Strategic Role Of Information Systems Information Technology Essay

The CIMB Bank Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper describes the whole of MSF Sales Force policy position on cloud computing. The strategy will states that the MSF Sales Division can choose a cloud-based service if it show clearly and deliberately value for money, fitness for purpose and are adequately secure; provides guidance for MSF Sales Force on what cloud computing is; and some of the issues and benefits of cloud computing that MSF Sales Force need to be aware of.

Our investigation focused on three areas such as IT infrastructure and related problems, business processes and Environmental issues. Result of our analysis has lead to several recommendations.

The paper recognises that the public cloud is still undergoing a gradual change, particularly in areas such as security and privacy. These issues need to be adequately resolved before critical MSF Sales Division can be transitioned to the cloud. As a result, the paper outlines three streams of work:

Stream One – provides the sales division with guidance and documentation.

Stream Two – encourages sales division to adopt public cloud services for public facing “unclassified” government services and to undertake proof of concept studies to fully understand the risks of the cloud environment.

Stream Three – encourages a strategic approach to cloud. This work is dependent upon greater clarity around projects commissioned under the Data Centre Strategy.

1. INTRODUCTION

CIMB Group is the leading Asean Universal banking franchise, offering full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, assets management, wealth management, insurance and Takaful and private banking. However, we are writing report based on one of CIMB Bank sales division known as Mobile Sales Force.

Mobile Sales Force or more known as MSF is the largest sales channel in CIMB Bank. Comprising more than 2,000 staffs, promoting and distributing CIMB Bank key products such as mortgage loan for private and corporate, personal loan for government sector and credit cards.

MSF was established backed in 2006 with the vision to be the best-in-class sales organization with a passion for exceeding expectation.

Prior approval and consent from MSF head of department had been obtained in conducting research.

CIMB GROUP PROFILE

CIMB Group is ASEAN’s leading universal banking franchise. We offer a full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, asset management, wealth management, insurance and takaful, and private banking.

With over 37,000 employees, CIMB Group reaches 81% of the ASEAN population, representing 89% of the region’s gross domestic product. Our retail network of over 1,000 branches is the widest in the region.

Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, CIMB Group’s main markets are Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia. Our presence in 13 countries covers ASEAN and major global financial centres, as well as countries in which our customers have significant business and investment dealings.

In addition, we extend our reach and range of products and services through strategic partnerships. Our partners include the Principal Financial Group, Aviva plc, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Standard Bank plc, Daishin Securities and the Kanoo Group, among others.

CIMB GROUP

As the leading ASEAN universal banking franchise, CIMB Group offers a full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, asset management, wealth management, insurance and takaful, and private banking. We operate our businesses on a dual banking leverage model, giving customers a choice of both conventional and Islamic financial solutions.

Our main markets in which we offer full universal banking facilities are Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. We also have a presence in other countries where our customers have significant business and investment dealings.

CIMB BANK

Our Consumer Banking business offers a full range of conventional and Islamic financial products and services to meet the borrowing and financing, wealth management and transaction needs of our individual customers and businesses. Our spectrum of banking services include credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and financing, commercial banking services for Small Medium Enterprises and mid-sized corporate customers, insurance and takaful, investment and wealth management services.

We have an extensive retail network across the region in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Cambodia that serves over 11 million customers

The rest of this report is as follows :

Section 2 : IT Infrastructure and Ecosystem. Explained the IT infrastructure and Ecosystem of the organisation.

Section 3 : Cloud computing and its business benefits. Provided cloud computing and its benefits and costs.

Section 4 : Recommendation of cloud computing adoption/adaption. Recommended a suitable cloud that MSF could adopt.

Section 5: Conclusions. Summarises the key points from the analysis and provided recommendation

2. IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND ECOSYSTEM

CIMB IT infrastructure today consist of seven major components that must be coordinated to provide the division with a coherent IT infrastructure and the major vendors within each category

INTERNET PLATFORMS

Microsoft, Unix, Java

DATA MANAGEMENT & STORAGE

IBM, DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase

COMPUTER HARDWAREPLATFORMS

Dell, HP

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

CONSULTANT & SYSTEM INTEGRATOR

IBM, EDS,

Accenture

ECOSYSTEM

OPERATING SYSTEM PLATFORMS

Microsoft Window

NETWORKING TELECOM-MUNICATION

Microsoft Window Server, Linux

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE PLATFORMS

Oracle, Microsoft

CIMB CORPORATE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE:

Issues and Challenges

Securing Information System – MSF are faced with challenges of data and information security. We need to have users security procedures guidelines. At the moment, there is no such policy & guidelines. As MSF is a firm providing financial services, MSF must comply with the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, better known as the Gramm-Leach Billey Act (Laudon, KC & Laudon, JP 2010, pg 337)

Malicious Software – Malware (Laudon, KC & Laudon, JP 2010, pg 328) will be another hurdle for implementation of cloud computing as there is no IT department within MSF. All IT issues and problems will have to be refer to CIMB Group IT. This will cause time, delaying as the problem cannot be solve in-house and need to wait for IT department action. MSF will have no control as to when CIMB Group IT will react to the reported problem.

Absent of Transaction Processing Systems – MSF did not have TPS a systems that keep track of the elementary activities of the organisation such as sales for all products such as personal and enterprise mortgages, personal loans and credit cards, customers information like age, annual income, employee, and credit decisions like common rejection reason and best customer profile. (Laudon, KC & Laudon, JP 2010, pg 75)

Decision Support Systems (DCS) & Executive Support Systems (ESS) – Due to absent of TPS no proper management information systems (MIS) to enable DCS & ESS DCS is useful in providing support non-routine decision making for middle management and ESS for senior management (Laudon, KC & Laudon, JP 2010, pg 78 & 81)

Data management Systems (DBMS) – As MSF have multiple products, all data given will be in different formats and all users will have their own preferred format of reporting thus creating double work when each product user need to extract and reformat the data into meaningful information. (Laudon, KC & Laudon, JP 2010, pg 240)

Establishing an information policy – Although there are numerous CIMB & Banking Acts like, Banking & Financial Institute Act1989 (BAFIA) section 97 – secrecy, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) GP7 confidentiality, CIMB Group Code of Ethics governing the information policy, there is still a need for drafting information policy for MSF sales division. More specific guidelines, rules and penalties in controlling MSF information policy for sharing, disseminating, acquiring, standardising, classifying and inventorying information systems are needed. (Laudon, KC & Laudon, JP 2010, pg 259)

3. CLOUD COMPUTING AND ITS BUSINESS BENEFITS AND COSTS

Cloud computing represent a sea of change in the way the computing performed by corporations as business computing shifts out of private data centers into `the cloud’ (Carr, 2008). For a huge company and having a complex proprietary systems supporting unique business process, we are mostly likely to have a hybrid computing model where firms will use their own infrastructure for the essential core activities and adopt a cloud computing for a less critical systems.

3.1 Benefits of Cloud Computing

Reduced cost

Cloud technology is paid incrementally, saving organizations money. The organization is able to plan the needed expenses more wisely. By cloud computing the cost is proportion to the requirement.

Increased Storage

Organizations can store more data than on private computer systems.

Highly Automated

No longer do IT personnel need to worry about keeping software up date and backup. Cloud computing will automatically do the update and backup the system giving the organization more time to do business than fixing the problems on its own.

Flexibility

Cloud computing offers much more flexibility than past computing methods.

More Mobility

Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain at their desks from morning till evening which is tiring and sometimes a boring job. The cloud made the business go mobile.

Allows IT to Shift Focus

No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, organizations will be free to concentrate on innovation and research and development. This help business and product growth in the long run.

3.2 Cost of Cloud Computing

Today, many large firms are burden with redundant, incompatible hardware and software because departments and divisions have been allowed to order and purchase their own technology. This make the cost of owning technology assets are relatively high.

The cloud concept is paying what you use and no minimum fee required. The users are paying either on a monthly subscription fees or per transaction basis which are composed of the following mandatory components:.

Management Interface at $6.25 per month

Platform creation cost

Application template

Release

Low usage (one time fee)

Average Usage (one time fee)

Frequent Usage (one time fee)

SAP ERP

6.0 Eh P4

$29

$179

$679

SAP Enterprise Portal

7.0 Eh P1

$19

$169

$669

SAP Solution Manager

7.0 Eh P1

$49

$199

$699

SAP Business Intelligence

7.0 (BI Cont 7.05)

$39

$189

$689

SAP Ides CRM

7.0

$39

$189

$689

Computing infrastructure cost

This cost will only be charged when you operate your platform. Operational support and the used computing infrastructure as cpu, memory, a static network address and network traffic are included.

Configuration Set

CPU

Memory

Low Usage (per hour)

Average Usage (per hour)

Frequent Usage (per hour)

1-5 users

4 core

8 GB

$1.99

$1.68

$1.49

6-10 users

4 core

12 GB

$2.68

$2.37

$2.18

11-15 users

4 core

16 GB

$3.37

$3.06

$2.87

16-25 users

8 core

18 Gb

$3.98

$3.67

$3.48

4. RECOMMENDATIONS OF CLOUD COMPUTING

(briefly described cloud computing recommendations)

4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.7

4.8

4.9

5. CONCLUSIONS

The following summarises the findings and recommendations as outlined below.

5.1 Summary of key findings

The Study leads to the conclusion that cloud computing has the potential to transform IT, not necessarily through its impact on an agency’s core business systems, but through commoditizing routine services such as e-mail, web servers, and data storage. Cloud computing can also easily deliver services that are common across government, such as accounting, procurement, and collaboration tools. If CIOs can increase their reliance on commodity computing, they will then have more time and resources to focus on the strategic management of ITand provide leadership and value for their agencies.

We hope that this timely and informative report will be useful to profes­sionals and executives across government who are seeking innovative approaches in order to leverage the new technology of cloud computing in their effort to reform and improve ITprograms and the delivery of services to both government itself and to citizens.

5.2 Recommendations

5.3. Limitation of Studies

LIST OF REFERENCES

Department of Finance and Deregulation 2011, Cloud computing strategic direction paper: opportunities and applicability for use by the Australian Government , viewed 5 April 2011, <www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/cloud-computing.htm>.

Mell P & Grance T 2011, The NIST definition of cloud computing (draft) , viewed 19 March 2011, <www.csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-145/Draft-SP-800-145_cloud-definition.pdf>.

Wyld, DC 2009, Moving to the cloud: an introduction to cloud computing in government , viewed 19 March 2011, <www.businessofgovernment.org/report/moving-cloud-introduction-cloud-computing-government>.

Laudon, KC & Laudon, JP 2010, Management information systems: managing the digital firm, 11th edition.

Cirrus cloud computing : Price list, viewed on 30 April 2011 <www.sapcloudcomputing.com/pricing/price-list.html>

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Journal

Appendix 2: Cost and Benefits

Appendix 3: Cloud Computing Benefits

Appendix 4: Problems With Data Centre Power Consumption

Appendix 5 : Power Consumption For Each Computer

Appendix 1: Journal (390 words)

Thomas – 24 March, 2011 Thursday:

Conducted informal interview (9:30am) with Sim, Customer Service Engineer. Obtained basic information of MSF IT infratructure

Thomas – 03 April, 2011 Sunday:

Visited report writing presentation by Adrian Stagg & Lindy Kimmins (11:00pm)

Thomas – 03 April, 2011 Sunday:

Seek permission from MSF Head (10:30pm), Mr. Daniel Cheong on selecting MSF Department for assignment 4

Thomas – 04 April, Monday:

Approval obtained by Mr. Daniel Cheong at 12:06am

Thomas & Janet – 04 April, 2011 Monday:

Both of us arranged to communicate through phone and email as we are from different parts of the country after office hours at 7.30pm. We discussed briefly on which of the organization intended to work on to our assignment report.

In the end, after much discussion we decided to select either one of our company which we are currently employed for our assignment report after which we have discussed with our relevant IT department in our next meeting.

Thomas & Janet – 04 April, 2011 Monday:

We communicate again at 8.30pm. After much exchange informations of our survey on our IT department, we decided to select company, CIMB Bank Bhd as the organization to work on for our assignment report due to the good support from his company IT personnel. Next we discussed about the plan on how to complete our assignment through allocation of jobs. As we have selected my company to work on for our assignment report,

Thomas – 05 April, 2011 Tuesday:

I log into CIMB Group website www.cimb.com/index.php?&tpt=cimb_group and started my introduction part of my report (11:00am)

Janet – 06th April, 2011 Wednesday:

I visited a few website : www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/cloud-computing.htm,   www.isaca.org/Knowledge-Center/Research/Documents/Cloud-Computing-28Oct09-Research.pdf and www.startupbizhub.com/business-benefits-of-cloud-computing.htm which give me some information on opportunities of adoption by the Australia Government

Thomas – 08 April, 2011 Saturday:

Sent email (8:30pm) to MSF Head personal assistance, requesting for MSF organisation chart, MSF IT infrastructure & Eco system

Janet – 11 April, 2011 Monday:

Visited the Australia Department of Finance and Deregulation 2011 again and started to complete the Executive Summary for our assignment.

Thomas – 16 April, 2011 Saturday:

Visited USQ study desk for assignment 4 resources (9:00pm) http://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=391393

Visited Wikipedia for pseudonym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonym (9:20pm)

Reading assignment 4 mock up report (10:00pm)

Reading CIMB Group Rules for Business Conduct (11:00pm)

Janet – 25 April, 2011 Monday:

Compute the company IT Infrastructure Ecosystem diagram provided by Loudon & Loudon 11e (page 203) and visited http://www.intek.net/a/images/netdesign.gif for fictitious diagram on corporate network infrastructure

Janet – 30 April, 2011 Saturday:

Compute the cloud computing benefits and it cost

Thomas – 09 May, 2011 Monday:

Checking and resizing fonts size for assignment paper (12:00pm)

Browse CIMB Group website http://www.cimb.com/index.php?ch=g2_au&pg=g2_au_leader&cat=bod&tpt=cimb_group

for CIMB Group CEO profile.

Browese USQ website http://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=409613

for plagiarism check

Appendix 2 : Cost and Benefits:

Appendix 3

Organisation Chart of CSD Sales Channel

Appendix 4 :

Organisation Chart of Mobile Sales Force