What are the reasons for initiating systems analysis within an organization?

Systems projects are initiated by many different sources for many reasons. Some of the projects suggested will survive various stages of evaluation to be worked on by you (or you and your team); others will not and should not get that far. Businesspeople suggest systems projects for two broad reasons:

1. because they experience problems that lend themselves to systems solutions, and
2. because they recognize opportunities for improvement through upgrading, altering, or installing new systems when they occur.

Both situations can arise as the organization adapts to and copes with natural, evolutionary change.

Problems in the Organization

Managers do not like to conceive of their organization as having problems, let alone talk about them or share them with someone from outside. Good managers, however, realize that recognizing symptoms of problems or, at a later stage, diagnosing the problems themselves and then confronting them are imperative if the business is to keep functioning at its highest potential. Problems surface in many different ways. One way of conceptualizing what problems are and how they arise is to think of them as situations in which goals have never been met or are no longer being met. Useful feedback gives information about the gap between actual and intended performance. In this way feedback spotlights problems.

In some instances problems that require the services of systems analysts are uncovered because performance measures are not being met. Problems (or symptoms of problems) with processes that are visible in output and that could require the help of a systems analyst include excessive errors and work performed too slowly, incompletely, incorrectly, or not at all. Other symptoms of problems become evident when people do not meet baseline performance goals. Changes in employee behavior such as unusually high absenteeism, high job dissatisfaction, or high worker turnover should alert managers to potential problems. Any of these changes, alone or in combination, might be sufficient reason to request the help of a systems analyst.

Although difficulties such as those just described occur in the organization, feedback on how well the organization is meeting intended goals may come from outside, in the form of complaints or suggestions from customers, vendors, or suppliers, and lost or unexpectedly lower sales. This feedback from the external environment is extremely important and should not be ignored.

A summary of symptoms of problems and approaches useful in problem detection is provided in the table below Notice that checking output, observing or researching employee behavior, and listening to feedback from external sources are all valuable in problem finding. When reacting to accounts of problems in the organization, the systems analyst plays the roles of consultant, supporting expert, and agent of change, as discussed in Chapter 1 “Systems, Roles, and Development Methodologies“. As you might expect, roles for the systems analyst shift subtly when projects are initiated because the focus is on opportunities for improvement rather than on the need to solve problems.

Every organisation has several businesses and systems that function individually and cohesively to achieve a set of targets.

System analysis is the detailed evaluation of a particular system to identify areas for improvements and make any enhancements if necessary. This includes; gathering the company requirements and researching the path to be taken to effect these requirements. The ultimate target is to have a fully operational system in place which provides efficiency and reliability to the organisation.

A question which is often asked regarding system Analysis is “What are the benefits of system analysis?”

Costs, Efficiency & Flexibility
When a system analysis is properly performed, it makes certain that the correct path is taken with regards to applications and it helps to minimize errors which reduce future IT requirements for fixing problems. If the above process is performed properly, it will not only save the company money up front but ensures that the right application path is being taken the 1st time, growth and business charge considerations have been accounted to accommodate future plans, and errors are kept to a minimum thereby mitigating future IT overhaul requirements.

Better Management; Better controls
System analysis allows for better management through changing the software to suit any business changes, this means that the final product will be totally controllable. If changes or enhancements are required, the requirement of rewriting the whole software will be removed, which is normally costly.

Risks
Through the process potential threats are identified. A risk assessment is carried out to evaluate all the negative impacts on the processes. After deeply considering this, a comparison of the risk is made against the related benefits and a decision is taken accordingly.

Quality
The quality of the systems is ensured through the checking of the system constantly through system analysis.

Although System analysis offers an extensive range of benefits it might also have some disadvantages. One of the main disadvantages which is mostly overlooked is the risk of too much analysing which may be costly and time consuming. It is therefore part of the analyst’s job to find the right balance.

Here at FTIAS we constantly focus on providing deep system analysis in order to custom build the system according to the company’s requirements. This also includes certain off-the-shelf software such as SAP. This will allow us to continuously enhance and develop the systems to provide further efficiency into our processes.

We also use external diagramming and graphics applications such as Microsoft Visio in order to produce detailed flowcharts to highlight all the movement and actions involved in a particular system,

System analysis is the first step of a 7 step approach called System Development Life Cycle as highlighted in the diagram above used to achieve a successful system implementation.

What are the reason why systems analysis projects are initiated?

What are the importance of systems analysis in an organization?

What are the three objectives of system analysis?

What are the objectives of conducting a system analysis?