The Progress of the Bakery Firm - Assignment Example

Name: Reg no: Institution: Date: Table of Contents AIS 3 Executive summary 3 Overview 3 Examples of Accounting Software 7 SAP 7 XERO 8 MYOB 9 Conclusion 10 AIS Executive summary The paper will address the progress of the bakery firm. It will highlight the strategies set in order to maximize its profit. For the last years the firm has been making a lot of profits; however, the management feels that more information is required in order to widen the market share. The paper will address the relevant information required by the firm for an efficient operation and a smooth running. Though the firm has a qualified accountant who keeps all the books of account, the firm also requires investing in the accounting software which is more accurate and reliable. The paper will, therefore, address three software vendors’ website and recommend whether the firm will require a low, medium, or a high-end software according to the category selected (Decock, &Cappelle, 2005). The paper will also compare and contrast features of any accounting software packages before recommending the suitable software for the firm. The firm will also address some of the crucial activities it should undertake in order to meet its goal. Overview The firm has employed a number of employees who adds up to 70 of them. Among the 70 employees are 25 bakers and 12 baker assistants. These bakers and their assistants have made the progress of the business successful. The bakers are entitled to the following tasks; they are to check the quality of the ingredient in order for the firm to produce the best quality of products in the market. They are to prepare the baking equipment; they are to weigh the ingredients as well as the flour, after measuring the ingredient in their right ratios they are to mix them, they then knead the dough, roll it, cut and shape it into the desired shapes. After shaping the dough the bakers will then place it on the hot pans, sheet or on the molds. They are to regulate the oven temperatures by adjusting it to the suitable degrees. The bake items are then placed in the hot oven; the bakers observe the color of the baked items. Finally, the bakers will apply the toppings such as glazes using a brush (Ocampo, & Barrientos, 2008). Their assistants have the following roles, in the case of heavy flour sacks they will assist the bakers to lift them, and secondly, they offer assistance to the bakers in the operation of the baking machinery. They are mandated to the sanitization of the baking gears, machinery, and other baking tools. Finally, the baker assistants are to decollate the bake items ensuring that the consumers are satisfied. Apart from supplying goods to the pub chains and to the supermarket, the firm has been providing it services during special events such as weddings ceremonies, anniversaries and birthday parties. For that reason, the bakers are in a position to design cakes with different shape and decorations depending on the event. Such cakes include; wedding cakes, layer cakes, sheet cakes and tiered cakes. A bakery requires setting some strategies that will enable them to come up with strong brands. They also need to develop some infrastructure that will enable the bakery to grow and access to more business opportunities. These strategies are known as strategic growth opportunities (SGOs). These SGOs methodologies will touch all possibilities of growth (Degbey, &Pelto, 2013). The table below will give the SGOs indicating their strategic plans that will help the business to grow. SGOs The strategies aiming to the growth of the business A. Penetration of the market 1. Case display • This is an opportunity to show the baking items attracting more customers 2. Creating a loyalty program- this acts as a promotion to the consumers, by purchasing a given amount of items you are given extra free. This will increase a word of mouth advert. B. Development of the market • Attend to markets out of the town- this will help reach many customers. The use of social media would also be helpful to advertise the commodities. • Create a connection with the local bloggers. The bloggers mainly aim to have their posts reached by many people in the social media. The bloggers would, therefore, help reach many consumers. C. use of alternative channels a) Selling the commodities via the website- this would be quite challenging though to order the baked items since they are perishable. However, it would be effective to book for the ceremony and party services which require some time for planning. b) By use of joint markets with other local business that produces complementary goods. This will encourage more consumers to purchase the bakery goods. c) Selling through distributors- this would ensure that the firm is able to raise its revenue by increasing the volume of its sales D. development of the products Coming up with new bakery items- the bakery should adjust according to the demands of the consumers already in existence, or design new products for new consumers and this will enable the consumers to buy the items that will satisfy them E. New products targeting new consumers Events such as weddings will require new products. The target consumers are the clients at the wedding ceremonies or at the birthday parties All these indispensable activities are aimed at expansion of the market shares and hence maximizing the profit of the business. This also aims at popularization of the goods in order to attract more consumers. The strategies also are put in place to make sure that the products meet the desires of all the consumers both in the town and those in the out-of-town markets. In the ICT investment, the business needs to use a number of software to ensure that the company achieves ICT investment. In the ICT investment the following components are crucial; communication equipment, software, and IT equipment. The software used in the ICT investment should have the following properties: it should have a short time to implement, the software should have either no or little customization in the adaptation of the software to the business. The other characteristic is that there should be sufficient high-performance facilities in order to communicate with the applications such as the operational application. The financial software will be feed with data from different kind of sources but have to deliver the data smoothly. Transferring the data manually would be tedious and time-consuming. The other property of a software is that if should be easy to create strong outlines, and reports by yourself without the intervention of other people; implying that the software should be easy to operate ensuring that you can reach the date and the analysis with ease. The software should be user-friendly implying that the software should ensure that it improves the efficiency of the user by making sure that it is fast and also accurate. The software should also be quick to update. This will ensure that there are minimum risks that may arise in the business. Such risks may include hacking of the software. Generally, the software should ensure the efficiency of the business. They should be used to solve the challenges that may occur in the business such as time consumption, inaccuracy in the data analysis, ensure efficiency in communication in all the department among other crucial roles. Accounting software are compulsory for any business, they will help to keep track business revenues, the business expenses, keep the track of customer information and also keep the financial data of the business. Accounting software is also useful in the process of decision making since the reports and budget are timely presented and analyzed. The business accounting software can be the main source of the business information. It is important to note that there is a challenge in the selection of any business software. For one to choose the best accounting software on should the basics of the business accounting. The following are examples of accounting software packages: Examples of Accounting Software SAP 1. SAP- this stands for systems application and products in the processing of data. This software was founded by Wellenreuther, Plattner, Hopp, Tschira and Hector in the year 1972. This software is known to consist of modules integrated together in order to cover all the business aspects of its management. In the entire world, Sap is ranked third largest software, with the first being Microsoft and oracle as position two. In the integration of all the areas of a given business SAP R/3 is used. The software also offers an end to end financial, logistics, manufacturing, and distribution solutions. This software is known to serve about 335,000 customers globally, in about 190 countries. Most of the businesses in these countries are ranges from small sized businesses to medium-sized businesses (SMB). According to the recent statistics, 75% of all the world transactions come into contact with the SAP system. The company offers the following services, offers the following deployment models, hybrid and on-premises Carroll, & Buchholtz, 2014). The company is focusing on cloud computing as a future plan. SAP’s ERP has enabled the integration of all the business processes which includes; sales, production, accounting, human resources, and payment. All these processes are integrated into one environment ensuring that there is a smooth flow of business information from one component to the other SAP component without entering any data. This is very useful concept in the enforcement of legal, financial and process control. In the management of any business, a unified system is required. SAP for that reason has a number of modules which ensures the business operates on a unified system. These modules include production planning (PP), project system (PS), human capital management (HCM), material management (MM), financial accounting (FI), sales and distribution (SD), quality management (QM), plant maintenance (PM) and controlling (CO). it should also be noted that the ECC SAP version is used in the large and medium-sized businesses and it is a version of the on-premises (Ryan, & Mizerski, 2010). XERO 2. Xero- this software can be described is an accounting software that is used online. It is easy to use and purposely designed for small businesses. The software is easy to use since it is readily available online and one can login using mobile, PC or mac. There are an automatic importation and categorization of the bank statement enabling someone to have clear information on the flow of cash in the real time. It is also easy to invite and collaborate with the team members in the updating of one's numbers. This software consists of all the components that are necessary for all business operations. These may include; sales tax returns, paying bills, reporting and invoicing. Xero software is useful in the integration of all the business accounts which include; business bank accounts, business instant deposit accounts, commercial current account, business foreign currency accounts, community current account, and client premium deposit account. However, the Xero account does not integrate with the following accounts. Insolvency practitioner account, community fixed term deposit account, business fixed term deposit account, flexible client term deposit account and community instant access deposit account (Kumar, 2013). There are a number of customers who face some challenges connecting to Xero accounts. These challenges arise from a mismatch of personal information. The following are the common mismatches in the Xero account; invalid user- this happens in case the email of the user does not match with the email provided in the Xero account. The invalid organization is another mismatch. In case the name of the organization does not match with the name in the Xero’s account, then mismatch will be realized and the company may not be in a position to log in. MYOB 3. MYOB- this is a short term for Mind your own business. The software was created in the year 1987 by Craig Winkler and Brad Shofer. This account was meant for a small business. This software allows the online collaboration ensuring both access to your account and also ensuring that the business is updated. The employees are also in a position to access the full information of the business online. The software also can offer MYOB kounta, MYOB PayDirect, EFTPOS. MYOB accounting software is easy to use (Swanson, & Wang, 2005). This is also simple software for the SMEs. The bakery is a small business enterprise. The firm requires a medium accounting software. It operates with about 70 employees. This is a characteristic of a medium business. The following are the similarities between Xero and MYOB: the two are applicable in computers, tablets and mobiles. They update automatically. The two have a constant online back. They also encourage a multiple user access. However, the two differ in a number of ways which includes; MYOB takes a little bit longer in the reporting. This is because the reports will run one at a time. yMYOB unlike the Xero will offer a quotation system. The other significance difference is that there are many confusing versions of MYOP unlike Xero. Xero accounting software would serve the best for the bakery. This is because it is easy to use. The firm needs to subscribe to the Xero Company and easily start to operate. The company will also require less capital to start. It is also easy to integrate all business accounts and be in a position to monitor the progress of the account. Conclusion In conclusion, firm will be in a position to integrate all the business processes by the help of the accounting software. This will make it easier for decision making since the analysis will be timely. It will also be easy to communicate among all the business activities. This will ensure that there is smooth flow of capital within the entire enterprise. Planning for the business will be easy since it is easy to monitor all the business activities, such as payment, the business revenue among other crucial business operations. The business also should make sure that they implement the set strategies in order to expand their market shares. This will enable them reach to many customer and also provide competitive products in the market. In order to advertise their products the bakery should uses all means such the social media through the local bloggers and also through print media to advertise their products. The firm does not only supply their products to the supermarket, retailers and the local shops. They also extend their services to the weddings, to birthday parties, and other ceremonies. This has contributed to the increase in the revenues of the firm. The firm has also another advantage in that it has a number of qualified bakers and assistant bakers. They offer qualified services which makes the baked items competitive in the market. The aim of the firm to have an accounting program will be an added advantage since accountability will be easy and fast and also the accountant will be in a position to give the reports as soon as the information is required. References Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A., 2014. Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Nelson Education. Decock, P. and Cappelle, S., 2005. Bread technology and sourdough technology. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 16(1), pp.113-120. Degbey, W. and Pelto, E., 2013. Cross-border M&A as a trigger for network change in the Russian bakery industry. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 28(3), pp.178-189. Kumar, J., 2013, July. Gamification at work: Designing engaging business software. In International Conference of Design, User Experience, and Usability (pp. 528-537). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Magal, S.R. and Word, J., 2011. Integrated business processes with ERP systems. Wiley Publishing. Ocampo, A. and Barrientos, A., 2008. From the bakery to the brain business: developing inducible yeast models of human neurodegenerative disorders. BioTechniques, 45(4), p.VII. Ryan, M.M. and Mizerski, K., 2010. Place branding for sustainable futures: A case study. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 6(1), pp.49-57. Scott, R.E., 2007. Hoffman v. Red Owl Stores and the Myth of Precontractual Reliance. Ohio St. LJ, 68, p.71. Strebel, J. and Stage, A., 2010. An economic decision model for business software application deployment on hybrid Cloud environments. Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2010, p.47. Swanson, E.B. and Wang, P., 2005. Knowing why and how to innovate with packaged business software. Journal of Information Technology, 20(1), pp.20-31. Read More