Transaction and Information Management Model for the E-Commerce of Highly Valuable Traditional Products in Thailand: A Conceptual Framework

Transcription

1 Transaction and Information Management Model for the E-Commerce of Highly Valuable Traditional Products in Thailand: A Conceptual Framework Sakuna Vanichvisuttikul Graduate School of Computer and Engineering Management Assumption University, Bangkok, Thailand Abstract In all aspects of organization, information is a key to the success factor that supports all levels of management in the decision making to be made by the managers. As the outcome of information management in having the right information generated at the right time and supporting the right person has been considered an important issue to the management of today businesses, especially, in the digital firm. This paper aims at drawing up the Transaction and Information Management (TIM) Model for the e-commerce of highly valuable traditional products in Thailand. These products are the production from the government project entitled, One Tambon, or District, One Product (OTOP) Project. As the product in this government project are rural people who are non-business and non-technical people. To be a partial support to the e-commerce development for this government project, the graphic models have been occupied to propose how the information on this particular e-commerce business has been managed and employed in an understandable manner. Its purpose is to facilitate these product and the management concerned in the development of this e- commerce to have clear understanding of the information input, processed, and distributed through the e-commerce system. Additionally, this particular TIM Model could be beneficial in bridging the gap between the new business aspect including the advance of information technology and the rural people who are the non-business and non-technical people and also the new entrants of the new digital firm. Keywords: OTOP, graphic models, Management Information System, Computer Based Information System, graphic models. Introduction Management Information System (MIS) is one of the major Computer-based Information Systems (CBIS). Its purpose is to meet the general information needs of all the managers in the firm or in some organizational subunit of the firm (McLeod and Schell 2000). Information System (IS) refers to the designed system for processing and transforming data into information (Koonce 1999). However, the quality of the output information could exist only if the data input into IS posses high quality data. The high quality output s generated from MIS are also resulting from high quality IS, as well. The information that is the and model output provided from MIS is in the form of tabular or graphic form. Information input to MIS is in the form of summary transaction data, high-volume data and simple model. Processing characteristics are in the form of routine s; simple models with low-level analysis. In some cases, MIS serve the management level of the organization with online access to the organization s current performance and historical records. MIS primarily serve the function of planning, controlling, and decision making at the management level. Typically, MIS are oriented almost exclusively to internal, not environmental or external events (Laudon and Laudon 2004). These definitions could be illustrated by using a model. 95

2 A model is an abstraction of something that represents some object or activity, which is called an entity. Basically, there are four types of models; physical, narrative, graphic, and mathematical models (McLeod and Schell 2000). However, this paper has employed the graphic models in drawing up the TIM Model of OTOP e-commerce for communicating and understanding purpose among the regional leaders of the product and all people concerned. However, the model of MIS in different types of organization will be characterized differently. Also, the successful implementation of IS innovation remains a theoretical, as well as a managerial challenge (Sharman and Yetten 2003). Many IS innovations introduced by organizations are either rejected by end users or are under-used (Saur 1993; Maskus 1994). The MIS has also assumed different facet in different business fields. Additionally, different firms have different key issues in the successful implementation of MIS (Pimchangthong 2003). TIM Model for OTOP E-Commerce The context of TIM Model proposed in this paper is concerning to e-commerce business. The product and management concerned in this OTOP e-commerce is nonbusiness and non-technical people. They are rural people who produce the products during their free time. Therefore, it is significant to design the TIM Model to support the e- commerce development in this government project. So that, the contribution of the designed TIM Model in this paper could be beneficial in bridging the gap of the digital divide s problem among these rural people where, 56.1 and 39.1% of these product have computer and Internet connection (Vanichvisuttikul et al. 2004). This is done by transferring the knowledge and technology regarding the transaction and information management to the regional leaders of OTOP product. To illustrate the environment and dimensions by which this TIM Model for OTOP e-commerce domain has been designed in this paper, Fig. 1 has been drawn up. From Fig. 1, the database contains the data provided by the Transaction Processing System (TPS). Both data and information are entered from the environment. Contents of the database are used by the e-commerce software applications that produce periodic and special s, as well as mathematical models that simulate various aspects of the firms operations both by front-end and back-end system. Output generated by the software is used by the organizational problem solvers who are the regional leaders of OTOP product. The environment becomes involved when the firm groups together with such other organizations as suppliers or other OTOP product community groups, to form an Interorganizational Information System (IOS), in which, in this case, the MIS supplies information to the other members of the IOS. MIS summarizes and s on the basic operations of the e-commerce business. The basic transaction data from TPS are compressed and are usually presented in long s that are produced on a regular schedule. Fig. 2 shows how a typical MIS transform transaction level data from, product purchased, and accounting processing system into MIS files that are used to provide information to managers or the regional leaders of OTOP product. The s or results generated by the MIS, both the frontend and back-end system of the OTOP e- commerce usually bi-weekly, and/or monthly, not day-to-day. Technology management is a complex multidisciplinary field with a different perspective on diverse phenomena. Apparently, any place where technical personnel, knowledge, products, or processes intersect with management issues is fair game for the field (Chol and Liker 2002). In to occupy the IS to achieve strategic advantage, especially in the digital firm era, the competitive forces model of Porter (1985) need the modification for this particular OTOP e-commerce as shown in Fig. 3. In this figure, a firm faces a number of external threats and opportunities; the threat of new entrants into its market, the pressure from substitute products 96

3 IOS Environment Information Data Organizational problem solvers Regional leaders of OTOP prod. E-comm. App. Back-off MIS Report writing software Mathematical models E-comm. App. Front-off and Back-off Environment Fig. 1. Environment and dimensions of MIS for OTOP e-commerce. and services, the bargaining power of customers, the bargaining power of suppliers, and the position of traditional industry competitors (Porter 1985). By considering this modified competitive forces model, the management concerned, or the regional leaders of OTOP product should aware of these when making decision in dealing with customers, suppliers, substitute products and services, and new entrants into its market, which in turn may change the balance of power between a firm and other competitors in the industry in the firm s favor (Laudon and Laudon 2004). Flowchart and Data Flow Diagram Regarding the design of OTOP e- commerce as shown on Fig. 2, to illustrate more, Figs. 4-6 contain the flowchart and data flow diagram illustrated the information flow for each TPS; sales ing, purchasing, and accounting IS. The steps shown in Figs. 4-6 have been designed to include three steps for each of them. Firstly, the data will be edited. Later, the edited data will be entered into the processing step. Lastly, the entered data will be transformed or generated as s, and recorded into the of each entity. Conclusion This study was designed to explore the model of transaction and information management model for the e-commerce of products in the government project. Where, the of these products are rural people in the rural areas. Management concerned or the regional leaders of these product need to have knowledge and technology transferred, in to manage this OTOP e-commerce and survive in the digital firm era. According to the result of the research paper in the proceeding of the IEEE international conference on e- technology, e-commerce, and e-services 2004 held on March 2004, in Taiwan, the 97

4 Order file Transaction Processing System Order processing system MIS MIS files Sales data Product master file Product Purchased processing system Unit prod. cost data Prod. data MIS Reports Managers/ Regional leaders of OTOP product Acctg. file General ledger processing system Expenses data Fig. 2. TPS and MIS of OTOP e-commerce. 98

5 New entrants Competitive Force Model OTOP E-Commerce Northern regional product Customers Middle regional product Northeastern regional product Suppliers Southern regional product S ubstitute products & services Fig. 3. The competitive force model for OTOP e-commerce. Customers s Edit sales Edited sales s 1. Edit sales Enter sales 2. Enter sales s data sales Entered sales 3. sales s Sales manager Fig. 4. Flowchart and data flow diagram for sales IS. 99

6 Product s Edit purchasing 1. Edited Edit purchasing purchasing s Enter purchasing 2. Enter purchasing s data purchasing history file Entered purchasing 3. purchasing s manager Fig. 5. Flowchart and data flow diagram for purchasing IS General General General Edit General 1. General Edited general Edit General Enter general data General 2. Enter General data General data Entered general data 3. s s manager Fig. 6. Flowchart and data flow diagram for accounting IS 100

7 results in measuring the awareness of the product in the OTOP project show that they have a high level of acceptance on e- commerce development, but a low level of knowledge and technology transferred (Vanichvisuttikul and Jungthirapanich 2004). This lies on the problem of the digital divide in Thailand. As the number of computer and Internet connections in rural areas are still low when compared to the other areas in Thailand. Therefore, the author has tried to draw up the designed TIM Model in this paper as partial support for transferring knowledge and technology, and to be easily initiated by rural people who are non-technical. By the simple graphic models of this TIM that has been designed to represent how data are to be input, transformed or processed, and output as information which are in the form of table and/or graphic results, could be beneficial to these people in developing an understanding background about IS and MIS of OTOP e- commerce. Additionally, the competitive forces model has also been initiated to illustrate how IS could be occupied to achieve a strategic advantage. However, another purpose for the designed models in this paper is to bridge the gap towards the digital divide s problem for people in the rural areas of Thailand. Later, further studies into more complicated and technical models regarding IS and MIS for this OTOP e-commerce will be developed. More details, data, information and s generated, as well as more discussions regarding management information model will then be included. References Chol, T.Y.; and Liker, J.K Supply chain management as an emerging focus of technology management. IEEE Trans. Engin. Management. 49: Koonce, D.A Information Model Level Integration for CIM Systems: A Unified Database Approach to Concurrent Engineering. Comp. Indust. Engin. 29(1-4)T: Laudon, K.C.; and Laudon, J.P Management Information Systems - Managing the Digital Firm, 8 th ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA. Maskus, K.E If we build it, they will come: Designing information systems that people want to use. Sloan Mgt. Rev. 35(4): McLeod, R., Jr.; and Schell, G Management Information Systems, 8 th ed. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliff, NJ, USA. Pimchangthong, D.; Plaisent, M.; and Bernard P Key issues in information systems management: A comparative study between academics and practitioners in Thailand. J. Global Business 6(4): Porter, M.E Competitive Advantage. Free Press, New York, NY, USA. Saur, C Why Information System Fail: A Case Study Approach. Alfred Waller, Henley-on-Thames, England. Sharman, R.; and Yetten, P The contingent effects on management support and task interdependence on successful information systems implementation. MIS Quart. Mgt. Inf. Syst. 27: Vanichvisuttikul, S.; and Jungthirapanich, C The Assessment of E-Commerce Awareness on Highly Valuable Traditional Products in Thailand. Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. E-Technology, E-Commerce, and E-Service (EEE-04), Taipei, Taiwan,