Summary HKA (Hudson Kayak Adventures) is a firm thatoffers kayak rental services around the Hudson River. During the time whenSteve and Linda launched it, the ecotourism market was very promising,especially as far as its growth is concerned, which played a critical role inenabling them to remain optimistic about the new business. In order to make thefirm known to prospective clients, Linda designed a Web site that is used foradvertising it.

This is in addition to advertising it in regional magazines.The Web site and regional magazines played a critical role in making the firmknown to potential customers. The customers consider the site as being not onlyinformative but also attractive.

However, the lanes are not sure about thisbecause it is a new business.The firmoperates using three key business segments, which include guided tours,rentals, and instructions. For data and information management purposes, thefirm makes use an MS database created by Linda.

For accounting bookkeepingpurposes, the firm makes use of a rather cheap accounting system. The databasehas proven effective as far as handling the basic information is concerned, butit has some drawbacks. For instance, sometimes, the reservations made wouldconflict with the availability of either Steve or Linda. Moreover, the databasedoes not enable the firm to gather sufficient information about the customers’renting patterns, future business opportunities, the profiles of the customers,and effective advertising.

Therefore, the Lanes are considering updating thedatabase.     Answers to the QuestionsQuestion oneBelow is theHKA’s business profile for business activities, customers, the potential foronline marketing, resources, and organization.Businessactivities•    Guided tours•    Kayak rental•    Tour instructions Organization•    Steve is responsible for giving lessons andguiding tour groups, •    Apart from running her design business,Linda runs the overall office activities, manages the database and accountingsystem and sometimes handles the rentals•    As an extra help, Janet Jacobs isresponsible for handling telephone reservations and inquiriesResources•    Maintains a company website•    Makes use of regional magazines toadvertise the businessCustomers•    The majority of the customers makereservations in advance, especially for scheduled instruction sessions andtours•    HKA also accepts last-minute customers, butonly when space is availableThe potentialopportunity for online marketing•    The website presents an excellentopportunity to market the business online through making it possible for lastminute customers to make reservations online. •    Through the website, the business couldinform its customers of special kayak renting discount.

•    In order to enhance the opportunity for thebusiness online, the database should be updated appropriately. Question twoHKA has threeKey functions and business processes, which are listed below.•    Guided tours•    Rentals•    InstructionsBelowis a drawing of the company’s kayak rental, which also shows possible eventsand results.

  Question threeThe types ofinformation systems used by HKA include transaction processing, managementinformation and decision support systems. Even though they support the currentobjectives of the business, they do not support the future ones. Perhaps, thisis because they do not enable the firm to gather sufficient information aboutthe customers’ renting patterns, future business opportunities, the profiles ofthe customers, and effective advertising. I recommend that the business updateits systems, especially the management information system. In addition, thebusiness should update the website in a way that it will make sure thatcustomers are able to make reservations online.Question fourAs it isknown, an object is simply a member of a given class, which consists of similarobjects. The objects have some properties, which are simply theircharacteristics.

As it is known, an event, thing or person can be representedusing an object. Therefore, a reservation can be represented as an object. Areservation object’s properties could be a reservation date, customer name,customer number, or reservation number, which would be linked to thisreservation, a kayak number and a kind of activity such as guided tours, rentalor instruction.  ConclusionBased on theHKA case and its content, I can conclude that the case is very educative.Initially, Steve and Linda never thought that the business would end up doingwell. This was despite the fact that they had received positive feedback fromcustomers. Perhaps, this explains why they never put into consideration themanner in which the information systems could be used to support the futurebusiness objectives.