Business Program Strategic Information Systems

Question: Discuss about the Business Program Strategic Information Systems. Answer: Introduction The past data analysis indicates that every organization across the world is converting towards the accounting software for building and managing the accounts and the other relevant data. In the opinion of Ciftci (2010), accounting software is computer program or an accounting tool which is required by the every fastest growing small business unit. For an example, the business accounting software includes the financial accounting, invoicing software and the VAT accounting software. Adding to this, Xero is one of the leading accounting software to manage all the invoicing operation of an organization (Feng, 2010). It has been observed that the Australian organizations are highly dependent on the accounting software to reconstruct the internal process. One of the survey reports indicates that most of the small business organization in Australia used the accounting software for improving the better performance of the organization in terms of keeping organisational data. Adding to this, it has been speculated that the Australian business organisations has developed a wide range accounting software to enhance the organisational capabilities (Chen et al. 2015). Thus, most of the leading organisation and the small business firms are hiring developers and testing team to implement successful accounting software. The presents study attempts to determine the efficiency of the accounting software and the effectiveness to the current market leaders. History and the development of the accounting software In the early age of 1960, the Mega Corporations has initially introduced the process to handle the data and reveal the information as per necessity for a government purpose. In this regards, Krishnan and Wang (2014) stated that at the early stage, the corporation had faced several issues while managing the entire data set. Hence, the concept of the database has become the prime aspirant to manage the huge volume of data. Later on, IBM the leading software firm has introduced an initial programming language to form a preliminary database for storing, structuring and managing the data within the computers (Yilmaz, 2015). It is a proven fact that the foremost objective of implementing the database program to access the data whenever it is required. In the middle of 1973, the other computer language like SAP has been introduced to design the data track and the other models of a method to increase the easiness of accessing the data set. According to the view of Winter and Hinely (2012), a data structure is another concept for sorting, computing and organising the record within the database in a sequential manner. Furthermore, at the early age of 1981, the concept of integrated office suite including a powerful processor and excel has been launched by Peachtree. Supporting this Protogeros et al. (2011) mentioned that Intuit has also discovered the spreadsheet which helps the users to use the database and the accounting software more efficiently. Accounting softwares market size in the Australian region In the market of Australian accounting software industry, Intuit, MYBOB and Xero are the major market leaders. In this particular context, it has been found that MYBOB has a large market share in this region. Xero is the other firm which has global operations. Considering the opinion of Yilmaz (2015) Xero has occupied 60% of market size in the Australian region. The firm, MYBOB has occupied 20% of the market size and only 10% has occupied by the Intuit. According to the opinion of Chen et al. (2015), Xero has occupied $17.75 market share in this domain. It is expected that the firm would get maximum margin within next year. On the other hand, it has been observed that Intuit has managed the highest market size in the Australian market with its QuickBooks application (Krishnan and Wang, 2014). Furthermore, it can be predicted that MYBOB can manage to increase the share price within the range of $ 831.7 to $ 833.8million in coming years to preserve the sustainable position (www.afr.com , 2016). Moreover, it can be determined that almost $200 million start-up business unit is using the Xero software for managing the database to track the required records. Figure 1: Leading Accounting Software Firm (Source: www.afr.com, 2016) Figure 2: Xero share price (Source: www.afr.com, 2016) The market leaders in the accounting software segment In the market of accounting software, Xero has entirely managed to devour 60% of the Australian market share (Luft, 2009). However, MYBOB has confined with 20% of the market shares, and the other organisations occupy the rest of the market share. In this current context, it has been identified the QuickBooks app has helped Intuit to incarcerate Australian market (Perry, 2011). It has been observed that Xero has managed to collect almost 450,000 customers across the world. The firm is a New Zealand based organisation and becomes an accounting software giant in the Australian marketplace by introducing the invoicing software. Presently, the firm is proceeding to have $250 billion of dealings and almost 90 million of invoices. Figure 3: Customer growth of Xero (Source: www.afr.com, 2016) Factors that are leading the enterprises to attain the competitive positioning Inventory and Accounting management Every small business units require an inventory and accountings software to handle the multiple customers by generating the individual invoice with a detailed description. The software helps to keep the detailed record of the products, services and the customer details. According to the opinion of Protogeros et al. (2011), the software is helpful to keep all the records associated with starting from the production and distribution of a specific product. The inventory and accounting software is also facilitated the firm the keep the unique details of the products such as raw material, equipment, tools and the other sales based information. As per the view of Krishnan and Wang (2014), most of the inventory and accounting management is most popular as it is ERP based. It is one of the complete solutions to make the purchase planning and the balance sheet. Moreover, the inventory and accounting management software speed up the invoicing process while tracking the sales and purchase detai ls. Payroll management The payroll management software has made up the payroll process and pays superannuation process easier. The general ledger is a helpful component to provide automatic update option for all the financial records (Tankard, 2012). Apart from keeping financial records, the software is also fruitful to include all the organisational diversified operational process. Considering the opinion of Winter and Hinely (2012), the HR personnel of an organisation can maintain the entire records of the employee and the payment separation of each of the employees. The software is also beneficial to keep the tax file number of the employees and the payment summary in the database (Ciftci, 2010). Hence, maximum SMEs and the leading organisations are enchanting the assistance of the accounting software to preserve the data accuracy backup. Challenges and issues faced by the customers with the accounting software Difficult to customise Due to the software restriction and the system restriction, the users of accounting software cannot customise the preferences as per the requirements. According to the opinion of Beechy (2009), some system and features within the software are difficult to understand and operate for the new users. As there is no guided user manual, the new users are easily get annoyed with the new types features. In the addition, the unnecessary columns and the information cannot be rid of by the users and the clients. Lack of features and expensive It has been identified that some of the accounting software has fewer features but demands an high price. Thus, the customers have the tendency to shift with the other software for easy up gradation process in low cost. Inconvenient Technical Support The customers did not get in time support during the time of the problem. The issues related with the accounting software needs to be minimised easily as it gives a security alert for the users (Krishnan and Wang, 2014). Lack of Security It has been observed that often the customers are facing accessible issues with the passwords and login id. Considering the view of Winter and Hinely (2012), chances of hacking the passwords is the major security challenge faced by the customers with the accounting software. Recommendations to improve the above issues Initially, it is essential to hire a support team for 24*7 to fix the issues of the customers. Considering the view of Tankard (2012), a constant support specialist is required to mitigate the customers problems by communicating through cell phone connection as well as a face-to-face session. The developers of the accounting software need to incorporate some special features to improve security measures of the software. The easy facilities of data import and export would increase the software comparability with the other software application in front of the clientele (Feng, 2010). Furthermore, the software developer team has to integrate some special function within the accounting software, so that the users could customise the preferences as per the requirements. Conclusion The preliminary analysis of the study indicates that the accounting software is one of the constructive software applications to handle all the required data set. While conducting the study, it has been identified that accounting software is an ideal tool to maintain all the internal and external data in a robust way. Xero, Intuit and MYOB are the market giant of accounting software in Australia. Adding to this, the study has revealed the challenges such as Difficult to customise and Lack of features and expensive, etc, faced by the users while using the accounting software. Furthermore, a strategic recommendation has been provided in the research to facilitate both the users and the developers by mitigating all the issues of accounting software. References: Beechy, T.H. (2009) The many challenges of pension accounting, Accounting Perspectives, 8(2), pp. 91111. Chen, X., Chen, C., Tao, Y. and Hu, J. 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