Management Information Systems

Word Count: 1,600

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REPORT MEMORANDUM .................................................................. 3

1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 4

2.0 CASE STUDY ANALYSIS ................................................................ 4

3.0 INFORMATION SYSTEMS & STRATEGY .......................................... 5

3.1 Analysis of Quality Food's Organisational Structure ............... 5

3.2 Quality Foods Current Value Chain Analysis .......................... 6

3.3 Analysis of Quality Foods IT Systems .................................. 7

4.0 DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SYSTEMS FOR QUALITY FOODS............... 9

5.0 EFFECTIVENESS OF IT SYSTEMS .................................................. 11

6.0 CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 11

7.0 REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................... 12

APPENDICES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Globalization has caused many changes in the way we do business and has brought with it a highly competitive and dynamic environment. Within this environment we have the retailing industry which presently, in the United Kingdom (UK) is the top service industry, employing over 3 million people in the UK workforce and Ј250 billion in sales. In this industry it is rather difficult to recognize strategic issues facing organizations and develop capabilities for long term organizational success. However, the advent of ground-breaking computer and communications technology has caused an onslaught of information technology which can be used to assist businesses in preparing strategic plans to aid in their company's growth and eventual success.

2.0 CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

QF is one UK's largest supermarket chains. It employs 60,000 people and its annual sales are Ј5.5billion with a total of 1,200 stores. QF is turning to information technology to help them to operate more efficiently. They have recently merged with Summerton and has joined with Amion to open small shops in their petrol stations.

QF main objective is to make all data available to management in ways that could impact their profitability. There main concern however, is if the data was available to management, what would management do with it. Finally, QF needs to build systems that go along with corporate plans as opposed to just one function, department and division at a time which was the case in the past.

3.0 INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND STRATEGY

3.1 Analysis of QF's Organisational Environment

Any successful organisation has to look at the competition, and moreover, be aware how the nature of competition can guide its strategy in order to gain advantage of the current relationships. PEST (Appendix 1) analysis has been completed and it shows the factors which would have an impacted on QF and are directly or indirectly be related to their competitive advantage and ultimately their success.

In addition, in order to review QF's current and future strategies, marketing theories from various experts such as Michael Porter's (1990) competitive forces (Appendix 2), SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, and Value Chain will be applied.

The Swot Analysis is presented in Table 1 below:

Table 1 - QF's SWOT analysis

Strengths

* QF is one of the largest supermarkets chains in the UK

* Abundance of Data

* Merger with other companies Weaknesses

* Unavailability and inaccessibility of data.

* Legacy systems only performs for one function, one department and division at a time

* Data cannot be shared

* Systems not built according to company plan.

Opportunities

* Additional expansion into other convenience stores

* Entry into On-Line grocery market

* Use of internet to assist with access to data. Threats

* The U.K data protection Act thereby putting strict limits on what detail and how long data can be kept. This will ultimately have an effect on the accuracy of the customer data that QF will use to make its operational decisions.

* Changes in planning regulations can stifle development

By reviewing QF's current Value Chain (Table 3), which was introduced by Michael Porter (1990), we can better understand the activities through which QF can develop its competitive advantage. From this analysis we can now align QF's strategies to capture a competitive advantage.

Table 1 - Porter's Value Chain

Source: http://www.netmba.com/strategy/value-chain/

3.2 QF's Current Value Chain Analysis ( expounded below)

 Primary Activities

* Inbound Logistics - From analysis of the case it can be interpreted that