Batesvile Casket Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Batesvile Casket Company - Essay Example They held the opinion that handling their customer’s needs was the path to success. They placed the utmost importance on customer satisfaction and consistently introduced improvement in their processes through technological innovation to provide speedy and better service to their customers. How New Technology Can Build Competitive Position The revolution in information technology is causing significant reduction in the cost of getting, processing and transmitting information. Information technology involves not just computers but encompasses the entire information that is used and created in a business, and the interlinked and convergent technologies that carry out processing of the information. The company faces a wide array of questions, namely how the technology can help them gain competitive advantage, what strategies can be used to obtain the maximum benefit of the technology and out of many options investment in which technology would yield the maximum benefit. The revol ution in information system has changed the structure of the industry and impacted competition. It has shown ways to companies to outperform their rivals; it creates the opportunity for businesses to realize the scope of new businesses from their existing ones (Porter & Miller, 1985). The implementation of new technology helps an organization to achieve competitive advantage over their competitors. James J. Kuisel, the MIS Director of Batesville Casket Company believed that the implementation of new technology would help them to gain leadership in the market. They were able to achieve remarkable cost reduction through the use of client/server network at the PC of the customer service center rather than the mainframe computer. The data was transferred from the client server to the mainframe. They were the pioneers in adopting a new PC development tool known as Knowledge-Man in the 1980s which helped them to reduce the cycle time. It was implemented by them faster than their competito rs. The MIS and the logistics department worked in conjunction and were able to reduce paperwork and thus serve customers faster. They did this at a time when competitors were still using paper based system. Initially, in 1990 the hardware that was used for customer service center was an early IBM PC. The system was obsolete and needed to be replaced. The software was required to be upgraded to the latest version of Knowledge –Man. The logistic department expected upgrade of the distribution and manufacturing system. Bar coding of the model number of each casket helped in automated tracking and identification of caskets. A bar code reader was placed at the loading dock of the customer service center that was connected via radio frequency link to the PC of the customer service center. A system for maintaining records of orders, maintaining inventory based on model number was established to serve customers better. Batesville continuously upgraded their technology to provide bet ter service to customers. They replaced their hardware, decided on operating systems and revised their software. They introduced IBM PS/2 Model A16 which had a memory of 4 megabytes, colored monitor, math coprocessor, mouse and hard disc of 160 megabyte. They installed Epson LQ1170 and Hayes 9600 Ultra external modem.

Financial Regulation & Supervision Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Financial Regulation & Supervision - Essay Example These regulations not only protect the firms involved in online transactions but also the cardholders from being exploited by the online frauds. Such compliance requirements have posed new challenges as to how to minimize compliance costs and continuously monitor the security systems to stay ahead of web criminals. Nevertheless, the benefits seem to surpass the costs associated with these regulations. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Facts of the Case 5 Andrews’ Options with Bank 6 Advantages of PCI DSS Compliance Advisor 10 Conclusion 11 References 13 Bibliography 15 Introduction A few years back the fraud in payment cards was conducted by small time criminals who used to take the advantage of opportunities as they came along. However, today it has become a well organized crime where sensitive customer information is stolen and ruthlessly exploited, affecting millions of cardholders and retail businesses. Considering this the PCI DSS we re introduced. PCI refers to ‘Payment Card Industry’ and DSS to ‘Data Security Standard’ (Carpenter, 2010). ... ember 2006 for the management and development of PCI security standards to improve the payment account security in transaction process (PCI Compliance Guide, n.d.). PCI SSC was formed by major credit card brands like VISA, American Express, MasterCard, JCB and Discover (Kim and Solomon, 2010, p.395). These brands and their acquirers are responsible for the enforcement of compliance with the standards. All the merchant companies that process transmit and store the cardholder data should be PCI DSS compliant. There are three steps in adherence to the standards: 1. Assess: This involves identification of cardholder data, inventory of business processes and IT assets along with an analysis of vulnerability in the security system for potential cardholder data exposure. 2. Remediate: No to store cardholder data unless needed and fix the vulnerabilities identified in step 1. 3. Report: Compilation and submission of required validation records and compliance report to the acquiring bank and the payment card company (Hart et al, 2010, p.357). There are four merchant levels: Level 1: The level 1 merchant has aggregate annual online transactions of more than six million and has been subject to cardholder data breach or poses significant risk. They are required to have an onsite audit every year by Qualified Security Assessor and quarterly network security scan by Approved Scanning Vendor (Bradley, 2007, p.209). Level 2: The level 2 merchant has annual aggregate transaction between one million and six million. They should submit PCI DSS self assessment questionnaire on an annual basis and conduct network scans every three months by Approved Scanning Vendor. Level 3: The level 3 merchants have annual aggregate transactions between 20,000 and one million; therefore, they should PCI