No one denies that information technology (IT) has a great impact on individuals life since its benefits in the 20th century. Information technology (IT) is "the analysis, design, development, implementation, support or management of information systems" (Wikipedia contributors, 2010). It's an over-all term that identifies any technology that helps to produce, change, store, communicate, and spread information. IT Management is concerned with discovering and understanding Information Technology as a corporate resource that determines both the proper and operational capacities of the company in building and growing products and services for maximum customer satisfaction, corporate productivity, success and competitiveness (Wikipedia contributors, 2010).
In this survey I am going to talk about IT Management in my own work company: Etisalat. The reason behind that is the fact that Etisalat is making use of information technology atlanta divorce attorneys single part of its work which can help me to move in deep how Etisalat is putting it on in its business. It will also give me the possibility to increase my understanding of IT management in my own organization as part of my carrier development.
Emirates Telecommunication Company (Etisalat) is one of the telecommunication companies in the UAE since 1976. It really is now a well known Telecommunication supplier in almost 18 countries in both Asia and Africa continents with more than 100 million readers. It has generated up today's telecom infrastructure and founded itself as an progressive and reliable operator. Financial Times positioned Etisalat as the 140th in the most notable 500 corporations on earth in conditions of market capitalization.
Etisalat can be an international telecom company covering 18 countries on earth predicated on investment, joint endeavors and stack holding. Its business and administration is well defined and monitored under the umbrella of "Etisalat Group". Etisalat Telecommunication Corporation is one of the telecom providers in the UAE. Etisalat UAE is headquartered in Abu Dhabi and includes three regional office buildings - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Northern Emirates. It has been split into that in order to focus on it expertise.
The headquarter or that which we call in Etisalat "HQ" is specialized in planning, growing, marketing and handling all activities centrally. The regional office responsibility is to manage normal functional work such as sales, money, regional engineering and administrational work related to the spot that was delegated to them by the top office.
(Wikipedia contributors, 2010)
Information Technology Management in Etisalat:
Etisalat is applying IT in every aspect of its work such as human resources, communications, funding, procurement, logistics, sales, telecommunication, etc. It had been started to have another application for each section / service such as Ingress for sales, limited oracle system for finance, each telecommunication service like Internet, GSM, landlines, etc. has its IT application. The output made by each request are merged and audited by some analysts to create accounts for the management and that is a time consuming and not accurate process. Currently, almost all of those applications are integrated together to provide a much better and quick output for the management.
Corporate Billing & Customer Management (CBCM) is the primary application found in Etisalat by the Commercial department, Accounts section, Marketing office, IT department, Anatomist department, Fault/Complaint Reporting Middle, and the Contact Center. It is a proper new-generation system that effectively and effectively integrates and manages all the business enterprise operations, services, and customers of Etisalat.
CBCM is a comprehensive collection of multiple inter-related self-serving applications or modules that offer advanced features for effective services management, customer management, billing, sales and order handling, and learning resource management. The CBCM system is designed and developed internally in Etisalat using the latest software development systems and is based on the criteria that are implemented world-wide.
(CBCM Getting Started, 2005)
CBCM Modules:
CBCM is a modular and open up system, meaning the applications or modules that are area of the CBCM collection can be interfaced or detached whenever required without impacting the other modules.
The CBCM collection consists of the following modules:
Administration (ADM)
Product and Services Management (PSM)
Customer Management System (CMS)
Sales and Order Handling (SOH)
Work Power Management (WFM)
Rating and Discounting (RAD)
Billing and Invoicing (BIL)
Payments and Adjustments (PAY)
Credit Control (CRC)
Complaint Management/Reporting System (CRS)
Mediation Device User interface (MDI)
Partnership Management System (PMS)
Each CBCM module was created and developed to perform specialized jobs. However, the modules are inter-related to help in flow and posting of information.
(CBCM Basic Ideas, 2005)
Role of Information Systems in Etisalat:
As mentioned earlier, CBCM has a created a great information system relationship in Etisalat. It really is started to interconnect all parts to employ a common request while doing their work and developed the idea of e-Business in the business. While interacting with the customers, Etisalat is making use of both B2B and B2C to provide their services.
Business to business (B2B):
Business to business (B2B) identifies commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a maker, a bank and dealer (Wikipedia contributors, 2010). CBCM interacts with exterior entities, such as finance institutions to obtain details of the payment that the customers make through the banking institutions against their charges. This info contain such as the phone/ Internet/ GSM quantities and the related amount received from the client.
Major Business entities are experiencing their B2B portal to connect to Etisalat of their premises. They are able to request new services, update, modify or stop subscribed services. They are able to track their demand online and do repayment of their expenses.
Another exemplory case of exterior entity that CBCM interacts with is the sellers. Some authorized stores by Etisalat are having a privilege to sell services such as mobile numbers by access a special web portal to reserve the numbers, fill up the need form, upload all the mandatory documents and do the repayment.
(B2B Alternatives Guide, 2005)
Business to Customer (B2C):
Business to Customer (B2C) represents activities of businesses serving customers with products or services (Wikipedia contributors, 2010). The majority of the workload done in Etisalat is to serve the clients as they might need more staff to serve them either in Etisalat business centers, Etisalat merchants in the stores, etc. All Etisalat staff dealing with the clients has to have usage of CBCM for better support provided to customers. Furthermore, the contact center are also in need to work with the same software in order to back up the customers, and article their complains.
Etisalat also initiated an internet portal few years ago to consumers to pay their charges as well as requesting for new services or reporting complains while they may be online.
Information Systems in Etisalat:
Etisalat is using information systems in each part of its business. It is applying Transaction Handling System (TPS), Management Information System (MIS) and Knowledge Management (Kilometres) in its work process.
Transaction Handling System (TPS):
A Transaction Processing System (TPS) is a type of information system that gathers, stores, modifies and retrieves the info transactions of enterprise (Deal Handling Systems, 2010). The success of commercial companies depends upon the reliable control of transactions to ensure that customer orders are met on time, and that partners and suppliers are paid and can make repayment. Transaction processing systems offer enterprises the methods to rapidly process trades to ensure the smooth flow of data. Typically, a TPS will show the following characteristics:
Rapid Control.
Reliability.
Standardization.
Controlled Access.
Transactions Processing Qualifiers.
Atomicity.
Consistency.
Isolation.
Durability.
(Transaction Control Systems, 2010)
The CBCM program was developed to insure that of the aforementioned TPS characteristics are applied in order to get reliable and correct transactions for Etisalat customers' requests and services such as charges, products, services, etc. Inside the other hands, Etisalat have to have accurate ventures while dealing using its suppliers, vendors to be able to have accurate payments as an example.
Management Information Systems (MIS):
Management Information Systems (MIS) is the procedure that delivers information had a need to control organizations effectively. It is focused on the integration of personal computers with the goals of an organization (What are Management Information Systems?, 2010). The development and management of it tools assists professionals and the general workforce in carrying out any tasks related to the control of information. MIS and business systems are useful in assortment of data and development of records to be used as tools for decision making.
Once all the trades are done through CBCM, the procedure to gather the info and convert it into information that can be used to produce information for the middle and higher management. It's the job of middle management and the experts to produce the mandatory reviews as well as audit and take care of the daily transactions and workflow. The supply because of this information and studies has a great impact on management decision making and the mark established by the management. It will supply the required information to learn if the focuses on were reached as per the plans and how future plans must be set predicated on the income, forecast, etc.
Knowledge Management (KM):
Knowledge management is about getting the right information to the right people at the right time. It is also an activity that emphasizes making, capturing and writing information that will be integrated into business techniques and assist in decision making for better organizational advantage (NHS Research - knowledge management, 2010).
Knowledge Management is a very important part that Etisalat is using to be able to solve its customers problems as well as providing them with the needed information for the services provided by the enterprise. It is used most of the days by sales staff as well as customer care staff. On the other hand the data management is also available for all Etisalat employees in order to really know what Etisalat is providing to its customers and everything is on Etisalat intranet website. The knowledge management is not limited by products and services information only, but it has also the required information to utilize Etisalat applications such as CBCM.
Database:
Database is a distributed assortment of logically related data and a explanation of the data, designed to meet the information needs of the company. CBCM is mainly is determined by ORACLE database, which really is a relational database management system (RDBMS) produced and promoted by Oracle Organization (Wikipedia contributors, 2010). .
Click and Mortar Company:
A click-and-mortar company is a kind of business model which includes both online and offline businesses, which typically include an online site and a physical store (Click And Mortar, 2010). Etisalat is providing almost all of its services either offline by visiting its offices, retailers, etc or online over the net. Currently most of individuals or companies opt to make an online search to do their demands as it is simply requires few clicks on the keyboard and also have your request done without moving to Etisalat office buildings.
Etisalat is considering its website as a major outlet for its services as all the major transactions can be carried out online with no need of recruiting to interact with the customers and can save a lot of time for the business and the clients. Customers pays their charges over the web, subscribe for new services, raise complains, chat with support staff to resolve cases, read more info about its services, etc.
Etisalat website is easy to use and well organized. With few clicks customers can get the required information as it prepared in circulation, such as individual products, business products, at home, on move, etc. For the online services, each subscriber will have his own account to process his requests, so they can get full set of his accounts in a single site and pay all the charges once or he can select the quantities and total pay. From then on he will be forwarded with an Internet payment gateway web site for credit card information and this is totally secured through 128bit encrypted trades.
e-CRM
As companies 're going bigger and bigger, the demand for having a strong relationship with the customers increased, who will be the key of the business. The release of Customers Relationships Management (CRM) was to keep carefully the customers and increase their devotion. With the advantages of the internet, websites became a fresh retail or store of companies, electric CRM introduced for the same reason, but concentrating on customers utilizing it to deal with the business.
eCRM applications permit Etisalat to proactively communicate with its customers about new services, specific promotional promotions or outstanding charges to a customer's fax or e-mail, and SMS. Another initiative created by Etisalat to increase customers loyalty and that is very managed by IT is Etisalat More Rewards program. The program allows customers to subscribe and take care of their account volumes through more website. On a monthly bottom, customers will be rewarded more items that permit them to pay their charges or get shopping vouchers to make use of it in Etisalat lovers retails (Etisalat More Rewards Program, n. d. ).
Management problems:
The benefits of CBCM allows Etisalat to control their customers' accounts properly, alternatively than using the old outdated IT systems. This software allows IT section to include some services that were sold to customers, but billed by hand to the system. Among these services is the ehosting services, which was added this year to CBCM as auditors finance a loss of revenue scheduled to manual billing.
Another task that is available while growing the CBCM is that all product is monitored by its IT software and in order to automate the registration of the assistance, transactions must come from CBCM and changed into another form that can be understood by the merchandise provisioning system for activation. Sometimes, the business deal conversion failed, that will produce a wait in service activation for customers therefore loss in customers satisfaction.
Management must concentrate about how to resolve the above mentioned issues and work hard on best use of data and information that CBCM can offer in order to make studies and useful result for better decision making.
Conclusion:
As IT become the key reference of information and main tool to take care of the current business requirements and obstacles. Enterprises and companies have to work hard to develop and operate IT infrastructure and applications in perfect manner. That is required to be able to supply the best services to customers. Etisalat is spending so much time in producing it CBCM system for the best support to be provided to customers either in person or over the internet.
Recommendations:
Etisalat Management must focus their effort development of IT in the corporate. That is required in order to acquire a better functional process and better customer satisfaction. The following points are suggested:
To have better CBCM interface that easy to work with.
To include all Etisalat products and services for exact billing and invoicing.
To resolve orders translation circumstance by mailing the right transfer recognized by each system without the adding more translation systems in between or even to change the receiver system software.
Keep producing CRM of Etisalat to obtain better devotion of the customers.
More investment onto it solutions to add more online services for the clients such as demands monitoring, value added services subscriptions, etc.
