Creating business value with Information Technology in tourism sector
Date
2013-11-14
Authors
Mwangi, Gachonde O.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Information Technology deployments and automation in organizations are
often associated with many factors in consideration in order to determine whether
they will assist the organization realize business value. Especially, tourism players in
Kenya have not fully benefited from the value created by deploying Information
Technology in the organization. The purpose of this research is to determine which
organizational processes and procedures are candidates for automation in order to
achieve business value in an organization. A concept to support the research will be
derived from these processes and procedures which will form a framework that can be
applied across the organization to achieve business value.This research addresses a perpetual problem that faces organizations in tourism of how to improve business value created by Information Technology. The research examines the current organizational workflow of the processes and procedures for various organizations in an approach that clearly shows the inefficiencies created. The objectives are to assist tour operators in Kenya to achieve business value created by the implementation of IT both to the organization and to contribute to the development of frameworks in academic research targeting IT business value.
In management, business value is the intangible value in a business, above the
value of its tangible assets. This research conducted a workflow examination on
various organizations in the tourism sector, and the findings/results have revealed that
majority of the manual processes in the organization can be automated to achieve the
objectives of this research. An IT framework/model is proposed to aid the translation
of these processes into business value namely improved tum-around time, availability
of accurate and useful information, effective utilization of organizational resources,
efficient organizational processes, improved performance and being competitive.
The proposed framework/model in this research combines these model
components in an input output procedure ensuring all aspects of the organization have
been considered in order to achieve IT business value as the result. The model details
the main components, sub-components, effects of presence, absence, outputs and
measurement metrics that determines the overall effect of achieving IT business value
if an organization adopts the model.
Description
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Information Technology
Keywords
Business value, Information Technology, Tourism, Kenya