. Letting the old system to operate enables the analyst to compare the results of the old system with the results of the new system.

System maintenance support and documentation start in this phase and continue through the life cycle of the information system. Businesses pay maintenance fee during the maintenance period. Some of the updates and maintenance can be automatically performed using the internet site of the information system developer. Although the sequence and character of maintenance demands change from one system to another, there are four basic maintenance activities:

Corrective maintenance: It includes correcting an error discovered during operations.

Adaptive maintenance: It includes activities to arrange exiting functions or adding new functions such that the system conforms with job or activity changes.

Perfective maintenance: It means improving and modifying the system to respond to changing user requirements and organizational needs, enhancing documentation and increasing system efficiency, reliability, or maintainability.

Preventive maintenance: It is related to lengthening the service duration of the existing system, to reduce the likelihood of future system failures. Although this type of maintenance has the lowest priority, it adds high value to the organization.

Reaching a software package through an application service provider has several advantages. Cost is very low for the initial supply and the installation is done very quickly. Paying as you use is cheaper for the frequent users. There is no need to invest for the information system personnel. Additionally, it may not be necessary for infrastructure investment in specialized information technologies.

The Scrum approach is an agile method that focuses on iterative development instead of technical approaches of agile methods.

Analyst tools help automatically find missing or incorrect features in the diagrams, display, and reporting.

Diagramming tools are used in the graphical representation of system process, data and control structures. Computer display and reporting tools help users show how and what the system looks like. Design and code generator tools provide automatic generation of the databases and program parts. Testing tools support the simulation of processes and data traffic and enable the performance measurement and test plans to be prepared and managed.

System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model of applied phases that are used in information system development.