Information Systems

CHAPTER 1
  1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 CORPORATE PROFILE.
Aalsmeer Flower Auction is the world's leading flower and plant auction, more than 5.6 billion plants and flowers are sold each year. With the largest single trading facility in the world, at nearly 1 million square meters, the Aalsmeer, Netherlands, facility processes nearly 20 million flowers and more than 2.4 million plants and garden plants each day. Aalsmeer uses a clock-based system of descending bids, also known as the Dutch auction, which enables such high-speed, high-volume. Aalsmeer Flower Auction is ‘the world marketplace for flowers and plants’ as they set the world prices by bring together supply and demand. They are supplied by around 7000 growers worldwide, and bought by 1375 wholesalers and exporters. Within a couple of hours, they are exported to almost every country in the world.

1.2 Relationship between business strategy and IS/IT strategy
Johnson and Scholes (2001) define an organizational strategy as:”The direction and scope of an organization over the long term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a changing environment to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholders’ expectations.”  
Successful firms have an overriding business strategy that drives both organisational and IS strategy. The IS strategy is affected by changes in a firm’s business and organisational strategy. The IS strategy must be compatible with the business strategy and also with the overall corporate strategy and other functional areas of the organisation.
As such, a company should have an IS/IT strategy for a number of very important reasons.
  * IT/IS involves high costs and is critical to the success of many organizations.
  * IT/IS is now used as part of the business strategy in the battle for competitive advantage.
  * IT affects all levels of management as it span many or all functional areas of a business.
  * IT involves many... [continues]

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