The Eticketing System Of Golden Screen Cinema Information Technology Essay

Project Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. Project managers must not only strive to meet specific scope but also in time, cost and quality goals of projects. They must be able to facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and expectations of the people that are involved in or affected by project activities.(Kathy Schwalbe, 2007)

Project management is very important to all the companies including the Golden Screen Cinema. The success or failure of a project depends on the project management styles of a company. In addition, GSC places a great emphasis to all the activities that are involved in project management. There are seven main activities in a project management, basically there is planning, estimating, resource allocation, scheduling, monitoring progress, taking corrective action and reporting to project owner. All seven activities should be accomplished in order to produce a successful project, failing to do so would cause certain problem in the project. Recently, Golden Screen Cinema launched the e-ticketing project which was a successful project since it is able to attract more customers to their cinemas.

Therefore, project manager stands as an important role in project team because of the decision that he or she makes will lead to the ultimate outcome. To be more efficient, project managers need to be good in leadership skills and communication skills. This is because project managers have to lead their team members to achieve missions and also deal with stakeholders, team members and technology.

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A project manager should have some ethical values which allow them to make ethical decision in their personal and professional life. This enables project managers to generate trust and respect from the surrounding people who they often approach and contact in his or her career like stakeholders, team members and colleagues. For example, a good project manager will not accept projects that are only beneficial to them but accepts projects that will produce the highest outcome for the company. Hence, a good manager will come out with a good planning that helps the project to run smoothly without wasting any resources.

In the year of 2000, Golden Screen Cinema had created their official website which is www.gsc.com.my. In 2007, Golden Screen Cinema and Maybank collaborated together to offer e-ticketing system which allows customers to purchase tickets through internet and also to offer maybank2u’s users to make transaction directly from their debit card without using credit card.

E-ticketing system is considered as a complex system because it is connected between the counter server, e-ticketing system and database. For example, when a customer buys a ticket through online transaction, the information will be saved in the database and sent to the counter server immediately to avoid selling another ticket which has the same seating.

For the e-ticketing project, it is separated into three parts which is time management, cost management and quality management. These three are interacted with one another, for example a company wants to reduce the number of employees, however doing so might affect the quality of the project and eventually brings to working overtime.

Planning

“Planning is often the most difficult and unappreciated process in project management. Because planning is not always used to facilitate action and many people view planning negatively. The main purpose of project plans is to guide project execution. To guide execution, plans must be realistic and useful. Therefore a fair amount of time and effort must go into the planning process. People who are knowledgeable with the work need to plan the work.” (Kathy Schwalbe, 2007)

In addition, planning also include what the project is up to, how it will be done, who will be involved, how much will the project cost and when it must be completed.

GSC in order to provide e-ticketing service to customers, they have to create an Information Technology (IT) plan which is to design the e-ticketing system. Due to the requirement of e-ticketing system to integrate with their respective branches’ counter computer system, so it is quite complex to connect it and it needs a precise plan to minimize the errors. For instance, while customers buy a ticket via the e-ticketing system, the ticket information will be send as fast as it could to the database and counter’s system. The human operated counter system would then automatically refresh every ten seconds so that the conductors and would not sell the ticket again.

Moreover, the company needs to plan on users interface design and design the customers purchase procedure as well to ensure the process of e-ticketing is successful. The web users interface design is used to create the layout for the customers. For example, the e-payment website has the seating map which shows the exact seating with the cinema to let customers choose the most comfortable view of their choice. So, this design extremely benefits the customers compared to phone reservation which does not provides the selection of the seats but only the reservation.

Diagram 1: Customers Purchase Procedure

On the other hand, the purchase procedure planning is important to customers as well. It is because a clear procedure enables customers to minimize confusion, save time and would change the mind of customers who have a bias against e-ticketing. This is because they think e-ticketing has a complex procedure. According to the research, Diagram 1 is the GSC customers purchase procedure which is a simple and useful procedure which attains the planning objective.

Estimating

Estimating process must be made of time and cost for each stage of the project. There are several ways to estimate project task which is analytical estimating, category estimating and comparative estimating. Since e-ticketing is still considered a new service in Malaysia, so category estimating is suitable for GSC circumstance. “This is a form of range estimating and requires knowledge of the work. Estimators may not feel comfortable with overall, analytical estimates upon which may depend the outlay of a great deal of money.” (Managers-Net, 2010)

In addition, time estimate and cost estimate enables to distribute the time and cost on each stage of the project. So, estimates enable managers to avoid working overtime and exceed the budget.

Resource Allocation

Resources are “assets available and anticipated for operations. They include people, equipment, facilities and other things used to plan, implement, and evaluate public programs whether or not paid for directly by public funds. There are many types of resources.” ( Answer.com)

However, e-ticketing project needs to allocate the resources. This means allocating resources depending on the need in each stage of the project. For example, e-ticketing project needs data entry staffs in the first stage and third stage, so other project managers are duty to scheduled employees to work on other tasks during second stage. Therefore, this is able to reduce wasting resources and improve all the projects speed.

Scheduling

“Tasks must be carried out in a logical sequence. Some tasks cannot begin until another task has been completed. These are called critical tasks.” ( APIIT Project Management, 2011 ) Gantt chart and network diagram are normal techniques that clearly arrange all the tasks. So, team members able to complete their task in logical order without wasting time in disorder.

Besides that, a good schedule is able to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Some task that are being given can be done simultaneously instead of waiting for one task to fully complete, employees can start with another task at the same time therefore finishing two task together which safe time.

Monitoring Progress

Monitoring progress is an activity a manager should do in order to have a successful project. They have to monitor the project progression and measure the performance throughout the project. This help to identify the problem earlier compare to team members pinpoint the problem because standers-by see more than gamesters. This helps the employees to avoid being strayed from the task objective and also to keep the team on the right track in order to achieve their goals in the task. For example, every stages of e-ticketing project need a measurement to ensure its all under the task objective.

Taking corrective action

Every problem requires a different solution. Sometimes a problem has various solution and managers are responsible to select the best solution to solve the problem. This might be changing the tasks allocated to people, getting extra resource, or changing equipment. For example, if there is any new technology emerging during the e-ticketing project, managers might change their technology equipment or hire a new member who is expert in the technology.

Reporting to project Owners

The project owners will be the project managers and all the team members will be reporting to them. After completing the e-ticketing project, the project managers have to test the system and check out the final outcome beforehand. Then, only the good changes are accepted to achieve the goal. Finally, the e-ticketing project will be present to GSC managers executive, if they approve the project, the project will be launch otherwise have to point out the mistake and redo it.

In conclusion, E-ticketing system is a bold attempt for GSC because they are the first cinema which expands their business operations online. It provides a lot of benefits to both GSC and also their customers. For GSC, it cuts costs on man power expenses and reduces the human errors. For instance, sometimes the daily balance will not be the same due to human error. Simultaneously, customers can also save their time on queuing to purchase their ticket. and reduce disappointment because sometimes customers already have a movie at the back of their mind but have to change at the last minute because either the seating is not suitable or the tickets are sold out.

( 1638 words )

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/6/23/business/18108714&sec=business

http://110.74.130.3/RD1/news2.asp?search=kiosk

http://www.gsc.com.my/Corporate/profile.aspx

http://www.managers-net.com/workmeasurement.html