Lyt2 Task 1

A1 & A2. Simple Gateways, Inc. has flourished the past several years expanding to twelve offices throughout the western United States. Expanding to 12 different sites now brings new challenges to the stakeholders (Management) like:
• Having multiple versions of documents that have been passed between 12 sites of office staff now has made each office very inefficient in running their daily operations. When this business was small it had one central location that used one version of documents that made it easy for management to make the right decisions on a daily basis which in turn allowed the stakeholders to make plenty of money to expand into twelve locations. As the company expanded, each new site had its own version of documents they used on a daily basis but they were not the same as the other sites. When you have multiple documents they could contain outdated or incorrect data, which makes it extremely hard for the stakeholders to come to a solid conclusion costing the company thousands of dollars. If the company had a single version of documents they were using at all the sites they would eliminate the incorrect or outdated data on the documents. This would allow the stakeholders to make solid conclusions on a daily basis and prevent the company’s loss money.
• Since Simple Gateways has twelve locations, most of the documents are saved onto servers at each location. Each site has given permissive rights to specific person or persons to access these documents to protect the sensitive information. This means that the corporate management (Stakeholders) will not have access to the documents at each site which will cause the stakeholders to make improper decisions. Since each site has its own permissions it presents another problem. If any of the sites did not set up the permissions properly, it would be easy for a hacker or a corrupt employee to access that information for their personal benefit or they could even corrupt that data which would make the company liable for any situation and cost the company millions of dollars. When sensitive paperwork is filed there are rules that this company should follow which are given by the government to protect the right of the customer and any employee, for example the Privacy Act of 1974, E-Government Act of 2002, and the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (DHS, 2008) and if this company violates any of them, the government could hold the company criminally liable and could send personnel to prison. If the company had one central server that each site could access, they could set up the permissions in such a way that would allow certain stakeholders & certain site personnel access thus protecting the sensitive data. This would keep any company personnel from being liable and not being sent to prison.
• The daily tasks done in this company’s corporate office are not much different than any other office around this nation. One huge difference though is that this company records the information on paper and not have the records recorded electronically which is a big problem for this company. For example, let’s say that some administrative personnel was going to file a leave request for one of their coworkers in their office, there could be times when they get filed into the wrong folder because they are in a hurry to go home at the end of the day or when the personnel are in the hallway on the way down to file the papers they could very easily be stopped by another employee wanting to talk about something important. At the end of the conversation, the employee could get up to go back to their desk and forget they were supposed to file those documents and could have left those papers at that desk where they had the conversation. That employee now with that paperwork could mix those documents with their paperwork. At the end of the day they could destroy the paperwork in the company’s paper shredder. If that happens, the employee wanting to take leave will not be able to go something that is very important to them all because management did not see the paperwork in the file that it should have been stored in and cause friction within the company. If employees are unhappy, they begin to think about finding a different job. If this continues, this will make the company inefficient because the employees that have the experience with the company will not be there.
• When Simple Gateways expanded to twelve office sites, they immediately began to have problems. They thought that they could conduct business the same as it had when they first started, they were wrong. Now each site has 15-30 workers, when one office has a document that must be shared with the main office it is then forwarded to be modified as needed then sent back to the originating office. The problem with this is that if a new worker is thrown into a situation, they will begin to create new documents that may not be needed because they do not have a full grasp of the task at hand. Then possible bosses at each site or main office management get involved to push the documentation along. When you have multiple bosses to get a task or document done, it’s all too easy for each boss to treat you as if you have no other responsibilities (Gallo, 2011). Another problem with Simple Gateways is that they are having problems accessing each of the files that are on each of the sites servers. Right now the servers are set up so that each site boss has access to the files. If permissions are not set for management to access these files then there will be all kinds of false reports being made by management. But the most important problem is the administrative tasks being done on paper. Right now because of the tasks being completed on paper, workers are being complacent in their duties and employees are being treated as if they are not important and if they are not important to management then those employees will not work hard for you. All these problems can be fixed by incorporating SharePoint. SharePoint will allow employees to work more efficiently, all of the reported being conducted will be accurate and most of all the employees will be feeling like as if they really are important. When this occurs then these employees will work that much harder to make Simple Gateways the best tourism company on the West Coast.
A3. To begin to fix the various problems with Simple Gateway Inc. and make it run as efficiently as it can, there is one application platform called SharePoint that can fix all the problems this company has. SharePoint 2013 has a feature called Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) that will allow what is called Enterprise Content Management (Rouse, 2013). Enterprise Content Management will streamline access which will create an environment that will be efficient to manage the documents and records. In doing so management will see who has changed and updated the information and be able to make accurate business decisions for the company. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server has another feature called Business Intelligence (Curry, 2009). Business Intelligence will authenticate between client and server from one central location. This will allow better published reports and help management make better informed business decisions. Finally, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server also has another feature called Business Process and Forms. This feature will create workflows and electronic forms to automate and streamline the administration department of the company. This way no paper forms will be lost and prevent any anger in the company. Thus this will increase the efficiency of the employees and help management in the day to day operations. References
Dahl, D. (2010, March 4). How to Manage Multiple Business Locations. Retrieved June, 6, 2015, http://www.inc.com/ (Dahl, 2010)
Gallo, A. (2011, August 18). Managing Multiple Bosses. Retrieved June 6, 2015 from http://hbr.org/ (Gallo, 2011)
Department of Homeland Security. (2008, April 18). Information Sharing Strategy. Retrieved June 6, 2015, from http://dhs.gov/
Webopedia. Microsoft SharePoint Server. (2015, January 1). Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com/
Rouse, M. (2013, September 1). Enterprise Content Management. Retrieved June 6, 2015, from http://www.searchwindowserver.techtarget.com/ (Rouse, 2013)
Curry, B. and English, B. (2009, February 1). Business Intelligence with SharePoint and Excel. Retrieved June 6, 2015, from https://technet.microsoft.com/ (Curry, 2009)