During my preliminary examination and study of your firm, I discovered that it has not been upgraded or advanced over time to meet contemporary Information Technology improvements. As a result, addressing concerns and matters in your store is critical because it allows you to work on them and give them proper attention. Addressing these challenges will thus assist you in expanding your organization in the appropriate and correct direction. Furthermore, I have noticed one location network is not adequate for the activities you want to do now. Therefore, the two bookstores you purchased will have to undergo integration with your current store in a manner that will enable you to access them with ease instead of hampering it. Moreover, due to the decision you have made on making your Elgin store the central and introducing a website, you now have to change many things about Henry Books.
The first change that you should make is to integrate the network system in different stores and ensure the website is set up and working properly (Moore & Benbasat, 2005). Secondly, you will have to make use of the existing resources in order to minimize the costs incurred by your organization. For instance, even though you like windows, some stores will have to use Apple as the existing resources to reduce the costs. Furthermore, when you use same Operating System in all your stores, networking as well as making integrating inventory will be easy and at a lower cost than using different Operating Systems in different stores.
I have attached the preliminary report that is needed and interconnected with the issues and matters that are addressed here and should be implemented to ensure the success of the organization. I am kindly requesting you to have a look at it keenly, go through it. After going through it, we can find the time, schedule a meeting, discuss the next plan, and step to be taken. In addition, we can discuss on how to improve and get things done by putting the existing resources into use in realizing the better returns of the organization.
PRELIMINARY REPORT
The most important initial plan for you to implement is to look for a reliable network provider who will be responsible for handling all your stores as well as the new stores that you may plan to have. Moreover, according to Taylor & Todd (1995), the network provider needs to be in a position of integrating the network system as Private Access Network (PAN). This will be the best network since it will permit you any person that you recommend and authorize to take care of the accounts, inventories, and any data anytime and anywhere. Even though setting up Private Access Network can be expensive, it is the best network to use since you are considering to expand the firm and you can have the best convenient way of keeping and taking control of every activity and handling all your activities within the firm.
The next important plan is, owing to the fact that you wish to set Elgin store as the central system, the section you are planning to expand need to have a different part for easy accessibility of computers by the servers and your administrators (Henderson & Venkatraman, 2008). When you implement this plan, you will have enough resources and location for handling all your organization’s activities even if you are still operating in your Elgin store.
Furthermore, you should plan on the integration the new and developed business technologies. For instance, you should integrate the current inventory management packages and accounting software, which will be less expensive to set up owing to the fact that they can be readily found at retail businesses in the business market (Moore & Benbasat, 2005). Moreover, having these current business developed technologies can help you in customizing the available options to change them according to the specific needs of your organization.
Consequently, it is important not to change the current dynamic IP addressing you are using in your organization because when you change is it to static, there will be interference with the network system that may lead to the delay of the activities of your organization. Additionally, on the basis of priority, you should consider creating a centralized backup system for your organization. This will serve a very important purpose in restoring and keeping the data when there is a default in any of the computers in your organization (Taylor & Todd, 1995). Besides, backing up will help you in retrieving the lost data on another computer in your company by using the restore options until the default is rectified or rather the solution is solved. In addition, you should not tolerate the defaults and glitches of Information Technology System interfering with the activities and smooth running of the business when there are solutions for such problems.
References
Henderson, J. C., & Venkatraman, N. (2008). Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organizations. IBM systems journal, 32(1), 4-16.
Moore, G. C., & Benbasat, I. (2005). Development of an instrument to measure the perceptions of adopting an information technology innovation. Information systems research, 2(3), 192-222.
Taylor, S., & Todd, P. A. (1995). Understanding information technology usage: a test of competing models. Information systems research, 6(2), 144-176.
