MGT 602 Business Decision Analytics 2 Assignment Solution

MGT 602 Business Decision Analytic

Executive Summary

In the following report, a discussion on the poor productivity of employees working at Torrens University was done. It was realised that employees have a lot of confusion and lack of clarity of work due to improper communication and guidance. For that purpose, the IT head has conducted a survey for collecting information and to provide some recommendations based on the facts and data analysis. It was determined that Torrens should make use of ERP system for better understanding of the issue and work along with the training and implementation of software for data protection.

Introduction

Before initiating any change in the business, the decisions and discussions take place. This is the most challenging task and crucial as well. Any mistake in the decision can bring disaster to an organisation. However, in current times, there are numerous decision-making tools available that assist in effective decision-making. In this report, personal reflection on group decision making is done with the help of a workplace problem. The decisions are made with the help of data analysis and visualisation is shown for better understanding of the situation. Three decision making tools are used for making decisions.

Problem Statement

I am the IT professional working at Torrens University. As the department head, my duty is to keep the software and IT infrastructure of the University up to date. This would help in ensuring data safety and better user experience. However, it has been noticed that due to improper guidance and clarity of work the employees are unable to make the best use of the IT resources and software. This is affecting the normal functioning of the University and a lot of time is wasted in carrying out even an easy task. Also, the best security software that protects the data from computer viruses and theft is to be decided. I have called upon a meeting with the department heads and IT professionals to discuss the issues. The main agenda of the meeting would be:-

• Deciding the best data security software for the University
• Determining the ERP requirements
• Deciding the duration of training
• Deciding the source of funds and total budget

Research Question

The research would try to figure out what are data security and training requirements of the Torrens University?

Data Collection & Key Themes

During the course, I got to know about two different decision-making process, namely individual and group decision-making. I know that decision-making is quite a complex task and one needs to have better facts and data for making sound decisions. There are many factors that might affect the group decision-making issues but not individual decision-making or vice versa. While making the decisions for the Torrens University’s IT infrastructure. In order to make any decision related to a solution out of a number of solution, I need to gather large amount of information and data that would help me in thorough analysis of the problem. Also, this would assist me in getting a better understanding of their pros and cons and their effects on the University (Litvaj&Stancekova, 2015). The team decided to collect the information related to factors affecting the performance of the staff while causing confusions.

For that purpose, members suggest that data collection can be done either by primary or secondary data collection method. However, I knew that secondary data collection is not a right option here as it would not be providing the realistic data. Therefore, the team agreed on collecting primary data with the help of employee survey. I prepared a short questionnaire comprising only five questions. People from all the departments are selected randomly and questions were asked. In total 50 people were surveyed by the team to have an in-depth information related to the problem they face related to IT infrastructure of the firm. This has helped in getting the information related to the actual issue facing by the University. The responses were recorded in MS Excel for data analysis.

After gathering the information, the graphical presentations were made out of the data with the help of MS Excel. This helped in the better understanding of the information and better analysis (Kou, et.al, 2016). The team was able to understand the data and provide recommendations based in their understanding.

Visualisation of the Decision-Making Process& Data Analytics

While working on this project, I came across many researchers’ viewpoint on the factors affecting the work-based performance. The very first was poor communication channel and improper information flow. This has created a communication gap in the organisation. According to Antunes, et.al (2014), in the absence of information system, proper information flow cannot be maintained. Employees end up figuring out what needs to be done and how. This frustrates them and quality of performance gets degraded. If there’s an absence of avenue to communicate back to the management for clarification of the doubt, the problem gets even more concerning (Cirillo& Valencia, 2019). Hence, organisation must have a communication and information system that can help in reducing the confusions.

In addition to this, improper management of business information and data can lead to data theft and other problems. García-Peñalvo&Conde (2014) mentioned that businesses around the world are considering business data as their crucial assets and therefore, they are investing huge funds in protecting their data assets. This helps in keeping their goodwill maintained in the market and also keeps their people, processes, and technology intact (Rezaei, 2015). Being an IT head, I am aware of the fact that Torrens store its data on cloud storage servers. Hence, the big data requires a robust security solutions. For that purpose, I have listed out some solutions and asked people from my department and technical background to give their opinion on them. The visualisation of the decision is presented below:-

Coming on to the data analytics part, there were five questions related to issues causing confusion and lack of clarity in work. The analysis is presented below:-

1. What IT-related obstacle stop workers to perform at their best?

2. Which option can have a better impact on employee’s performance?

3. What should be the duration of the training required for learning ERP?

4. What can be a better option for securing data?

5. Among the following options, which one do you think is the most reliable option for Torrens?

Decision-Making Tools for the Problem

In order to have a better understanding of the issue, the analytics is carried out. Also, the decision-making tools are also utilised in zeroing down on final options.These are:-

Delphi Technique

It can help in systematically soliciting the views of the heads of various departments and IT professional. It can be thought of as a brainstorming technique. In this method, the employees were asked about their opinion on the type of solutions they want to implement in improving the current issues of Torrens. The responses are collected and analysed to know the most voted options (Cirillo& Valencia, 2019). People were chosen for the survey due to their knowledge and expertise. The process is iterated until the correct response is recorded based on the consensus. From the questionnaire, it was determined that lack of information system and infrastructure is the major problem in Torrens University. It was also determined that majority of employees believes that ERP System can help in improving the communication issues in the company (Govindan, et.al, 2015).There are many advantages of this method, such as accuracy in prediction and giving solutions.

Leximancer Tool

This tools is very significant in this case as it assisted the team members in making decision based on facts and data. Questionnaire survey helped in getting information directly from experts. The primary aim of using this tool is to develop a data-based transparent model that is easy to understand and interpret. Just by looking to the figure, anyone can tell how sensible it is to deal with the large amount of data (Sun,et,.al, 2015). As the IT head of the University, I am responsible to make decision related to IT services and infrastructure. Leximancer tool helped me in carrying out data analysis while allowing rapid results at a very low cost. In the figure provided, the issues and solutions are simultaneously presented related to Torrens’s poor productivity and high confusion among employees.

NVivo Data Mining Tools

This is another basic decision-making instrument that is reasonable for inquiring about the procedure followed in Torrens. The best feature of this tool is that it can analyze any type of information, for example, photograph, video, content, sound, and so on. For the assortment of the information through essential study, one individual from every division was chosen. Subsequently, the NVivo device would be exceptionally viable in such a case. It is most adept for interpretive methodology (Holden, et.al, 2016). The primary point of the gathering is to investigate the variables expanding the operational cost and give answers for the equivalent. What's more, it is successful in handle the huge measure of information simultaneously. Be that as it may, this strategy may instigate a type of inclinations in the results, however that won't thwart the general fitness of the provide solutions.

Recommendations

From the data analysis, a lot of things are cleared regarding the IT infrastructure of Torrens University and their side effects. Based on the analysis, certain recommendations are provided for the organisation:-

1. Torrens should introduce ERP system in order to build a communication and information system. The work will be assigned to every employee along with the name of the assignee. Therefore, any sort of confusion can be cleared.
2. Also, it was determined that Torrens should provide at least 15 days training to learn all the aspects of ERP system and make the best use of it in future
3. Torrens should make use of advanced security programs that encrypts the data and make it safer to store rather than other security options
4. The budget allocation should be as per the table given below:-

Conclusion

The following assessment was quite learning as it helped in understanding the business decision-making and business data analytics in context of a real-world business issue. For the decision-making process, primary data collection was carried out and people were asked a set of questions. Based on the responses, the decisions are made with the help of three decision making tools and recommendations are made by making their use. The information gained from this assessment would be useful in future decision-making for the organisation and resolving issues affecting the performance of employees and productivity of the organisation.

References

• Antunes, P., Zurita, G., &Baloian, N. (2014). An application framework for developing collaborative handheld decision-making tools.  Behaviour and Information Technology,33(5), 470-485. DOI:10.1080/0144929X.2013.815275
• Cirillo, D., & Valencia, A. (2019). Big data analytics for personalized medicine.  Current Opinion in Biotechnology,58, 161-167. DOI:10.1016/j.copbio.2019.03.004
• García-Peñalvo, F., &Conde, M. (2014). Using informal learning for business decision making and knowledge management.  Journal of Business Research,67(5), 686-691. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.11.028
• Govindan, K., Rajendran, S., Sarkis, J., &Murugesan, P. (2015). Multi-criteria decision making approaches for green supplier evaluation and selection: a literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production,  98, 66-83.
• Henry (2014). A hybrid multiple criteria decision-making model for investment decision making.  Journal of Business Economics and Management,15(3), 509-529. doi:10.3846/16111699.2012.722563
• Holden, E., Wong, J., Wedge, D., Martis, M., Lindsay, M., &Gessner, K. (2016). Improving assessment of geological structure interpretation of magnetic data: An advanced data analytics approach.  Computers and Geosciences,87, 101-111. doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2015.11.010
• Kou, G., Ergu, D., Lin, C., & Chen, Y. (2016). Pairwise comparison matrix in multiple criteria decision making.  Technological and Economic Development of Economy,  22(5), 738-765.
• Litvaj, I., &Stancekova, D. (2015). Decision-making, and their relation to knowledge management, use of knowledge management in decision-making. Procedia Economics and Finance,  23, 467-472.
• Rezaei, J. (2015). Best-worst multi-criteria decision-making method.  Omega,  53, 49-57.
• Sun, H., Ni, W., & Lam, R. (2015). A step-by-step performance assessment and improvement method for ERP implementation: Action case studies in Chinese companies.  Computers in Industry,  68, 40-52.