Modernizing legacy system at crescent healthcare inc

CenterPoint Properties, one of Chicago’s largest real estate companies, had to make a transition to being an excellent logistics solutions and intermodal transportation provider. However, this transition will necessitate radical transformations of its business model, including ownership, the structure of capital, and the new technologies that they would need in the transition to a new business (Tilanus, 2012). One major challenge faced by the organization is how they should integrate their new functionality and applications, especially since their organization is largely based on its unique, innovative aspect. In addition, they would also have to ensure that their core competency, the daily aspects of their property business, kept working without fail. The fact that their business is based on innovation meant that commercial software for the real estate industry was not going to solve their problems. One reason for this is that majority of software vendors lean more towards the provision of back-end processing software. However, CenterPoint Properties needed an information system that would cover the required functionality as they made their transition to logistics solutions and intermodal transport providers, which was an entirely new model of business away from their core business (Tilanus, 2012). In order to successfully transition to their new business model; therefore, they require to develop the original systems that made them successful, buy new systems, and successfully integrate the different systems.
The new information system will help CenterPoint to improve their productivity and collaboration, as well as in its growth with a new business model. A new information system with an optimized user interface will increase the productivity of the users, which will enhance the organization’s ability to scale its business sans any significant staff increase (Tilanus, 2012). The presentation of information by the new system should enable users to focus on data analysis, rather than trying to find the data. The new information system should also automate most of the organization’s daily processes, especially by scanning multiple sources of data to search for important events, following which the information is summarized and distributed. This will also greatly improve the productivity of the system’s users. Secondly, the new information system will enhance collaboration, which will allow staff in any location the required information, especially since the organization is now going to have to expand to different locations to handle logistics (Tilanus, 2012). Distributed teams will have the ability to respond promptly to information on emergencies, share the information, and to communicate. The new information system should also be intuitive to improve decision-making and reduce the time of the transaction. The ability to combine external, disparate and multiple data sources will enhance the organization’s ability to increase efficiency, as well as in mitigation of risks.
With the entry of CenterPoint Properties into new ventures like logistics solutions, they will need to ensure that their staff takes to team effort. These team members could be anyone from client companies to employees of the organization in Chicago and other locations where they may be needed (Stair, 2011). Therefore, they need an information system that drives collaboration for increased efficiency and service delivery to keep ahead of the competition. CenterPoint Properties, first and foremost, need a Customer Relationship Management system. This system should take care of their data storage, access and security aspects, and website hosting capabilities. On top of this, the system should be customized according to the organization’s needs. Some of these customizations should include separate sites for various projects that can be used by members of the team in keeping updated with emergent situations, while also acting as a center for employees to access information from any location. E-mail and IM functionalities should also be a feature of this system to keep staff up-to-date. Finally, the system should also be adept at transferring documents and information to the required clients and parties to ensure efficient transactions. A Geographic Information System should also be integrated into the organization, especially given its new foray into logistics solutions and intermodal transportation (Stair, 2011). Potential properties can then be analyzed using overlaid economic, census, market, and demographic data on maps.
First Industrial Realty is one of CenterPoint Properties biggest competitor, engaging in property development, sale, acquisition, and management, as well as logistics solutions. With over twenty regional offices, they added business intelligence, information system. Just like CenterPoint, they found it challenging to integrate a new system while still leveraging their old one for their core business that was still successful (Sabherwal, 2012). Like CenterPoint Properties, the new information system at First Industrial is focused on giving its staff and other users flexible, intuitive, and convenient access to multiple sources of data. This empowering of the staff and executives with better information increased their productivity through improvements made to its customer relationship management functionality. However, unlike CenterPoint Properties, who used Microsoft SharePoint 2007 as their base to customize make their information systems, First Industrial used Oracle, which made it difficult for its staff to integrate data into Microsoft Excel. They used WebFocus for easier integration with Excel, while also solving problems to do with integration and reporting, which had been solved at CenterPoint Properties with the installation of their new information system.
References
Sabherwal, R. & Becerra-Fernandez, I. (2012). Business intelligence. Hoboken, N. J: Wiley.
Stair, R. M. (2011). Fundamentals of information systems. New York: Cengage Learning
Tilanus, C. B. (2012). Information systems in logistics and transportation. Oxford, OX, UK: Pergamon.