Technology Assessment

Assessing technology in my organization is important in determining the position and status of technology use. This paper will focus on technology and present a summary of the situation as it is. To achieve this, we will report on the technology inventory, business information systems assessment, and risk assessment at the organization.

The inventory technology is simple and comprised of hardware, software, security, networks, and databases. Hardware in the organization is comprised of basic computers. We do not operate sophisticated or specialized gadgets. For financial, compensation, office administration, training system, communication, and documentation systems we use ordinary computers hooked to cloud servers to provide the needed solution. The Oracle-based software is used in all our operations with the exception of the training system. Microsoft dominates the enterprise systems with the exception of the documentation system, which is done by the DocStar Eclipse. The organization’s database management system utilizes Oracle Database. Security to the financial management system and the documentation system is enhanced using the SSL Certificates. There are LAN and WAN networks, which allow employees to work from remote areas when necessary. Internet connectivity is allowed through direct access.

The organization operates different business information systems. The financial system is the most sensitive and is used to process payments and disbursements. The system faces the challenge of taking more than necessary time to reimburse customers and faces the risk of hacking, sabotage by disgruntled employees, and downtimes, which is a uniform risk across the entire organization’s business information systems. The compensation system is mainly used in-house in the processing of employee-related payments such as reimbursements for overtime, out of pocket expenses and overtime. The compensation system is sometimes rigid, which is upsetting to employees. The training system is capable of allowing employees self-training on some identified procedures and practices. The communication system allows for the exchange of messages between employees or departments. The system is lagging behind in terms of how well it gets things done compared to what employees would like. The documentation system is critical in maintaining a repository for the organization. As such, the system ranks high in the business information systems.

From a technological point of view, the risk that the business faces need to be ranked and the mitigation measures to ensure significant improvement in the risk ranking. The risk that stands highest is unsatisfactory customer service, loss of key personnel, and natural disasters. These risks have very high severity and it is important to ensure that they are well mitigated to ensure that there is continued business growth.

A significant technology defines how the organization runs. With the business information systems, the organization needs to ensure continued system update and system security to protect the integrity of the organization’s operation. With a growing organization, there is a need to ensure that the organization maintains or improves its IT effectiveness. To mitigate against risks, the organization needs to maintain an up-to-date workforce which can be done through training. Redundancy of systems should also be eliminated to ensure that there is sufficient security against loss of information.