Management Information System for Small Business - Case Study Example

?Management Information System for Small business This project will provide a better solution to the problem of the concerned company within the cost constraint yet trying to help the company to effectively keep and manage its important records by making a little investment. By the future enhancements this project opens many doors of opportunities for the company. Company Background: Concerned company: The concerned company is “Mini treats” which is small company selling cupcakes and sweets. Brief Company History: Mini treats is formed since 2008 and working effectively. The objective of this shop is to sell sweets & cupcakes. Amal Saif started the business with help of her family since December 2008. “Amal Saif “is the owner of the shop and she has 2 employees who assist her in cooking & sale and take orders. And they are making a great repute amongst customer. Vision: The company’s core mission is to provide its customers a verity in sweets market. In the current age of globalization, the taste buds are acquiring some thing new almost every day. Food and food production are affecting our surroundings and capturing us in subtle and profound ways. Our food choices changes every day and with every individual it is now far more beyond only filling your appetite. Mini treats vision goes beyond daily bread to working more mindfully and providing the living community the better taste and especially making their sweet moments pleasurable with our wide range of sweets and cup cakes. Mission: Mini treats is totally an environmental based company working towards the satisfaction of its customer. Our core mission is to provide the best and the quality in our sweets also making it assure that they are according to the taste of all age levels. The sweets we provide must cover all the health measures. We also ensure that we follow and restrict our self in making environment clean and healthy. Information Systems Strategy: A very basic information system (a simple desktop computer as hardware and Ms excel to keep the record) is in use at Mini Treats as it is a small company and having only three employees that’s the whole works is divided between all three so the owner takes control of all the transaction like she answer calls to take orders she write everything in a note book. And at the end of the day she put it in the excel program. In that way she knows the daily sales. Moreover she has a contract with three suppliers. One supplier for flour, sugar, oil, Milk & butter, second supplier is for sweet flavors and decoration colors and the third supplier is for cakes boxes. Stakeholders Who are the stakeholders of the project? There are two main stakeholder the group is currently working on the project and the initiative department of that project is the basic stake holder as they acquired all the information regarding the under discussion company. What are their roles and responsibilities? The major role of the group is to do a complete analysis of the company and its undergone information system and suggesting the right measures to take to grow its business by a little investing. What are their information requirements? The information is acquired by the stake holder is the complete history of the company. The products it is selling and the information system it is using. Is it on a manual system or a little bit of information technology it is using. All the suppliers of the company must be clearly mentioned so that they will be helpful in designing a complete and effective management system. Current System: Mini treats is using a manual system. Though it does have computer and Microsoft excel in use but the whole process is still done manually as the owner of the company keep the record of daily order in a note book and at the end of the day she enters in the Excel sheet. The company also has suppliers of food products so the owner has to keep the record of all the transaction manually. She called them when to make a new order. And then keep the record of transactions in a note book. So though a computer system is there but still is not in use effectively. Problem Definition: Mini Treats use a manual system whereby, the cashiers (the owner) write down the appropriate information (that day’s profits, losses etc). Things like receipts and invoices are put first in notebook and then at the end of the day inserted in and Excel sheet. The core issue is now facing by the company is how to manage all the data regarding sales and suppliers orders. As the company is growing gradually and increasing its sale so the basic problem faced by the owner of the company to effectively manage all the information. Also she has to look for stock manually which is hectic job the product is out of stock and when will required immediately some times confused the owner. That cause the late supply and the major issue is transaction like sometimes it happens with the owner that she forgot and the transaction is not done on time. Scope of the project: The scope of the project covers all the basic requirements of the project also enlists the limitations of the project. What are the boundaries of the project? The project initially is designed to support the effective management of the information and keep the record of the sales and orders. The project does not include the payroll system. The system will only responsible to keep the records of sales, orders and make an automatic query to the suppliers in case of reduction of material. The system will not design to keep any other records related to employees or related to the expenditures of store like (electricity bills etc). What will it include? The system will be used is a TPS System (Transacting Processing System). “Transaction processing technology is the key to the coherent management and reliable exploitation of the computer based system” (Gray J) As the project will assist the owner in such a way that the system which have all the records of the products that are sold and when the customer order only press on the product and write the quantity and the system itself calculate the cost and it automatically workout the daily sales. Moreover the system will include an automatically contact with the supplier to provide with reduction materials (flour, sugar etc.) after that the system automatically orders for more materials. So the project includes the following features A database of sales Manages the stock Make automatic calls for order inquires What will not include? The system will not cover the following areas like Will not keep employees record Will not include any module to keep the record of bills etc Suggested solution: The suggested solution to the discussed problem is a simple yet efficient system which will manages all the essential records and yet it is very much cost effective as the company holds a small work place and so the suggested system will be TPS System (Transacting Processing System) which fully fulfills the requirements of this small business. It will assist the owner of Mini treats in a way that rather keeping the record manually and then inserted it in to EXCEL sheet it will manage it by itself. TPS will collect, store, modify, and retrieve the transactions of Mini treats. This system will be deployed in the owners system so it is a good way of cost cutting. It will work like it will keep the record of all the products that owner sale and when the customer order she only press on the product and write the quantity and the system itself calculate the cost which will save time and also it is error free, and it automatically workout the daily sales. So that it is very easy to generate monthly sales report rather calculating it manually and the owner can save her lot of time and effort. Moreover the system will include an automatically contact system with the supplier to provide with reduction materials (flour, sugar etc.) after that the system automatically order for more materials. Features of the Project: Description of the TPS: The deployed system will contain the following features Will manage the record of sales (edit, save, delete and retrieve) Will automatically calculate the amount of the order Will keep the record of stock Automatically notifies to the suppliers which material is out of stock A simple description of the system is that it will work and assist the whole staff in efficient way like it will save their time by many ways. It will work by keeping all the products record that Mini treat sales and when the customer order the staff only press on the product and write the quantity and the system itself calculate the cost and it automatically workout the daily sales. Moreover the system will include an automatic contact with the supplier to provide with reduction materials (flour, sugar etc.) after that the system automatically orders for more materials. System Diagram: The following system diagram elaborates the system processing completely as it has only node so the system and its relationships are not complex. The figure shows that when the data is entered in the system it will process by and fetch the result from the data bases and then return the out put at the same screen so there is no need of any other node. Constraints: The internal constraints: As we are dealing with small business so it really has some constraints internally and externally. Which are as follows: Internal constraints: The company is still growing and yet not has huge turn over so it is hard to convince its owner to invest amount on automated system as she is already using so called Pc and maintaining record of all its sales so she was a little sort of hesitant towards making the investment. The owner was considering it will not help her a lot at initial stages. Also she is hesitant to use the new technology. Also it may use more energy sources so the owner was more reluctant to it. External constraints: As the company is not big and do not crossing any boundaries so it will not bear many governmental restriction. But yes making sudden changes may become a reason to create any irritating feeling for the customer. As may be customer will feel that the bill may not be accurate. Future vs. Present: As the company growing its business so by the time it may evolve more technologically as according to requirement the system may add the payroll system too. Also initially it is a very basic and easy to use system but may require some sort of networking if it launches the online order system, which is future a suggestion. Other constraints: Other constraints may include the budget as may be in future the client may not go for more investment as she is already doing some. Feasibility : The feasibility of project include many aspects to consider but though this is implemented at very small level so it is very easy and require less time to implement it. The feasibility of the system is covered as follows Operational feasibility: Effective for participants and customers: The system will assist the staff of Mini treat in way that it reduces many of their tasks like manually editing and storing the data. And through this they will save their time. And the system will really help full for the customers of the shop that they do not need to wait very long especially in case of bigger order as the bill is calculated automatically. Management support: The biggest hurdle in the deployment of the system that does the management will support this project or not but after making the complete analysis and assumption to surety is made that because of the system effectiveness the management will surely support its implementation. As they are already seeking help from computer and using MS Excel so there is a higher possibility that they will understand its importance. Training requirement: Not much training is required to use this system as this is very system also have a better GUI and the advantage is the user are not naive they are used to of using the technology. User involvement in planning the system: User interaction and suggestion are very important as the user satisfaction is a must. The client is not a naive user so she will assist well in designing the system according to the requirement especially GUI. System demands from the user: The system is very simple and consists on one so it will not acquire much effort at the user end. A user with a little know how of computer can use it very easily. So it will never create any problem for the user. Will employees use the system? Another important thing is who will use the system so as per the current situation only the owner is the user of the system so it is not essential to create other user. As the owner is handling all the transaction so she must be assigned the administrative rights. Technical feasibility: The system also has some technical issues must be cleared and discussed before the designing and implementation of the system which are as follows Is it difficult to implement? The biggest question must be discussed while evaluating is whether it can be implemented or not? As doing complete research the system is easily implemented in the clients Pc as it is a very small company and the system is not a large and does not require any integration constraints. So the implementation of the system is not very difficult the advantage is the machine is not very old it has the required space and processing power. Hardware or software availability: Hardware requirement for this system is very basic such as a good quality of processing power which is already available while the software it acquired is the latest edition of Microsoft Office which is not much difficult to install and purchase. Will the company need IT experts? Do you have to hire them or are they available internally? The concerned company is working at small scale and the system designed for it is not very complex one so it only require a person to design and deploy it successfully in the owner’s system and after that no more technical staff is required to hire for its operation as the owner will use it so she needs a day practice and little assistance to use the system and after that she will for sure use it smoothly. Economical feasibility: The important question regarding system feasibility is whether it is in budget or not. It is perfectly in budget as the system is not a large one so it is very economical to purchase it. Cost/benefit analysis: The total cost reduces as the system will be implemented at the already in use computer and it only required the software which is Microsoft Excel and it is already installed in the system so the investment is only done in designing it. This is totally in the budget. The loss estimation: The TPS is a generic system and if the customer refuses to implement it so there may be chances that some other client will buy it as it can be easily deployed at other similar store with making little changes in to it. Schedule: As the project is for a small business so to design such system and for successfully implementation requires 30 days time period. Benefits: The project is beneficial for the company in the following aspects Save time Helps scheduling Efficiently save information Reliable billing system The project will open new opportunities for Mini treats as by launching their official website people can made online orders which will grow their sales incredibly but as it is part of the future enhancements. Recommendations and Conversion: “With the widespread of the availability of microcomputers, the cost of small business computer systems has been reduced to a point where nearly all businesses, no matter how small can afford the computer power for their information processing needs.”(William H) As the old system is now not fulfilling the current requirements of the company so it is now need of time to go for some innovation. Also the owner will love to expand the business so this is the best and most effective way to go. Also the proposed system is very cost effective and comes with penalty of opportunities for the company. The system will be successfully deployed after gaining the complete trust of the client. References: “Transaction processing system”, (Toru Mori) “Transaction processing: concepts and techniques”, (Jim Gray, Andreas Reuter) “Database Management Systems”, edition 2nd, (McGraw-Hill) “Transaction processing system”, (Christopher J. Holloway) “Transaction processing system”, ( Yasuo Uchida) “Transaction processing system”, (Shinya Tanigaki) “Transaction processing system”, (Yoshio Okano et al) “An Analysis and Classification of Problems in Small Business”, (DR. ZUELI H AND DR. ALAN B) Management Skills and Business Problems, (Robert H) “Determinants of success for computer usage in small business”,(William H) Read More