Information System - Fast Food Business - Case Study Example

Information System - Fast Food Business Name Class Unit 1. Fast food industry is one of the largest business sectors globally (Scherer, 2010). The industry is highly competitive with large firms such as McDonalds and Subway dominating it. Over the past years, the industry has been criticised over unhealthy food which have led to most of them changing to a healthy menu. The main focus of the fast food industry in its service delivery is to give the customers satisfaction within the shortest time possible. The industry has thus adopted technology to enable them offer efficient and fast services. There is also use of modern packaging and web portals which enables a customer to make online orders. During past years, technology was not utilised in the fast food industry. At the moment, fast food industry has been transformed by technology. Knowledge is a valuable asset in the business (Anantatmula, 2005). In the fast food industry, the main data collected is; target customer profiles, number of purchases ordered online, competitors activities, customer experience, suppliers’ information and trends in the industry. This information enables the business to operate more efficiently and economically. The information is kept in the business database and utilised to improve the industry (Checkland & Holwell, 1998). Data on consumer profile is very vital in determining the means in which to reach the target customers. For example, the business can use social media to reach their target customer if the data shows that most of the users are in the social media. The data are also useful in making tailored advertising campaigns and also determining the channel to use. The information on online orders is vital in determining the success of the web portal. The business can use this information to determine whether it has succeeded in e commerce. Through the information, the business can redesign the website to make it more attractive and increase traffic. The business is required to check on competitor activities. The industry is highly competitive with large players such as McDonalds and Pizza hut. This implies that there is a need to keep check on their activities in order to maintain a competitive edge. By having knowledge of the competitors’ activities, it becomes possible to determine the means in which to remain competitive in the industry. Customer experience data is also vital and needs to be collected in the business. The data will enable the business to determine whether they are able to serve customers well (Lucey, 2005). Customer experience alerts the business on service failure and hence makes it possible to improve services. In the fast food industry, customer experience is very vital as it acts as a bench mark. Suppliers’ information is also gathered and stored by the business. This enables the business to determine the best supplier through evaluation and also monitor their effectiveness. Information gathered on the trends in the industry helps in the improvement. For example, there have been pushed to a healthy diet in most countries which have made fast food industry to change their menu. This is a trend that has to be observed as the consumers have become more health conscious (Scherer, 2010). 2. Fast food industry uses business intelligence to gain useful knowledge that helps it to improve strategic decisions. There are several knowledge management systems in use in the industry (Anantatmula, 2005). The system allows the managers and employees to share knowledge and experience. One of the important systems used by the fast food industry is data mining. The industry uses the software to gather consumer data through business intelligence. The system involves automatic discovery of patterns which is carried out in databases (Galbreath, 2000). The Fast food industry is well known in customer relationship management (CRM). The system is used by the industry to manage the customer interactions. This is through sales, advertisement, Customer service and programs which are specifically designed to enhance customer loyalty. CRM is made up of several components. The main components are contact management, sales management and customer support (Davenport & Glaser, 2002). CRM has been an important tool in fast food marketing. Fast food consumers are satisfied when their expectations are met and even exceeded by the company. The business is able to benefit since satisfied customers are able to remain loyal and are less price sensitive. Through a good relationship management, the customers are able to talk favourably about the company. Customers are an important aspect in any successful company. Fast food business uses CRM software which enables them to gain valuable information about their customers, which can make the customer feel wanted and special (Davenport & Prusak, 2000). The software is combined with employee training on customer relationship theory. The software enables customers to stay in touch with the target customers. CRM software also plays a very crucial part in customer retention in the company. Due to complexity of the processes involved in CRM such as data collection and analysis, the business uses more than one piece of software. As fast food industry depends on repeat business, elaborate customer retention must be in place (Firestone, 2001). 3. In the fast food industry, technology plays a very vital role. One of the areas where technology is mostly utilised is in the supply chain. The entire supply chain in the fast food business is powered through technology. The suppliers utilises SAP while the distributors uses RAMCO Marshall ERP. The software that is utilised by the distributors is Cobra. Using these systems, the business supply chain is able to automatically upload orders in stores. There are also technologies which help in tracking sales, produce working schedule for employees and make online orders. The technological system utilised by the company have its hardware carefully selected to meet the future needs (Maier, 2007). Computer hardware has been evolving fast due to technological breakthroughs. The storage required by the company should be in the form of Terabytes. As the business expands, there is a need to move to grid computing. This involves situation where collection of computers owned by different individuals are used to solve a common problem. Secondary storage is needed for the organisation success. Fast food industries rely on different storage options by combining them. Use of large secondary storage is very common in the fast food industry. Use of network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN). Use of Virtual tape can also be used to store less frequently used data. This helps the organisation to store the data in slower but cheap storage system as the data is less often used hence saving space on faster hard disks. Using the virtual tape technology, the organisation can lower the access time, costs and the space that tape operation uses. Flash drives can be used by the staffs that travel from one restaurant to another. This is due to their convenient size and convenience in connectivity to the Universal Serial Bus (USB). The fast food industries, desktop computers are kept for a period of four years while note books and laptops for two to three years. The most popular software used is the Microsoft windows 7 and 8. The computers are supposed to have a processor speed higher than 2MB and a hard drive with large storage space amounting to Terabyte (Maier, 2007). Leasing is the best method to use in computer systems. This is due to the fact that companies offering lease are able to offer upgrades when needed. There is also less responsibility when disposing off. Most of the fast food industries offer wireless to the customers. This is through the use of the IEEE 802.11 series of communication standards. Due to the global nature of the industry, wide area network is utilised (WAN). This ties together different geographic locations. Use of Virtual private Network (VPN) is needed in the business. This is the use of internet to connect to different remote locations. The fact that VPN connects to long distance makes it to be considered as a form of wide area network. The connections are encrypted but utilises a third party service provider. Through encryption, the data sent is safe. VPNs are safe, reliable and cheap in an organisation. The business has to utilise communication since it enables sending all types of information over long distances and fast (Dias, 2002). 4. Fast food business have been utilising several tools in collecting and analysing data. Business intelligence software and data mining are the main tools used. Business intelligence is used to gather the right information in a timely manner by the organisation. BI is also used in analysing the collected data. Business intelligence involves gathering the company expertise and utilising it where it has the greatest payoff. Through data mining, the business is able to automatically retrieve data using patterns and relationships. BI involves people, procedures, data, hardware and the needed knowledge which can develop a computer system with an ability to show intelligence (Dixon, 2002). To design an effective knowledge management system, fast food industry utilises seven steps. The first step is identifying the business problem (Frappaolo, 2002). A clear business problem which needs to be solved must be identified and aligned with knowledge management. The business objectives are then matched with the knowledge management system in place. The second step involves preparing for change. By preparing for change, the organisation is able to create a collaborative culture which encourages all employees to participate in meeting the organisation objectives. The organisation members are able to share information if they are already prepared for the change. The business leader support is the key to enable the knowledge management system to succeed (Firestone, 2001). The third step involves creating a team. Having a good team, which have a strong leader and expertise is needed for successful implementation of knowledge management system. The team members are supposed to be familiar with the problem being solved and the processes to be involved. The team members are supposed to be well versed with knowledge management. The employees in the team are supposed to be aware of the content relevance and also ability to filter the information (Firestone, 2001). The fourth step involves performing knowledge audit. Through this it is possible to identify the knowledge sources that can help the organisation to solve the existing business problem. The employees are supposed to locate the knowledge they require in order to solve a specific problem. The process is long and in most cases tedious. There is need to identify what is missing by analysing the available knowledge (Firestone, 2001). Through organising the available knowledge, the organisation is able to know the available intellectual capital. The individuals in the industry are thus capable of navigating easily to the needed information. The fifth step involves defining the key features. This helps to enhance the overall IT infrastructure in the organisation. The system used must adhere to the industry standard such as TCP/IP. Distribution can be carried out through servers. The management system must be utilised well to avoid bottlenecks. This is a result of using inadequate hardware or inappropriate software. The management system must be customizable in order to reflect the unique products and processes that a business have. The company utilises software such as Java script or HTML to achieve customisation (Gallaugher, 2010). The next step involves looking at the building blocks that are to be used for knowledge management. These are technological blocks that represent each phase of implementation. Each of the blocks lays a foundation for the next phase. As the number of information sources increases, users are faced with difficulty finding the right information (Davenport & Prusak, 2000). Clustering and knowledge mapping are technologies that enable the user to mine knowledge. There is also designing of the knowledge warehouse. This provides security and storage of the metadata. It also provides an infrastructure for the users to locate the information. The last step in the knowledge management involves linking the knowledge to people. Knowledge directory has the capability to enable users to share tacit knowledge. Each of the employees is associated with certain knowledge, making it easier to manage it (Dixon, 2002). 6. The fast food industry has been very competitive and the operators have to be more efficient in order to increase revenue. Information management systems have become a key area is thus very vital. The business handles large amount of information which makes it hard to keep track of all information. One of the business intelligence software in use is the MicroStrategy (MicroStrategy, 2007). The software allows the business to report, analyse and collect data. The ability of the software to run a massive amount of information makes it a valuable tool in the industry. The business uses the software to effectively reach their consumers and reduce the cost of operation. Using the software, it becomes easy to manage the available resources and maximise the capacity of information gathering. The software enables the business to reach a wider audience and give a vast amount of transactional data (MicroStrategy, 2007). The uses of business intelligence software in fast food business are far reaching. The business has to process data from different sources (Laudon & Laudon, 2000). There is data from online sources and offline sources. This makes the available data to reach to terabytes range. The MicroStrategy software has the capability to handle this. It enables sourcing data from different areas, identifying relationship and analyse. The industry has to analyse data from different sources in order to understand customer needs. The software has an easy website customisation which enables users to get relevant information (Dixon, 2002). The software has an extranet application which makes it possible to track relevant information both online and from database. There is range of reporting analysis which makes it possible to have a market analysis. The software offers the most useful way of analysing information to gain the best results. Areas where the software is utilised are; store analysis, customer analysis, merchandise management, inventory management, supplier performance management, market and e-commerce analysis, market basket analysis, category management and loss prevention. With the high competition in the sector, the business has to be a step ahead. Competitive advantage can be achieved through utilisation of this type of software (MicroStrategy, 2007). The software requires an operating system based on windows 7 or 8. The computer RAM must be above 2 GB and adequate storage in terms of Terabytes to store the processed information. The software requires a fast computer as a lot of information is processed within a short time. This avoids issues such as software not responding or system instability which can lead to loss of data. The industry has also been venturing into cloud computing. Using cloud computing, it is possible to save revenue as there is no need to buy expensive hardware and other IT equipments. In order to effectively utilise the software, the license is multiuser though there are cases where single user license is utilised. Multiple user licence allows a group of users to utilise the software. For example, it can be utilised by 30 users if the licence is a 30-user license. Single user license is utilised where the user of the software is one. The software is then installed in a single computer. The entire hardware requirement must be met for the software to work appropriately (MicroStrategy, 2007). 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