MIS CASE STUDY

Case study 1:
ZX Traders Limited is a fledgling and dynamic exporting corporation in the mobile market. The
company has been growing very quickly since they had a breakthrough with their initial product
in 2002. Since then the company has developed a number of new and ancillary products and has
successfully managed to commercialize these products in Ireland, the UK and across the main
markets in Europe. ZX Traders has a manufacturing plant and sales office in Ireland, and a
mixture of direct sales and channel partners in the UK and Germany. The additions of the UK
and Germany outlets to the company were achieved through acquisition both transactions were
successfully completed in 2011.

The company is keen to take advantage of their designs and new products but are already
beginning to see competition increase in their current markets. The management team have been
discussing, more and more regularly, the challenges that they are experiencing associated with
identifying and understanding the most important measures for their business including
individual product profitability, country product penetration, customer turnover and profitability,
market shares to-date there has been a lot of debate but a lack of decisions.

Strategic Issues

ZX Traders does not currently have a formal MIS / Performance measurement system (or
methodology) that covers all areas of the organization, including manufacturing and sales. The
main challenges that the company face, from an MIS and company performance management
perspective, include:

Company performance has been measured and managed through excel, with differing
approaches and understanding across the various business units and countries

There is now a distributed management team and goals and tracking of goals and objectives is
not transparent

There is a growing number of employees involved in developing reports and clarifying

reporting / report definition ambiguities across the company

Country and Business Unit performance is difficult to compare and overall company
performance is also difficult to measure and forecast
Questions

1. What approaches should be considered by the management team to create an effective

performance management and reporting capability for the whole organization
concentrating on people, process and technology?
2. How should they go about linking performance metrics to company strategy, which
includes moving into additional markets in America?
3. What key areas do you believe they should focus on for metrics, across the whole
business?
4. Given the distributed nature of the workforce (manufacturing and sales teams) how could
online / mobile reporting tools support the organization?

CASE STUDY 2
Bay network Inc. Uses the internet to link with its suppliers. The driving force behind Bay
Network extranet, however, was the companys need to link its supply chain systems with its
distributers.

For years we have wanted daily point-of-sale information from our distributers; says Maynard
Webb, CIO of the Santa Clara, California, manufacture of networking devices. With such data,
the company new its manufacturing unit could match production levels better to demand. After
meeting with several distributers, Webb discovered that these business partners had the technical
resources to provide the data, but needed a link between their sales tracking systems and Way
Networks supply chain systems.

In, effects, Bay Networks wanted to have a look into its partners ordering systems and
its devised an extranet to do so. Partner Net, the companys extranet, is a conduit for Bay
Networks to give distributers the timely sales data they need. But Webb still had to cajole
distributors in to giving them data back, because some tracked their sales weekly, not yet daily.

Moving from weekly to daily sales reports required distributors to do some order-system
recording. They were a little hesitant to do the extra work, Webb says. But by pointing out that
Partner Net would give distributers critical information such as Bay Networks production
capacity and inventory data, Webb persuaded them to accept the system and do the recording.

When taking customer orders, distributers now can check Bay Networks inventory status to
see how many routers are available for immediate shipping, for example, and how many will be
available within a week. Enabling distributers to track shipment status with Federal Express
Corp.Did not hurt either.

The real issue is that {distributers} have to believe that this will radically change the business
for the better, Webb says, for themselves as well as for Bay Networks. On the other end of the
supply chain, Bay Networks can see how many orders have been placed so it can step up
production during peak sales periods. The result, Webb says, is that customers get their order
faster. Both distributers and Bay Networks benefit from that.

When you are going outsiders access to sensitive data such as production schedules for the
first time, security is the major concern, he says.to address that issue, Bay Network distributors
and suppliers each have a unique account number and passwords that give them to access to the
system, but only to the information pertaining to their own business. For example, a distributer
can access to the status of its own backlog orders, but not that of its competitors.

Bay Networks uses SAPs ERP system with an Oracle database for its supply chain
transactions. In order to capture Way Networks ERPs data, most production scheduling
information from Partner Net in to a spread sheet program.

They then import that data in to their own back office database systems. The ideal method,
says Webb, would be a direct transfer of data from Partner Net to a suppliers back-end systems.
To accomplish that, Way Networks is testing SAPs new release of the ERP system, R/3, release
3.1, which is internet capable.

Not all of Way Networks business partners, however, are equipped with SAP. Those that
are do not require a mechanism for translating Bay Networks R/3 data protocol to their own.

A potential solution to that problem may come from Actra Business Systems, a joint venture
formed in 1996 between Netscape Communications and GEIS. Actra sells software that converts
conventional EDI software in to internet formats such as the secure stocks layer encryption
protocol, allowing EDI users to do business on the internet.

It is still very early in the game, though, and CIOs may have to find the right solution by trial and
error, according to Webb. You have to be willing to throw some stuff out, he says, because
this stuff is in its infancy and changing so fast.

Questions:

1. Discuss the advantages of the E-SCM solution deployed by Bay Networks for its distributers?

2. What are the problems associated with the proper implementation of E-SCM. Find solution to
overcome these problems?

CASE 3:
A waiter takes an order at a table, and then enters it online via one of the six terminals located in
the restaurant dining room. The order is routed to a printer in the appropriate preparation area:
the cold item printer if it is a salad, the hot-item printer if it is a hot sandwich or the bar printer if
it is a drink. A customers meal check-listing (bill) the items ordered and the respective prices
are automatically generated. This ordering system eliminates the old three-carbon-copy guest
check system as well as any problems caused by a waiters handwriting. When the kitchen runs
out of a food item, the cooks send out an out of stock message, which will be displayed on the
dining room terminals when waiters try to order that item. This gives the waiters faster feedback,
enabling them to give better service to the customers.

Other system features aid management in the planning and control of their restaurant business.
The system provides up-to-the-minute information on the food items ordered and breaks out
percentages showing sales of each item versus total sales. This helps management plan menus
according to customers tastes. The system also compares the weekly sales totals versus food
costs, allowing planning for tighter cost controls. In addition, whenever an order is voided, the
reasons for the void are keyed in. This may help later in management decisions, especially if the
voids consistently related to food or service.

Acceptance of the system by the users is exceptionally high since the waiters and waitresses
were involved in the selection and design process. All potential users were asked to give their
impressions and ideas about the various systems available before one was chosen.

Questions:

a. In the light of the system, describe the decisions to be made in the area of strategic planning,
managerial control and operational control? What information would you require to make such
decisions?

b. What would make the system a more complete MIS rather than just doing transaction
processing?

c. Explain the probable effects that makingthe system more formal would have on the customers
and the management.