Letter of Transmittal

November 11, 2009

Mr. Emran Salahuddin

Lecturer, MIS

School of Business

Independent University, Bangladesh.

Sir,

We are the students of “Management Information System (MIS 442)” course instructed by you.
In this course you have assigned us a term paper on the existing system of any organization of
Bangladesh. For this we have selected “BRAC Bank Ltd.” as our project and proposed to
improve their existing system of dealing with information.

This is the first time we are creating a term paper on this issue and therefore have a very little
knowledge about this. Although we have tried our best to make a good report but there are
some inadequacies in the proposals. We would like to apologize in advance if the report
contains any unintentional mistakes.

We hope that you will remark our works considering our limitations. Your kind advice will also
increase our presentation skills.

Yours’ most obediently

Mahmudul Hasan

Naimul Islam

Tarik Aman

Mohammad Junaid

Rubayet Tasnim
 Acknowledgement

First of all, we thank Almighty Allah for giving us the strength to cope with different
circumstances and making us capable of completing this report on time. Successful
accomplishment of this term paper is the outcome of the contribution of number of people,
especially those who took the time to share their thoughtful guidance and suggestions for us.

We would like to show our deepest gratitude towards our respectable course instructor Mr.
Emran Salahuddin for giving us such a wonderful opportunity to work on the system of “BRAC
Bank Ltd”. It would not have been possible without his constant support and guidance in every
step of our work and for helping us with his valuable advice about the report. His overwhelming
support and encouragement helped us to make a complete report.

It is our great pleasure to thank all the team members of the project and all those who
participated for the successful completion of the project, especially Mr. Mohammad Nazmus
Sakeb (Analyst, Application Security, Technology Department) and Miss Sharmin Islam
(Customer Service Manager) for providing us with their valuable information.
Executive Summary

In this report we have discussed the existing system that BRAC Bank Ltd. is using to carry out
its official work. We have learnt that the system both uses automation and manual processes.
Though the software being used helps the staffs to instantly return queries involving employee
details but that are a lot more areas left which can be improvised and/or automated for e.g. the
Back-up process.

We have also learnt that the different departments in the company have its server that is linked
with each other through the server in Mirpur and Gulshan. We have tried to find as much details
as possible through interviews and tele-conversation.

Taking all the limitation of the current system into account we have found out some of its
problem areas and its relevant solutions. We suggested that how there back up and Security
System could be improved.
Company Profile:

BRAC Bank Limited, with institutional shareholdings by BRAC, International Finance

Corporation (IFC) and Shore cap International, has been the fastest growing
Bank from 2004 to 2007. The Bank operates under a "double bottom line"
agenda where profit and social responsibility go hand in hand as it strives
towards a poverty-free, enlightened Bangladesh.

A fully operational Commercial Bank, BRAC Bank focuses on pursuing unexplored

market niches in the Small and Medium Enterprise Business, which hitherto
has remained largely untapped within the country. In the last six years of
operation, the Bank has disbursed over BDT 7500 crore in loans to nearly
200,000 small and medium entrepreneurs. The management of the Bank
believes that this sector of the economy can contribute the most to the rapid
generation of employment in Bangladesh. Since inception in July 2001, the
Bank's footprint has grown to 56 branches, 30 SME Service Centers, 427 SME
unit offices and 112 ATM sites across the country, and the customer base has
expanded to 465,000 deposit and 187,000 advance accounts till December
2008. In the years ahead BRAC Bank expects to introduce many more
services and products as well as add a wider network of SME unit offices,
Retail Branches and ATMs across the country.
Corporate Vision, Mission & Values

Corporate Vision

" Building a profitable and socially responsible financial institution focused on Markets and
Business with growth potential, thereby assisting BRAC and stakeholders build a "just,
enlightened, healthy, democratic and poverty free Bangladesh".

Corporate Mission

» Sustained growth in 'small & Medium Enterprise' sector

» Continuous low cost deposit growth with controlled growth in Retained Assets

» Corporate Assets to be funded through self-liability mobilization. Growth in Assets through

Syndications and Investment in faster growing sectors

» Continuous endeavor to increase fee based income

» Keep our Debt Charges at 2% to maintain a steady profitable growth

» Achieve efficient synergies between the bank's Branches, SME Unit Offices and BRAC field
offices for delivery of Remittance and Bank's other products and services

» Manage various lines of business in a fully controlled environment with no compromise on

service quality

» Keep a diverse, far flung team fully motivated and driven towards materializing the bank's
vision into reality

Corporate Values

Our Strength emanates from our owner - BRAC. This means, we will hold the following values
and will be guided by them as we do our jobs.

» Value the fact that we are a member of the BRAC family

» Creating an honest, open and enabling environment

» Have a strong customer focus and build relationships based on integrity, superior service and
mutual benefit

» Strive for profit & sound growth

» Work as a team to serve the best interest of our owners.

The company uses various systems, one of that is HR Vista that is used by the HR
department. An outsourced vendor named TechnoVista develops the system.

Techno Vista Ltd., a company based in Dhaka-Bangladesh, specializes in desktop &

web-based applications & solutions for large, medium and small enterprises.
They’ve developed their capacity to support their clients in outsourcing of ICT
needs. TechnoVista has spread its wings to Europe & USA with its software & ICT
solutions.

Bangladesh has great potentialities to become another destination for outsourcing

as it has all the potentials of providing ICT-enabled services to the foreign buyers.
Availability of large number of trained people and cheap wage of the trained
manpower on the other puts Bangladesh in an advantageous position.

OUTSOURCING:

TechnoVista specializes in the implementation and support of Business and

Enterprise solutions as well as security and software deployment technologies in the
area of power, trading, healthcare, education, finance and many other segments.

Quality:

TechnoVista is an ISO 9001:2000 certified Software and ICT services company .

Products:

• Vista HR Manager

• Vista e-Attendance

• Vista GL

Services:

• Offshore Outsourcing

• Business Process Outsourcing

• Customized Software

• Web based Solutions

• IT Consultancy
 • System Design & Implementation

• System Integration

HR Vista:

HR Vista is a human resources technology company dedicated to delivering the best

workforce analytics solutions in the industry. With a proven record of success, HR
Vista provides workforce analytics solutions, which meet objectives of senior
leadership, meet managers’ requests for data, and create more human capital
value. HR Vista has the tools to take human capital management to the next level.

Vista HR Manager is a comprehensive automated solution for Human Resources

Management, Payroll and Provident Fund to support HR and Finance Department. It
is designed to process and provide all information starting form recruitment till final
settlement at one click. This product has been developed with extensive HR and
Finance domain knowledge under consultation of experienced HR and Finance
managers.

Equipped with a dynamic query analyzer the Vista HR manager has a sophisticated
and intelligent report generating system enabling the users to find the best possible
answers by setting multiple criteria at the shortest possible time. The system also
provides predefined reports, which are used by the HR Managers on regular basis.
The architectural design of the software is highly flexible which can be customized
according to the user's requirements. Multinational and local large corporate
organizations are currently using this software extensively.

Vista HR manager is broadly defined by the three basic responsibilities of an

organization's HR Department - HRM Module, Payroll Module and Provident Fund
Module.

Human Resources Management Module:

The outstanding features of Vista Human Resource Management Module have made
the application to be more users friendly, fulfilling the user requirements at utmost.
The module provides a range of HR solutions ranging from analyses of application
data through to the basic demographic data of employees.
The module includes the following features:

Features Description

System Allow you to declare your own/company-defined

Flexibility/Setup expression/term as required.

Recruitment Keeps record of information from advertisement to joining.

Employee
Information Preserves the record of all employee related data.
Management

Tracks down the information related to employee training

Training
with the legal bond.

By defining your leave type with the maximum entitled

and yearly carry over limit, you can monitor and receive
Leave
leave related information from the system with the
encashment.

Generates any pre-formatted letter related to HR. You can

Letter
also modify the letter instantly.

Travel Keeps record of travel related data of the employees.

Claim & Maintains the data related to claim and separation of

Separation employee.

Includes some predefined format for the award or

Award
recognition program of employee.

Includes Vista Utility Manager for handling security related

Security
issues.

HR Reports Provides you with more than 30 professional management

 reports.

• Payroll Module

Vista Payroll Module greatly reduces the workload of your HR department by

automating the payroll process, allowing HR to ensure that payroll functions are
completed on time and without errors.

Following features are included in the Payroll Module:

Features Description

System Allows you to declare your own/company-defined

Flexibility/Setup expression/term as required.

Keeps the salary information of each and every employee.

Employee Salary Further, allows the user to modify/revise the salary with its
Management nature at any point of time. It takes the history of changing
salary information automatically.

Income Tax Preserves the tax process automatically.

Allows you to tracks down the information related to the

Bonus
declaration of bonus.

Supports any type of loan. Moreover, the loan deduction head

Loan will be automatically added in the monthly salary report.
Defining any loan head is not required.

Gratuity There two types of gratuity rules in this system. Those are
gratuity with provision and gratuity without provision. A
 company follows one of the gratuity rules.

Statement of
Includes the statement of perquisite.
Perquisite

Chalan/Waybill Allows you to keep the information regarding chalan/waybill.

Provides you with 20 professional management reports

Payroll Reports
related to payroll.

• Provident Fund Module

Vista HR Manager Provident Fund Module allows managing both the employer
and employee's provident fund contribution.

Vista Provident Fund Module includes the following features:

Features Description

System Allows you to declare your own/company-defined

Flexibility/Setup expression/term as required.

Reserves the opening balance of existing members. The

amount of opening balance divided into 2 (two)
Opening Balance
categories – one is the amount of contribution and other
is the amount of interest.

Preserves the information for the outgoing members.

The treatment of outgoing member includes – the
Outgoing Members balance of provident fund, LSPF, non-refundable loan,
interest, outstanding provident fund loan and
outstanding provident fund loan interest.

A portion of the company contribution may be

transferred to the forfeiture account when PF members
Forfeiture Account
leave the company. Net forfeited amount will be
distributed among the existing members.

Interest amount Net interest amount of Investment in this PF year will be

distribution among distributed according to his/her contribution amount
the existing PF after end of the PF year. If a member who have gone
 and withdraw his/her PF balance will not entitle interest
members.
amount.

Provides facility to create the balance of existing

member account. Further, allows you to re-process the
Year End Process
current year balance at any time. Provides you
information on the allocation rate of interest.

Provident Fund Provides you with number professional management

Reports reports related to provident fund.

Vista e-Attendance

Vista e-Attendance System is a web-based attendance system designed to automate employee

time and attendance for medium to large-sized businesses. The system can be customized
according to specific business needs and scalable to grow with the business. This unique
system is able to manage office entry and exit time of all employees from all levels and location
of the company. Further, this application is able to produce customized reports with accurate
information regarding employee attendance, and hence, dramatically reducing the number of
hours of employee timekeeping process.

Vista e-Attendance System is ideal for a wide range of industries where hourly and salaried
employee time needs to be tracked including: multinationals, banks, telecom, non-government
agencies, etc.

Vista e-Attendance System will allow your company to:

• Track employee time (time in and out, absences).

• Set up rules governing how employee time is accounted for (early in or out, late in or
out).

• Minimize payroll-processing time.

 • Reduce costly payroll and data entry errors

• Generate more than 20 professional management reports, which can be exported to MS

Excel or PDF format.

• Allow employees to view their own attendance and leave status reports.

Screen shot of E-attendance are given below:

The company uses SQL 2005 Enterprise Edition database system that is centrally
processed.

The Features Of Centralized Systems:

Central computer (mainframe) is used by usually a large computer (e.g., IBM System 9000) or a
minicomputer (e.g., DEC VAX 7000). In terms of companies’ structure, a specialized unit is
responsible for the management of such computers while its resources are available to all
companies’ staff. This unit is usually called computer (computing) center. The central computer
executes all data processing operations and calculations. The different departments have
terminals, linked to the central computer. Centralized data is stored in centralized data storage
under the control of the central computer. Centralized control. The system administrator is the
only one responsible for the data processing system. The system administrator authorizes user
access, supports the normal operation and protection of the system. The computer center staff
controls hardware and software.

MS SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition

The Enterprise Edition comes with all the features and advantages that the SQL Server 2005
platform has to offer. From medium-sized companies with immediate scaling concerns to the
larger enterprises that need to get the most out of their data, the Enterprise Edition includes all
the features found in the Standard Edition, along with additional enhancements that provide the
highest level of performance, high availability, and business intelligence features. The following
is a partial list of Enterprise specific enhancements along with a description of what these
enhancements provide:

Performance Enhancements
Peer to peer transactional replication - This technology allows for reads and modifications to be
performed on any of the databases participating in replication. This can improve application
performance by spreading out queries amongst multiple database servers.

Data partitioning - By splitting a table into smaller units (or partitions), you can improve the
performance and manageability of large tables and tables with varying access patterns

Parallel index operations - On servers with multiple processors and/or multi-core processors,
index statements can make use of multiple processors/cores to perform the scan and sort
operations just as other queries do

Asynchronous DB Mirroring - While the Standard Edition supports database mirroring, it only
does so in synchronous mode. Enterprise Edition supports asynchronous mode DB mirroring,
which allows for faster mirroring of data. This is ideal for scenarios in which the principal and
mirror servers are physically separated by a long distance

H/A Enhancements

Online indexing – This feature will allow you to query and update the underlying table during an
index operation, thus eliminating the need for exclusive locks
Online restore – As the name implies, this feature will allow the ability to perform a restore
operation while the database is online. Only the data being restored is unavailable, while the
rest of the database remains online

Fast recovery - Users can reconnect to a recovering database after the transaction log has been
rolled forward, thus providing a quicker turnaround time on database access during the recovery
process

Business Intelligence
Integration Services (SSIS) – Provides a rich set of tools for the development of business
applications. Merging data from different sources, populating data warehouses, cleaning and
standardizing data, all of these tasks can be accomplished through SSIS

Advanced Business Analytics – A set of technologies aimed at reducing the amount of effort
required to generate uniform reports against a variety of formats, mine critical data for
meaningful relationships, and forecast results with predictive analytics

The hardware of the system is IBM P-series. The company currently has
approximately 200 servers.

The IBM eServer® p5 520 system is a new breed of entry server for small and
medium-sized businesses and distributed system for large enterprises. Fast and
affordable, it is packed with features and functions that can be found in the most
sophisticated systems from IBM. The p5-520 is designed to run the AIX 5L™, IBM's
industrial-strength UNIX, and the Linux operating systems

The versatility, leading-edge performance and manageability position the eServer

p5 520 as a branch server, small database server or e-business platform for
enterprises of all sizes. The p5-520 server can handle mission-critical e-business
applications, secure Web transactions and small data marts for business
intelligence. It can also be clustered into powerful high performance computing
(HPC) clusters.

Common features

• 19" rack-mount or desk side packaging

• 2-way SMP design
• 64-bit POWER5 technology
• Mainframe-inspired RAS including selective dynamic firmware updates
• Dynamic LPAR support
• Advanced POWER™ Virtualization (option)
o Micro-Partitioning™ (up to 20 micro-partitions)
o Shared processor pool
o Virtual I/O Server with Integrated Virtualization Manager
o Partition Load Manager (AIX 5L™ only)
• Up to four optional I/O drawers
• HACMP™ support for near continuous operation
 • Supported by AIX 5L (V5.2 and V5.3) and Linux® distributions from Red Hat,
Inc. (RHEL AS 3 or 4) and SUSE LINUX (SLES 9)
• Cluster 1600 support with Cluster Systems Management software

Hardware summary

• Desk side or 4U 19" rack-mount packaging

• Two 64-bit 1.65GHz POWER5 processors
• 1.9MB L2 and 36MB L3 cache
• 1GB to 32GB of 266MHz DDR1 memory
• Six PCI-X adapter slots (two - 32-bit/66MHz ; four - 64-bit/133MHz)
• Four standard and four optional hot-swappable SCSI disk bays for up to 2.4TB
of internal storage
• Maximum I/O drawers add an additional 28 PCI-X slots and 48 disk bays
(14.4TB)
• Dual channel Ultra320 SCSI controller (internal only; RAID optional)
• Two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports
• Optional 2 Gigabit Fibre Channel, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 4x InfiniBand®
adapters
• Two USB, two HMC, two system ports
• Two slimline and one standard media bay

Before the installation of the system, HR managers could not have viewed all three
components in a single application. So there was lack of feasibility and efficiency in
their day-to-day operations. Moreover, the employees had to give input into
different applications. But now, the HR mangers can manage information such as
payroll, leave, and attendance efficiently and the employees can now only login to
this one application and view all these components easily. The system is now more
users friendly for the employees. It complete automated, faster than before and
completely efficient.

CISCO Switch:
BRAC Bank uses CISCO switches (Catalyst 3750 Series) for networking. The Cisco® Catalyst®
3750 Series switches are innovative switches that improve LAN operating efficiency by
combining industry-leading ease of use and the highest resiliency available for stackable
switches. This product series features Cisco StackWise technology, which is a 32 Gbps stack
interconnects that allows customers to build a unified, highly resilient switching system-one
switch at a time.

CISCO Catalyst 3750 Series Switches

Service and Support Features Benefits

Cisco Total Implementation Solutions _ Project management _ Supplement existing staff

(TIS),
Available Directly from Cisco
Cisco Packaged TIS, Available
Through Resellers
_ Site survey, configuration, and _ Help ensure functions meet needs
deployment _ Mitigate risk
_ Installation, text, and cutover
_ Training
_ Major moves, adds, and changes
_ Design review and product staging

Cisco SMARTnet® Support and
SMARTnet Onsite Support, Available
Directly from Cisco
Cisco Packaged SMARTnet Support,
Available Through Resellers
_ 24-hour access to software
updates
_ Web access to technical
repositories
_ Telephone support through the
Cisco Technical
Assistance Center (TAC)
_ Advance replacement of hardware
parts
_ Facilitate proactive or expedited
issue
resolution
_ Lower TCO by taking advantage of
Cisco expertise and knowledge
_ Minimize network downtime
 UTP Cable CAT-5

The switches are connected using UTP cables (category 5).

An UTP cable (category 5) is one of the most popular LAN cables. This cable consists
of 4 twisted pairs of metal wires (that means there are 8 wires in the cable). Adding
RJ45 connectors at both ends of the UTP cable, it comes a LAN cable they usually
use.

Backup & Security System

The company does data clustering, for their back-up purposes, once in a week. A
computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in
many respects they form a single computer. Clusters are usually deployed to
improve performance and/or availability over that of a single computer, while
typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable
speed or availability.

Apart from clustering they also use Hardware Tapes for data backup. Each tape is of
800GB in size. The company has got more than 500 of these hardware tapes and it
currently has more than 3000 computers.

Power Backup

The company uses generators and online UPS for power backup. The generators
support the company’s functions in an event of power loss. For example: during the
cyclone Sidr, there wasn’t electricity in the city for seven days and during that
period that company went on with its function with the help of its generator backup.
Password Security

All the employees of the BRAC Bank have to change their password every month.
The password once used cannot be used again in the following next 3 months. The
password should be of 8 characters and must have at least 1 alphabet and 1
number.

ISS (Internet Security System)

IT security plays a central role in protecting data, assets, and ultimately, the company’s brand.
Security also enables business productivity and innovation by preserving data accessibility and
usability, while preventing insider and external threats.

IBM Data Security Services helps the company cost-effectively identify and protect critical data
from internal and external threats, offering adaptable solutions for network data loss prevention,
endpoint encryption, endpoint data loss prevention, and log analysis management. It helps to
create data protection solutions for specific environment. IBM consultants and specialists have
experience with a wide range of industry solutions and IT architectures to help organizations of
all sizes quickly adopt a data protection solution. IBM's streamlined approach supports
collaboration across the enterprise while protecting data in transit or at rest - without slowing
business.

Internet threats to systems and data can impede business innovation, limit productivity and
damage compliance efforts. The company needs preemptive threat mitigation solutions that
protect across the entire IT infrastructure without adding unnecessary cost and complexity.

IBM Identity and Access Management Services help to design, implement, deploy and maintain
an integrated identity management system. Such a system can standardize access
management across platforms for users, devices, applications and business processes.

Potential benefits include:

• Insights into the business intelligence that help set strategic direction

• Simplified protection of company’s valuable, business-critical and/or confidential data

• Controlled data access for collaboration and sharing

• Protection against corruption and interception with advanced encryption

• Reduced risk of regulatory noncompliance

Intrusion Detection System (IDS)

An Intrusion detection system (IDS) is software and/or hardware designed to detect

unwanted attempts at accessing, manipulating, and/or disabling computer systems,
mainly through a network, such as the Internet. These attempts may take the form
of attacks, as examples, by crackers, malware, and/or disgruntled employees. IDS
cannot directly detect attacks within properly encrypted traffic. An intrusion
detection system is used to detect several types of malicious behaviors that can
compromise the security and trust of a computer system. This includes network
attacks against vulnerable services, data-driven attacks on applications, host-based
attacks such as privilege escalation, unauthorized logins and access to sensitive
files, and malware (viruses, Trojan horses, and worms).

Capital Investment

The term capital investment has two usages in business. Firstly, capital investment refers to
money used by a business to purchase fixed assets, such as land machinery or buildings.
Secondly, Capital Investment refers to money invested in a business with the understanding
that the money will be used to purchase fixed assets, rather than used to cover the business'
day-to-day operating expenses. From the company’s perspective, the systems is used as a
capital investment since it facilitates its HR functions and are not directly related to generating
revenue.

RECOMMENDATION

• Though the system is completely efficient, the company could also take few additional
steps such as notifying the employees when they are late and asking for a feedback.

• The company does data backup once in a week; instead it could take backup every day
so as to mitigate the probability of data loss.

• It could also strengthen its password security by implementing at least one caps
alphabet, one symbol along with one number & one small alphabet.
References:

• http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/offerfamily/gts/a1027705

• http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/offerfamily/gts/a1027702

• http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/offerfamily/gts/a1027703

• http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/offerfamily/gts/a1027701

• https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/docs/ds_catalyst_3750.pdf

• http://www.technovista.com.bd/e_attendance.php

• www.bracbank.com

• www.cisco.com

• http://www.technovista.com.bd/company_profile.php

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusion_detection_system
 ASSIGNMENT
MIS-442 (02)

PREPARED BY:
Mahmudul Hasan ID#0630111
Naimul Islam ID#0630199
Tarik Aman ID#0630200
Mohammad Junaid ID#0630243
Rubayet Tasnim ID#0630066

PREPARED FOR: EMRAN

SALAHUDDIN