BUS362e

Examination July Semester 2015

IT-enabled Business Transformation

Thursday, 12 November 2015 10:00 am 12:00 pm

____________________________________________________________________________________

Time allowed: 2 hours

____________________________________________________________________________________

INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS:

1. This examination contains FOUR (4) questions and comprises FOUR (4)
printed pages (including cover page).

2. You must answer ALL questions.

3. This is closed book examination.

4. All answers must be written in the answer book.

At the end of the examination

Please ensure that you have written your examination number on each answer book
used.

Failure to do so will mean that your work cannot be identified.

If you have used more than one answer book, please tie them together with the string
provided.

THE UNIVERSITY RESERVES THE RIGHT NOT TO MARK YOUR

SCRIPT IF YOU FAIL TO FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS.

BUS362e Copyright 2015 SIM University Page 1 of 4

Examination July Semester 2015
You must answer ALL the questions. (Total 100 marks)

Champion Aircon Private Limited is a Singapore stock exchange listed SME which
specializes in providing a range of aircon services mainly to commercial buildings. The
companys services include the servicing and maintenance of aircon, the design and
installation of aircon, and aircon unit sales. The sales of aircon are typically done via
the companys showrooms which are located in four strategic locations across
Singapore namely, Jurong, Tampines, Queenstown, and Yishun. The company HQ and
warehouse is located near Keppel Road which facilitates the importing and exporting of
its aircon directly from the Keppel port. There are three vehicles deployed in each of
the showrooms which will provide the transportation needed to send technicians to the
assigned region of Singapore to install/maintain/troubleshoot aircons in its customers
premise.

As a SME, the company has rely heavily on human resources especially foreign labours
to support all its operations and services. Most of the paperwork are done manually and
keyed into a consolidated excel worksheet by a dedicated employee at the company HQ
at the end of the day. However, the recent tightening of the foreign workers policy in
Singapore is creating a lot of human resource challenges to the company. Top among
them is that the company has to downsize and lay off some of its experienced foreign
workers (in various functional areas, especially technicians) in order to meet the new
policy requirements. This has significant impact on the smooth running of the
companys operations.

In the beginning of 2015, the company is forced to venture into the use of IT system to
increase its productivity so as to cope with its current human resources crisis. The
company has a staff strength of 30. The average years of employment of its employees
are around 10 years. Many of its employees are in their mid-40s and many of them
have only limited knowledge of simple office software (such as Microsoft Office and
Email). The organisation structure of the company is shown below:

Senior
Management

HR & Finance Logistics & Sales & Showrooms Operations

Department Warehouse Marketing Department
Department Department

Working together with a group of consultants, the Senior Management team intends to
leverage upon IT systems to automate and enable some of its warehouse, delivery and
scheduling operations, as well as, its customer inquiry and point of sales system. This is
a huge change to the operations of the company.

You are the newly appointed IT manager assigned by the CEO of Champion Aircon
Private Limited to oversee the successful implementation of all these IT systems.

BUS362e Copyright 2015 SIM University Page 2 of 4

Examination July Semester 2015
Question 1

(a) Analyse Champion Aircon Private Limited to identify the type of organisational
structure it is having. Using relevant information from Champion Aircon
Private Limited, illustrate four (4) distinctive features of such a structure.
(12 marks)

(b) Using relevant examples from Champion Aircon Private Limited, relate how
Information Systems can be used to enable the three (3) Management Control
Processes of (i) data collection, (ii) evaluation, and (iii) communication.
(8 marks)

(c) Being a SME, the control of information within the implemented IT systems is
critical and requires incorporating moral responsibility in all the staff within the
company. With relevant examples, discuss three (3) best practices in
information control that you can implement in order to achieve that.
(5 marks)

Question 2

(a) (i) Assuming that you are given the full authority to make changes to the
organisation structure of Champion Aircon Private Limited, propose and
define one (1) organisation structure (i.e. flat, matrix, networked or
hybrid) with a diagram that you believe the company should change to.
(10 marks)

(ii) Discuss and demonstrate how this new structure will lead to better
customer service or operating cost reduction.
(10 marks)

(b) Appraise how the information resources namely IT asset and IT capability can
strategically alter two (2) activities in the value chain of Champion Aircon
Private Limited to reduce operating costs and/or improve revenue and
productivity.

You may make any reasonable assumptions when developing your answer, but
you must state your assumptions clearly.
(5 marks)

BUS362e Copyright 2015 SIM University Page 3 of 4

Examination July Semester 2015
Question 3

(a) Recommend and describe at least three (3) Enterprise Systems that you can
consider to implement within Champion Aircon Private Limited with relevant
examples to illustrate how it will help the company improve its services or
reduce cost.
(10 marks)

(b) Your CEO has decided to implement one of the three Enterprise Systems
identified and sought out your advice on what would be the best IT
development methodology that the company should adopt.

Propose one (1) of the following IT development methodologies namely SDLC,

Agile Development and Prototyping to your CEO.

Applying your chosen IT development methodology into the context of

Champion Aircon Private Limited, discuss two (2) advantages and two (2)
disadvantages of the chosen methodology.
(8 marks)

(c) Using relevant examples, justify why the chosen IT development methodology
is most suitable to be adopted to your CEO.

You may make any reasonable assumptions to justify your answer, but you
must state your assumptions clearly.
(7 marks)

Question 4

(a) You are considering between insourcing and outsourcing (either onshoring or
offshoring) for the development of your companys IT systems. Evaluate and
justify which IT sourcing approach (with its associated risks) that you think is
most appropriate for your company. State any relevant and reasonable
assumptions to support your answer.
(15 marks)

(b) Explain the three (3) normative theories of business ethnics with relevant
examples taken from the context of Champion Aircon Private Limited.
(10 marks)

----- END OF PAPER -----

BUS362e Copyright 2015 SIM University Page 4 of 4

Examination July Semester 2015