Mis Assignment free essay sample

The purpose of this assignment is to examine a case study on a private or public company and suggest suitable improvements to the current Business Information Systems used for their business processes supporting the findings with data analysis. The organisation that has been chosen to be analysed is HMV, it is part of HMV Retail Ltd formerly known as HMV Group PLC. Company Background HMV specialises in the sale of home entertainment goods mainly music, DVD and computer videogames, currently they have also ventured into portable technology with the sales of headphones and tablets (HMV, 1921). HMV stands for His Master’s Voice and has a recognisable logo of a dog and a trumpet. Sir Edward Elgar opened the first HMV in 1921; the flagship store is on Oxford Street it mainly sold goods from HMV at the beginning of its inception (HMV, 1921). However by the late 1950’s – early 60’s with the advent of rock and roll and new recording formats HMV began expanding its operations to other major cities of the UK (HMV, 1921). To keep in tune with the times, HMV invested heavily in purchasing thousands of titles by different artists for each of their stores. HMV came out as the top dog in music retail as they were meeting the high consumer demands and the change in home entertainment. HMV’s strategy to change its products based on changes in home entertainment continues to this day. It is one of UK’s specialist retailers in music, DVD and computer games. It has over 140 stores in the UK and has many stores in North America, Europe and Asia pacific (HMV, 1921). Presently HMV is facing tough competition from online retailers like Amazon who are able to offer lower prices owing to Amazon having lower staff cost, property cost, inventory cost and operating costs (Phelan, 2013). Operations, inputs and outputs of HMV The operations of HMV are supply management, stock management, customer relations, staff/personnel management, sales, advertising, international operations and joint ventures (HMV, 2013, pp. 8). Supply management operation is the procedure of buying and managing resources for the business needs and processes of an organisation (Business Dictionary, n. d. d). In the case of HMV it is the purchasing of inventory goods to be sold as products in their retail process and the management of said goods, staff, budget and information (HMV, 1921). Stock management operation is the supervision of the inventory of a business ensuring it meets consumer demands (Business Dictionary, n. d. c); in HMV’s case it is maintaining the stock levels of products to be sold. Customer relations operation is the way a company can build a rapport with their customer, manage the relations made and ensure the loyalty of the customer (Business Dictionary, n. d. a). HMV uses their purehmv incentive program to ensure the loyalty and return of customers (HMV, 1921). Personnel management operations is the recruiting and investing in employees in order o retain said employees and make them important to the business (Business Dictionary, n. d. c). For HMV this would be the hiring and development of staff within. International operations for HMV is the management and development of their international stores and profile, they have stores in North America and Asia pacific. Joint venture operations for HMV is the 50% investment in 7digital an online retailer of digital music (HMV, 2013, pp. 8). The sales operation for HMV is the way in which they sell and manage the sales of products. Advertising operations is how HMV manages and develops marketing of products. The inputs that HMV receives are: * Products: Music, Videogames, Films and TV, Tech * Staff * Customers * Profit/Money * Information The outputs of HMV that they receive after operations are: * sales they make from products * service they provide to customers * the purehmv incentive program * advertising * better qualified staff * Business Processes of HMV HMV has many business processes for each of their operations. For supply management the processes include shipping, re-ordering and notifying supplier. For stock management the processes are storage, measuring stock levels and ensuring quality of stock. The processes for customer relations are customer service, returns, refunds and technical support. Business processes for the personnel management operation are recruitment, selection, manpower planning, training and development. For sales operation the processes are order management, payment handling, delivery and counter service. The processes for advertising are advertising strategy, market research and medium strategy. For international operations all of the above fall under it including the processes. The business processes of the joint venture operations are purchasing music rights, managing investment and managing infrastructure. There are many more business processes for each operation only a few have been mentioned. Counter service within the sales operation is important for HMV as currently that is the only service they offer (HMV, 1921). This process involves the customer coming to the store, picking an item and taking it to the counter to be ringed up on the (Transaction Processing System) TPS. The TPS will ask for payment type, customer will pay in either cash or card. The TPS will record the purchase and print out a receipt for the customer. Also the business process called delivery which is part of the sales operation is a joint process with the counter service. Customers can come in to the store and make an order for a product at the counter. A member of staff will take the order and put it through the order processing system and TPS. The customer will be given a receipt from the TPS and an order number will be given to the customer and dispatched to the warehouse. A date and time will also be given to the customer to inform them when the delivery will be available to pick up form the store. Structured Decision making Structured Decision making is essential at operation levels in order for HMV Retail Ltd to find out which products are selling well and also to find out where to set targets for day to day retail activities, the table below can be used for this purpose. Semi-structured decision making Semi-structured decisions are on a short to medium term basis and are tactical decisions. The table below can be used by managers to make decisions regarding finance management, inventory control, sales targeting and supplier management. Unstructured decision making Unstructured decisions are used to focus on the long term and to forecast future trends within the organisation. These decisions are made by senior management such as the area manager or the head retail manager. They can use this information as a way of forecasting future profits as well as determining which of their products produced the most revenue. This chart can be used to identify the margins between costs of products purchased, the revenue generated from the sale of products and the total profit after cost has been deducted from revenue. This chart can be used to identify and compare the amount of stock sold, stock bought and the amount of stock left for each item category. Strategic radar plotting technique The strategic radar plotting technique can be used to identify an area in which HMV is doing well in and the area in which they are weak in. From the radar below HMV is doing well in 2 sales categories videogames and technology. These 2 are producing the most sales therefore they are the area in which HMV has much strength. The other 2 sales categories Music and Films amp; TV are producing the least amount of sales therefore the conclusion is these are the weak areas of HMV. Identifying the following areas will now allow HMV to develop new sales strategies in order to boost the weak areas and strengthen the areas in which they already have a strong presence. Goal setting analysis and what if analysis What if we want to make ? 1000 on this product rather than ? 780? How much stock needs to be sold in order to reach the amount? The what if analysis does the calculation and informs us that to gain ? 1000 for this product 50 must be sold.