Melissa Cooper Pressley
INF 620
Final Paper
Instructor Bolton
April 2, 2012

PRIMIS SYSTEM
Primis System
When dealing with any type of program or services, one must be mindful of the people that they are offering these type of services or programs too. They must make sure that everything is in respective order and done in respect and the correct way. A business cannot offer a product or a service to customers hoping that they will like whatever they have prepared for them, they must put themselves in the shoes of the customers in order to know if the service is up to par or as good as the company say that it is (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
The questions that McGraw-Hill could have asked were simple and plain questions. They could have asked what type of systems did they used when they was doing the Primis System. They could have also asked what team effect was put into making the system and rather or not if the team had any problems putting the system together. Another question that could have been asked was how much hours, days, or nights were put into creating the system and how much time and money was spent into making this program. Did the teams have any serious or major concerns about the Primis system that needed to be addressed to the IT people before they went ahead and decided to put the system together anyhow? They must also take into considerations rather or not the book will be sufficient enough for the teachers to teach and rather or not if the book is what the students need in order to learn what they need to learn from the class. End users must be able to use the product as well if they are looking for a book to refresh their learning abilities on the areas in this book. Most of the time people like to buy books just to have a better understanding of the information that they are accessing even though they are not taking that class, they just like to have the information just in case if they come across some things in the line of work that they are doing and they can have the book to fall back on to read up on if they need it (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
Sale reps have to makes sure that they are really selling what they are telling people, they don’t want to sell the book and get the people to buy it just for them to find out that the book is nothing what they thought it would or should have been. This will cost bad publicity for the company because they are not selling what they are supposed to be selling. The people will think that the company is just trying to sell a product and not care about the people who is actually buying it, they will look at it as the company just trying to make a profit at any means necessary (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
The system approach worked ok for the initial stages of the Primis system. It could have been better if the teams would have gone a step farther to break the system down and really tell the story instead of just putting something together for the sales reps to go out and sell. They could have gotten with the marketing teams and come up with even better ways to promote the book and make the sales go up higher. They could have used better quality for the pictures and diagrams that was in the book. They could have also put links in the book so that the students and faculty that was using the book could easily go to if they weren’t sure about a figure or how to use the examples that they had in the book.
I would have only use some of the information that the team had and I would have added some more information to it like the fact that the product is a very good product to use if the customers wanted to use it for information on how to start a successful business and how to maintain it. I would also let the fact be known that the books could be used for more than just that. It can actually help a person learn how to use graphs and schematics if they have never used them before. I would also give examples on how to create a graph and schematics that will be easy to follow. Also, I would give a good example of how to use Microsoft excel as well if they have e never learned how to use the program (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
Cost and quality was the driving force for the development of the Primis system. A lot of people can’t afford all the data programs it takes in this book or the programs that it takes to run a business. With the help of this book, things will be easy for the customers because all they have to do is follow the information that is in this book and they should be fine. The type of system design that I think that McGraw- Hill used is screen, form, report, and dialog design. They also used data element structure as well as program and procedure design. They used all of these in order to develop the process of the book that they created. They used all of these in order to make the book look appealing to the faculty, end users and the students that will be using the product that they have designed (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
They keep this in mind because they knew that the type of people that they were dealing with would benefit from the different types of designs and information that is in the book. They can use these designs to make things much better for the people using the book because it would be more appealing and that would keep the people buying their product as well as keep it going by telling other people about the product so that they can keep getting more business from their product. It would not make any sense to make a product and they don’t have enough people to use their services, it would not make any sense to make a product that is not going to benefit them or their customers. Who wants to pay money for a product that doesn’t offer them no type of services or any kind of information that they can’t use (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
Primis team dealt with this by trying to stay up to date with the latest technology and by making sure that they incorporated the changes in their product. They knew that once this change took place it would be hard for the customers, end users, faculty, and the students to adapt to the changes if they knew nothing about the technology. When changes occur, it takes some people along time to really get use to the new changes. The Primis team wanted to make sure that their customers knew everything about every change that they made in their product. They also keep them update with links they could go to make the change easier to follow. If the customers couldn’t follow they had examples available for them to follow that were easy to follow and easy to understand (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
Yes, prototyping would have helped the Primis team because the development and testing of the program is very important. They could have made models and test them to make sure that all the people who had a part in making this product could see rather or not if it was a good idea to use that part of the program. A lot of business fails because they don’t take the time to test out all the parts of a product before they put it out on the market to sell it. Prototyping has enlarged the role of the business stakeholders affected by a proposed system and helps make possible a quicker and more responsive development process called agile system development (ASD) (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011, p. 493).
End users with sufficient experience with application development tools can do prototyping themselves. Also, end users identify their business needs and assess the feasibility of several alternative information system solutions (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011, p. 493). Some of the change management techniques that McGraw-Hill used was: involved as many people as possible in planning and application process, made constant change as it pertained to their product and the quality that they wanted to put out for the customers, let all stakeholders know what was going on with the product so they can be up to date about the everyday operation of the product, and they worked within the company culture not around it (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011, p. 470).
The relationship was that they worked together to make a product that would not only help them but also help the people who was buying their product. They worked together to make a good product that would be able to be used by people all across the states and they worked to make sure that they has all components well put together. If I was the project manager for Primis I would have added more ways to show the customers how to get the most they could out of the product. I would offer a website that they could go to ask questions if it was something about the program that they didn’t understand. I would offer a step by step tutorial on all areas of the product that would have been much easier to follow as well as hand on hands guide for the tough areas. Most people don’t know anything about system tools, so I would offer a whole section on that subject and what they can expect when dealing with that area (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
If I was a professor considering adoption of a custom textbook for my students I would prefer to use the black and white print because it shows everything that my students would need to use in their book. The black and white print shows all the examples and pictures to go along with what the students are looking for. They will be able to take their book along with them and follow in the book. The e-book is good to but sometimes the e-book is out of sync with what is being said than with the black and white. The black and white book is better to use to me because it has everything in it that is needed for students as well as the professor.
The criteria that I would use for the Primis database would be the fact that if and changed need to be added they should be added right then and not wait to be added years down the line. Technology is rapidly changing and when those changes occur, they need to be added as soon as possible instead of waiting. As well as technology changes, the edition of the textbooks changes as well, I would make sure that the same changes would be made in each new edition to the book that is in the old book. What good is it to have a book and then someone has another book that is made from the same company, has the same authors but different information in it and the new book costs more than the old one with the same information except for a few changes, that wouldn’t make too much sense (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
Thee role that IT would play is making sure that all the data is keep and in place like how it is supposed to be. The IT department also has to focus on virtualization as well as documentation and logistics (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011, p. 213). IT groups must also know system they have to use in order to do performance process on all the data that they have pertaining to the business and the information that they have on their customers as well. The IT group must make sure that all the data is protected and can be accessed by everyone that is working in that department in case they can’t be reached at a certain or specific period. They have a good system that tells and show then what is going on in the data system and how well they interact with other each other and work in the business (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
An example of this would be if the customers are inquiring information about what the company does, the IT department should be able to have that information on hand when it is needed. Another example would be if there is something that is wrong with the data system, the IT department or person should be able to go into the system and analysis the problem and see what is going on with the program and be able to upgrade any parts of that could be corrupted or damaged. The last example would be for the IT department to put in a new program that will allow all the workers in that business to operate and show them full details on how to use the program or give them detailed training on how to use and access the data on the new program.

It is so important to this process because people who do not work in the IT department should not be dealing with data and file that an IT person should be working on because they do not know how to operate or perform in that department. Workers who don’t work in the IT department should not be allowed to work on data that they have no knowledge about. If a problem arises, the IT department should appoint someone that will have unlimited access to the data in times when someone in the IT department is not available or can’t be reached and they need to do something that is very important and they have to go into the data. A IT worker should always be on point at all times and should be able to be reached in case of an emergency, that way no one else should have to mess with any of the data. They should always have their contact information available in case a worker needs to get in contact with them is a problem should arise (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011). They can also have someone get in contact with other IT workers that knows the situation and all the problems that is going in the other departments that can handle the problem when the main IT person can’t be reached.
Step by step instructions can also be left in a place where it can be easily reached when a problem arises and the IT person can’t be there right away. If all of these steps are followed, there should not be any problems with the wrong person handling the data if they are not supposed to be handling them or people getting fired because they done something that they were not supposed to have done. This would mean that everyone would have to work as a team and make sure that everyone is working in their own departments and doing the job that they are supposed to be doing instead of trying to do someone else job (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
The company might be able to lower the cost of the software if they use a more robust server with fewer processors, if the application license does not allow that to happen, then they can’t use that step and they would have to find another way of doing things (O’ Brien & Marakas, 2011). They can look ahead at how much the other company is going to cost before they thing about doing a merger just to make sure that they are going to have enough money to do so. They can also make sure that their data center has enough virtualization tools that is running on both servers and storage (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
They need to have a standardized execution environment. Most companies can test their applications and infrastructure integration before they go into a merger into force. It is also good for the company to decide on a uniform platform for their virtual environment as well in order for things to smoothly if they want to enter into a merger. They may also want to get with the other companies to see what things they might have in common or just to see what the other company is going to do once the merger takes place. If they don’t have anything in common when it comes to ways how to make things better, they should make sure that they at least a compatible data format that can gain some type of benefit (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).
IT could make things go smoothly also by making sure that everything is in place when it comes to the data part of things. They need to makes sure that the data is keep in good conditions and reachable. They must also make sure that the data is up to date and that if anything is need to be added, they must make sure that everything is added like it supposed to be added. They need to make sure that the data is to use in both environment without any complications. They must understand that they can’t do everything and make sure it is right. They need it take their time and make sure that the data is formatted correctly without any kinks in it. They need to make sure that everyone who needs to have access to certain parts of the data that they have that access. They can be helpful by giving training exercises to make sure that all people involved understand and knows how to retrieve and operate the data programs like they need to handle them. They can make sure that all the data is put on a system that is easily understandable like relational model (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011). Relational models are used when you need to have a lot of data on one single file or into three or more different areas. This way will make it easier to move back and forth through the data without having to go back and forth looking for other data when they are doing a presentation to the other companies they are looking to merger with (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011).

PRIMIS SYSTEM
Reference
O’Brien, J.A. & Marakas, G.M. (2011). Management Information Systems (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Learning how to be a better business owner, retrieved on April 2, 2012 from http://www;betterbusinessowners.com
Business Strategies retrieved on April 2, 2012 from htpp://www.good-business-strategies.com