NorthBound Tours (NBT) offers educational holiday tours to locations that are significant in terms of the Northern Territory’s environmental, historical or cultural heritage. The company has now been operating for several years. The tours are designed for travelers who want to view and appreciate aspects of Australia’s outback within the context of some particular theme (e.g. environmental, historical, cultural, flora etc.). Customers of such tours include school teachers, academics, students, and retired people as well as general enthusiasts. Each tour is led by a tour guide who has specialist knowledge in the particular theme which is the focus of the tour. Transportation is by minibus or four-wheel-drive vehicle. Accommodation is either under canvas (for “back to basics” tour) or “bed and breakfast” style at a motel or caravan park (for “luxury” tours). The company was originally founded by Helen McPherson, a former history teacher who travelled throughout Australia as a young woman and saw the potential for developing tours which would offer people the opportunity to appreciate aspects of the country’s heritage. After starting with one minibus touring parts of the Northern Territory ten years ago, Helen has seen the company expand to sixteen vehicles offering tours in most parts of the Northern Territory. Broad Description of NBT The office for NBT is in Darwin on one floor of a two-storey building. Their camping equipment and other inventory is held in a large storeroom in the basement. Their vehicles are garaged nearby when they are not on tour, which is rarely the case. The tours operate all year round and go to destinations throughout the Northern Territory depending on seasonal conditions, availability of tour guides and customer demand. Each tour is planned around a particular theme and is led by a tour guide who has expertise in the subject area (e.g. native flora of Northern Territory) and a strong interest generally in Australian heritage. The tour guide gives “expert” commentary appropriate to the tour’s focus. Tour customers travel in four-wheel-drive (4WD) vehicles or, for less demanding tours, a larger 20-seater bus. During the “Back to basics” tours they camp overnight in the bush in tents, and are rostered to cook the meals using food provided by NBT. On “luxury” tours customers stay in some sort of accommodation e.g. motel or caravan park. As well as a tour guide, each tour is allocated a driver who is expected to perform most mechanical repairs on the vehicles and to supervise the cooking and erection of tents at each overnight stop on the “back to basics” tours. Helen had originally begun with only one minibus, and had carried out the roles of driver and tour guide. She advertised her tours in the daily newspapers and had little trouble finding enough tour customers. As demand grew, Helen decided to expand the company and to begin specialising in “educational” tours with particular themes. She began by hiring drivers, then casual tour guides, and eventually several staff to carry out various activities within her company. Helen hired Jim Wattle as the Booking Officer to manage the bookings and Mary Pope handles financial aspects of the operations of the company. In order to keep accurate records of vehicle maintenance, Helen hired Henry Sullivan as a junior clerk. Henry was inclined to be a bit haphazard with his record keeping, but he was very keen and willing to work hard. NBT has a service contract with Fleet Lease to handle all regular maintenance and to handle repairs for breakdowns on tour. With the increase in tour departures a corresponding increase in the number of tents, cooking and eating utensils and other equipment occurred. There was also an increase in the number of staff employed by the company. Helen hired her brother Jeremy to control the inventory and payroll records, and to be responsible for all purchasing. Originally Helen’s tours didn’t have guides but Helen found that her customers asked lots of questions about the historical, environmental or cultural significance of the places they were visiting. She saw the opportunity to develop a market niche and began to market her tours as “educational” with various themes. This proved very successful and now all her tours have a tour guide. For several years now Helen has been building up a list of would-be-guides who are quite keen to take on the role for a nominal sum in order to get the chance to travel free. Responsibilities within NBT As manager of NBT, Helen retains overall control of the company, but she has hired Charlene, as Tour Officer, who has responsibility for maintaining tour information. Charlene also keeps personnel records relating to drivers, including details of their leave commitments. Charlene maintains tour, departure and accommodation records. Information about the tours is kept in a filing cabinet containing a separate folder for each tour and its “departures”. A list of possible accommodation venues (for luxury tours) is also kept in the folder. Information kept includes the accommodation name, address, maximum number of rooms, telephone number, contact person and comments. Jim is responsible for managing bookings and Mary handles financial matters. As NBT’s customer base has grown, keeping track of tours and customer bookings has become difficult. Henry maintains vehicle records. Henry sees his main role as making sure that all vehicles are well maintained so NBT doesn’t run into trouble with state governments, especially as they are becoming increasingly vigilant in their checks of adherence to maintenance schedules. Jeremy is responsible for purchasing and maintaining all inventory items. Initially this involved camping equipment for the tours but has been extended to include the purchase and control of all inventory items including things like office furniture, equipment and supplies. This task has become much simpler since Jeremy developed his stand-alone Inventory System using MS Excel. Helen is very proud of her company and maintains a keen interest in all aspects of the Northern Territory’s heritage. She is confident that she can plan future tours based on her wide experience and knowledge of her target market. New tours are therefore initiated on the basis of her intuitive market “feel” and her success rate so far has been very high. Description of Customer Bookings at NBT When Helen introduces a tour and its associated “departures”, Charlene records details of the tour and departures. A list of possible accommodation venues is also recorded if it is a luxury tour. Charlene sends the details to Jim who creates folders for each departure. Information that is recorded about tours and its departures are the tour code, tour name, description, duration, departure codes, departure dates, return dates and price, the maximum number of customers, names of the tour guides and drivers and the vehicle registration numbers. If the tour is a luxury tour, Jim selects an accommodation from the possible accommodation list, makes tentative bookings for that accommodation and records the accommodation booking information i.e. dates and number of rooms. He also records the date by which accommodation must be confirmed. He enters this date in his own diary as well which he checks to make sure that he confirms accommodation bookings. When a customer calls to make a booking for a tour, Jim checks whether “seats” are available on the requested departure date. If so, a card is created for that customer booking. The card contains the booking date and name, address, date of birth and contact number of the customer who made the booking. Similar information is also recorded about the people that might be included in that booking e.g. spouse and children. Jim writes “Tentative” on the respective card and keeps the card in the appropriate departure folder. Jim checks his diary daily. When he sees that an accommodation booking must be confirmed he checks the numbers booked for the relevant departure before confirming the accommodation booking. If the number of customers booked is much less than the capacity for departure, Jim sends Charlene a note so Helen can decide whether to cancel the particular departure. If the tour is cancelled, Jim contacts the affected customers to inform them and tries to persuade the customers to book again on another departure. He also must cancel the tentative accommodation bookings. Mary checks the departure folders each Friday and sends invoices to customers who have tentative bookings. If payment is received Jim writes “Confirmed” on the respective card. If any customers haven’t paid within 1 week, their bookings are cancelled. When bookings are cancelled, Jim writes “Cancelled” on the respective card. Charlene helps out with the bookings when things get busy or when Jim is not around. The above system doesn't work very well. For one thing, all records regarding tours, departures and bookings are stored only in the form of hard copy. The paperwork is disorganized at times and that makes it hard to find anything. Staff spend a lot of time tracking and maintaining records e.g. when a customer calls to ask about a particular tour, staff need time to track down the folder to get the required information. Also, the information is sometimes not complete. Lack of information is not only frustrating for NBT but for their customers too. Customers see NBT staff as inefficient. Some customers also complain about the time it takes to make or update bookings and NBT have lost some customers because of that. If a customer enquires about a booking made through Jim and Jim is out of the office, it may be hours before the customer gets a response. Charlene often follows up on bookings handled by Jim when Jim is not around. However, there is no history of communication between the customer and Jim which makes it difficult for Charlene and frustrating for the customer. Helen felt that maintaining a history of communication between a customer and staff would be useful for anyone who has to follow-up on a booking. That person would know the history of that booking and that would help him or her be more efficient in servicing the customer. Also, generating reports required for the operation of NBT is time consuming due to manual recording of information. Assignment Requirements Helen has heard that information systems are crucial to the success of modern business organizations. She was told that information systems are constantly being developed to make businesses more competitive and information technology can bring business benefits by having a big impact on productivity and profits. Helen felt that it would also help NBT keep their customers satisfied. You are trainee systems analysts from a IS consulting and development firm. Helen has approached your manager John, an old friend of hers, to make recommendations as to how information systems can bring business benefits to her organisation. John did a preliminary study and has requested at this stage that you prepare a Functional Requirements Report for just the Customer Booking system (which includes accommodation booking). Invoicing and recording of payments is not part of the scope at this point in time.

You are trainee systems analysts from a IS consulting and development firm. Helen has approached your manager John, an old friend of hers, to make recommendations as to how information systems can bring business benefits to her organisation. John did a preliminary study and has requested at this stage that you prepare a Functional Requirements Report for just the Customer Booking system (which includes accommodation booking). Invoicing and recording of payments is not part of the scope at this point in time.

The format for the report is detailed below.

1. Needs and/or Problem description and proposed solution (system capabilities) of new system. Your proposed solution should justify why this solution is ethically feasible.