bottom+up+approach

What is Earl's Bottom-Up Approach and Why Use It?
The Bottom-up Approach is useful to understand and evaluate the current Information Systems in an organization during their attempts of strategic IS Planning. It is used to demonstrate, the quality and coverage of IS to gain, retain or regain credibility (Earl, 1989) Below is a table that demonstrates the current technical quality and value of the Information Systems in place:
 * **INFORMATION SYSTEM** ||  **BUSINESS VALUE**  ||  **TECHNICAL QUALITY**  ||
 * Billing System || Low  ||  High  ||
 * Human Resources Management System || High  ||  Low  ||
 * Payroll System || High  ||  High  ||
 * Staff Scheduling System || Low  ||  High  ||

Below is a matrix demonstrating what actions we recommend to be taken with the current Information Systems:

What Do The Terms Mean?

 * Renew: Upgrade
 * Maintain: Keep
 * Divest: Get rid of
 * Reassess: Reconsider whether to upgrade, maintain or get rid of.

Evaluation of the current information system
Low **Business Value** and High **Technical Quality = Reassess**
 * Billing System
 * Evaluation:** Currently this system is used daily to support the business various financial operations and transactions. The applications in the system are underutilized by the staffs and management as certain modules are rarely used thus making the investment of the system currently costly to run. The system however is very reliable and can be maintained easily thus it is necessary to examine it further or retraining users to effectively use the applications in the system.

High **Business Value** and Low **Technical Quality = Renew**
 * Human Resources Management System
 * Evaluation:** The system is a very useful investment in the hospitality sector as it allows them to maintain the quality human resources under them and without it will be very hard to maintain that quality thus will affect customer service. However, the system is costly to maintain due to its outdated applications and the usage of legacy hardware which are not compatible with other new system.

High **Business Value** and High **Technical Quality = Maintain** Low **Business Value** and High **Technical Quality = Renew**
 * • Payroll System
 * Evaluation:** This system allows the administration to efficiently manage staffs’ payroll and in a convenient manner. the system allows them to concentrate more on other aspects of administration, without the system it will take them considerable amount of time and effort to properly manage the payroll thus affecting other critical administration activities. The system has so far been very reliable and a cost effective investment to payroll management.
 * • Staff Scheduling System
 * Evaluation:** The system is a necessary investment by Redang Resort as it is used to properly utilize the Resort’s human resources efficiently across all departments. However despite its highly impressive features and reliability, they are used sparingly by the staff and the management. Hence, the system needs “added-on” innovative features to make it more useful to its users.


 * Low **Business Value** and Low **Technical Quality = Divest**
 * • Official website page
 * __Evaluation:__** The Redang Resort website is poorly designed and has the look and feel of an old website. Furthermore it is not technically capable of making bookings and getting adequate customer feedback, in short the website is inadequate. A completely new website needs to be made that will have a better design and incorporate added features such as bookings, online diagnosis among other features.

High **Business Value** and Low **Technical Quality = Reassess**
 * • Human resource management system and decision support system


 * __Renew:__** Characterized by a high value but low technical quality, the Resort needs to upgrade such systems. low and high indicating that these systems are important however are outdated and need to be renewed but the cost disruption is too high. The asset management system needs to be renewed as well although it may take allot of heavy investment to achieve this.

decision support system asset management system human resource system
 * REASSESS**

payroll system
 * MAINTAIN**

website
 * DIVEST**

staff scheduling system billing system
 * RENEW**