The company Unit Construction is a Small-Medium Scale Enterprise (SME) that handles residential housing projects over the UK. It has an annual turnover of approximately i?? 2m and staff strength of 10 in the head office. Unit Construct has planned to invest up to i?? 20 000 in an IT strategy that closely matches their business needs/requirements, at the moment they are currently using stand alone PC’s.

The role of the System Analyst is to carry out an inquiry to help someone identify a more suitable choice or course of action, and to therefore make a qualified decision than that person. In order to produce the best IT implementation system so as to fulfil the requirements of Unit Construct, a system analysis must be carried out. * Interviewing – this can be carried out by face to face confrontation, over the telephone, formally at the person’s workplace or informally at home.

The point of the interview is to collect data, verify the data and influencing opinion. Every interview should have a structure as to why its taking place, with who should it be taking place with, when and where it should be and what points are to be discussed. Interviews are ideal as they allow the interviewer to get varied information from different people, it can bring out different opinions which can be discussed there and then, it shows the true feelings of the interview about the system and how would they be affected.

Record Inspection – this would include checking organisation charts, procedure manuals, job descriptions, types of forms used, input documents and their control records, files kept and what system they are kept in, types of reports produced, accounting forms and records and office hand books. A record inspection at Unit Construct is a good way of finding how the current system works. It also establishes qualitative information, it saves time, the data is reliable and more importantly they do not need extensive co-operation from staff which would waste their time.

The drawbacks are that it does not give an idea of the environment in the office or the opinions of the staff. Observation – this allows first hand knowledge, gives accurate information, it demonstrates actual working conditions and how everyone works and interacts with each other and one can also compare the interviewee’s opinions to how the current system works or doesn’t work.  Questionnaires – will not be carried out as the staffs are only 10 strong and so interviews will do the bulk of the work.

The benefits of the interview out weigh the need for questionnaires. How will Unit Construct benefit from a new IT system? The system will consist of a server which is basically one big memory source where all the information is stored this will be linked/networked to several computers in different departments or offices. When the computers are networked i. e. linked together from a server, it will allow information to be shared, transferred, accessed and changed with ease on each computer.

Each member of staff will have their own little space on the server which can only be accessed with a username and password for security reasons. The only problem with relying on the server is that if it gets a technical fault the whole system can be down and useless. However, backup files can be kept just in case of such an emergency. The company will improve by the following ways by having the new system implemented