mis mrs fields' cookies

8/4/2019 MIS Mrs Fields' Cookies

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mis-mrs-fields-cookies 1/6

Q1. Describe the Information Systems Requirements of the organization at three managerial levels.

A1.

Hierarchy @Managerial Levels

Store Level (Operational)

1. Store Manager

Managerial Level

1. DSM (District Sales managers)

2. RDO (Regional Directors of Operations)

3. Senior Regional Directors

Strategic Level (or corporate)

1. Store Controllers

2. Vice President of Operations

3. Debbi (Owner)

At the Store level, the store manager required:

1. Menu specific projections of achievable sales target for the day.

2. Continuous review of projected sales as per customer count.

3. Time clocks: How many batches to mix and when to mix them.

4. Labor scheduler

5. Inventory management: Computation of supply needed

6. Interview scheduling & resume scanning

7. Skill testing and electronic and voice communication with the HQ

8. Sales recording

At the Managerial Level

1. District Managers need lots of data about the sales, number of customers, their time of visit,

and item-specific demand. The Info system needs to compile this data for the district managers.2. Analysis tools: The Information systems needs to generate trends based on the data collected

(as mentioned above). This is needed for setting quotas.

3. The information system should also be able to come up with store based predictions of future

growth prediction which would assist the regional managers to devise appropriate marketing

strategies.

4. It helped in calculating cash underages and outages.



At the Corporate or Managerial level

1. Centralized system to compute performance of store managers.

2. Information system should transmit all information from the store and the operation

department to the main HQ.

3. Information system should be able to replicate ‘Debbi’s’ standards. It should be able to virtuallyconnect Debbi to each store manager.

4. The information system should be able to route Debbi’s message to the particular store and vice

versa. And messages would be both written and voice ones.

5. Financial analysis of data generated from all the stores, and consequent trend predictions.

6. Physical property management

7. Systems development: improving processes; increasing sales; Strategic efficiency.

Q2. Discuss how MIS provided the top management personal control over dispersed operations in the

company.

A2. The MIS was designed in a bottom-up approach where we have lots of information from the base

level which then filtered, analyzed and interpreted. This is then utilized to help in decision making which

would provide a strategic edge to the company. Strategic means promoting sales and controlling labor

and food costs. And the MIS did just that!

The MIS controlled almost everything that was mechanical in nature:

1. It decided the baking schedule of each day, suggested when to do sampling and also maintaining

quality checks. This helped maintain Debbi’s control over each of her operations and maintain

‘quality’.

2. It allocated quotas to each store manager.

3. Hourly goals were set based on real time sales.

4. Managers could communicate with Debbi via electronic mail and even voice mail! Debbi herself

responded to each voice message directly sent to her, within 48 hours of receiving it. This made

managers ‘feel’ her presence even in her absence.

5. The centrally connected servers transmitted information about sales to the HQ daily, hence the

top management knew immediately which store was not meeting its objectives and was able to

respond quickly.

6. Sales were usually automatically entered thanks to the automated cash registers. This

eliminated chances of manipulation of data.

7. The electronic communication system also retrieved mails for the respective store managers to

their PCs automatically.

8. The HR functions were also closely controlled. The automated resume scan function helped in

short-listing employees who matches Debbi’s requirement, rather than what the store manager



may want. However, it also gave some handle to store managers but not complete control over

selection of candidates.

Q3. Explain how store managers, regional directors and controllers used MIS to focus more on strategic

aspects than administrative functions.

A3.

Strategic aspects include promoting sales and controlling labor and food costs.

Store Managers: The MIS helped them avoid paperwork related to recording sales, calculating

inventory, deciding on which and how many cookies needed to be baked, and other specification related

to quality checks. Even labor allocation was decided by the MIS. This made the store managers focus

more on the customers and on selling cookies. Rather than calculating sales targets for the day, theyfocused on achieving them. This promoted sales and reduced wastage.

Regional Directors: The MIS helped them in many ways. It collected all the data from the stores under

them and then filtered, analyzed and interpreted it to make it useful for them. The main focus of the

directors was to study the reports to come up with plans for the future. The local marketing decisions

were made by them on the basis of the reports generated by the MIS and their subsequent validation.

Controllers: The controllers job was to manage anywhere between 35-75 stores. The MIS helped them

by collating all the data, product, date and store wise. They had access even to the cash overages and

underages on a daily basis, and they contacted the field managers for explanation. The MIS was so quick

that within 24 hours of the store controller’s review, Debbi had access to every controller’s report at an

aggregate level. The MIS also helped them analyze unusual trends, problems and conditions.

Q4. How MIS helped the Managing Director to operate each store as a profit centre?

A4. A profit center is a section of a company treated as a separate business. Thus profits or losses for a

profit center are calculated separately. A profit center manager is held accountable for both revenues, and

costs (expenses), and therefore, profits. What this means in terms of managerial responsibilities is that the

manager has to drive the sales revenue generating activities which leads to cash inflows and at the same

time control the cost (cash outflows) causing activities.

The MIS was designed to tackle accounting in a straightforward way. No corporate expenses were

allocated to stores and only expenses incurred in the store were charged to the store, thereby laying the

foundation of running stores as profit centers. Also, each store’s data was available at the click of a

button and all analysis could be done on that store’s data, making the job of the MD easier.



Q5. Briefly discuss the following

Tracking financial performance

Scheduling of activities

Marketing Support

Interviewing Activities

A5.

1. Tracking Financial Performance: A key job of the MIS was to track the financial performance of the

cookie stores.

1. The first job was to treat each store as a profit center (discussed in A.4).

2. Automated cash registers linked to the MIS.

3. Inventory evaluation application ensured no discrepancy was there in COGS.

4. Hourly sales quotas

2. Scheduling of activities: The MIS scheduled many activities, such as deciding on the quantity of

cookies to be baked per hour based on the types of cookies entered by the manager. It also told the

number of batches to mix and when to mix them! And to maintain quality, the dough’s useful life would

also be mentioned after which it would have to be discarded. Inventory checking system automatically

came up with the supply to be ordered. Interviews were also scheduled.

3. Marketing Support: Regional directors got all sort of data and trends and it was on the basis of these

forecasts and trend analysis of each store individually, and demographically, that they were able to

come up with store focused marketing strategies.

4. Interviewing Activities: The MIS helped the managers make better hiring decisions. After conducting

initial interviews (screening), the information about the candidates was entered into the system, whichcompared it with the records of previous applicants who had been hired. This helped Mrs. Debbie Field’s

recruit those employees who were similar to those with whom she had started her cookie store in Palo

Alto, California. The focus was on attributes such as honesty, punctuality, values, education, experience,

knowledge, and attitude. This helped in achieving a better Person-Job fit, as well as a Person-

Organization fit. This was followed by an interview conducted interactively with the computer, the

answers of which were compared with those of existing employees and were made a part of the

database.

*The manager could override the system’s final recommendations



Q6. What is the advantage of developing information systems keeping in view managers’ perspectives?

A6. It is very important to develop information systems keeping in view manager’s perspective as no

organization can afford to delink its systems from its human resources as the human resources are the

ones who actually do the selling and interact with the customers. It’s also vital to keep in mind that thedata analysis and suggestions being churned out by the MIS are in tune with the capabilities of the

employees (I don’t mean that targets or quotas should be cut down, but the data should be presented in

a way which looks achievable or doable to the employee.

Q7. What are the roles and responsibilities of MIS organization?

A7. The MIS is an integrated man-machine system designed to help managers in strategic planning,

management control, and operational control activities of an organization.

Operational Control: Operational activities are the day to day activities of an organization, such as daily

sales targets, employee shift management, data recording, automatic cash registeretc. The MIS’s

purpose is to automate these activities to give the employees more time to do ‘meaningful’ activities

which can be done only by humans.

Management control: Planning work such as local marketing strategies, employee compensation, trend

forecasting, quota setting, etc are decisions which are taken by the second rung employees, i.e. the

managers. The MIS’s role is to analyze all the data from the various stores and to present it in a way that

can be interpreted relatively easier to comprehend. It also has to predict any unusual activity or trend

and immediately raise a warning.

Strategic planning: This is concerned with promoting sales and controlling labor and food costs. The MIS

should always be ready with a system which can generate an ad hoc cost-benefit analysis of a system or

a process and be able to justify it on the basis of whether it can:

1. Cut costs (or increase savings)

2. Increase sales

3. Insightful decision making

Q8. What is an expert system? How expert systems provided decision support to managers?

A8. An expert system is a computer system that emulates the decision-making ability of a human

expert. Expert systems are designed to solve complex problems by reasoning about knowledge, like an

expert, and not by following the procedure of a developer as is the case in conventional programming.

An expert system has a unique structure, different from traditional programs. It is divided into two



parts, one fixed, independent of the expert system: the inference engine, and one variable: the

knowledge base. To run an expert system, the engine reasons about the knowledge base like a human.

Expert systems help in enhancing the quality and amount of knowledge available to decision makers.

Also, the expert systems are equipped with self learning capabilities.

Q9. Keeping in view the expansion of the company, what types of systems are recommended for the

company?

A9. Since it has acquired LPB which is a large company and whose systems are not in sync with the

current MIS of Mrs. Fields, it needs to first sync the MIS of LPB with its own.

Then, it needs to have ‘Operation Support Systems’ as the product range of LPB and its operations

process are different from those of Mrs. Fields. These would includeTransaction Processing System

which would track all transactions of LPB and Mrs. Fields. Process Control System would also be neededto ensure quality is in sync with Mrs. Fields standards and that wastage doesn’t take place. It will also

need to update the capacity of its Enterprise Collaboration System to ensure seamless communication

between all the new units.

mis mrs fields' cookies

Documents