Enterprise System: of Peets Coffee and Tea - Case Study Example

Enterprise System The business world has changed dramatically over the last few decades. Businesses have to invest in good software to address clientneeds better and to operate seamlessly. However, the software systems are overwhelmed when the business grows much faster or when a business changes its strategy. Peet’s coffee and tea, founded in 1966 is a good example of business in this category. The company has grown to have close to two hundred stores. In addition, the company plans to open new stores to take the high quality coffee close to its clients. However, the current software systems make it challenging for Peet’s coffee and tea to operate. It is clear the company needs to improve the current software system to make operations easier. Pee’s coffee and tea can invest in better management software, re-architecture the current software to align with its current objectives or invest a cloud based management system. That is the only way the company can address the current logistical issues. The current Situation Peet’s coffee and tea is expanding rapidly to share the large coffee market in the United States. According to Perez (2013), more than 80% of the American population take coffee. The percentage has increased dramatically over the years. With this conception, Peet’s coffee and Tea had to expand to take advantage of the increasing demand. Expanding comes with many new challenges. For example, when the company opens a new store, the new store has a software system integrated and connected to the entire company software system. The software system was not universal to the different stores and departments. As a result, there were many interconnections and customizations in the main software (Microsoft case studies, 2011). The many customizations and interconnections in the Peet’s coffee and tea software was a logistical nightmare as the supply chain manager Shawn Conway put it. According to Conway, staff had to use several software systems at times to serve the customers (Microsoft Case Studies, 2011). The staff took more time to obtain the customer details and responding to their issues. At the same time, it was challenging to account for raw materials, the products produced and customer orders (Microsoft Case Studies, 2011). With the vision to expand to other cities, the current software system would present more challenges to the company. The management could not rely on the system and had to spend a lot of time trying to balance the financials and Peet’s coffee and tea needed to upgrade its software systems for better business operations (Microsoft Case Studies, 2011). Improving Peet’s coffee and Tea software Reducing customizations One of the major challenges Peet’s Coffee and tea faced was many software customizations and integrations. While this can add value to the company, it did not. In fact, it made it challenging to operate well (Microsoft Case Studies, 2011). Peet’s coffee and tea could cut the number of customizations in its software. In this case, the company should plan better from the start. The business must have a concise plan on what it plans to do in the future and the resources needed. With this information, the information Technology departments can make software at once knowing future expectations of the business. In addition, they know how to integrate the future parameters to the main software. This kind of planning would reduce the need to develop new software for the new parameters (Microsoft Developer Network, n.d). However, the Peet’s coffee and tea case is different. The company did not plant all this from the start. In fact, the owner of the company Arthur Peet did not want to expand the company. According to the International Directory of Company Histories (2001), Arthur Peet wanted to maintain a local presence in the place where the business opened its first coffee store. The subsequent owners also wanted the same thing. However, as years passed, the company realized it had to establish stores elsewhere to remain competitive, curb the increasing competition and to share the increasing coffee market. The impromptu decision to expand fast could be the reason the company did not take a lot of consideration in planning the management well (Reifer 2002). To address the issue of many customizations, the Information Technology Department at Peet’s coffee and tea has to analyze the current software system. This should help the department in determining the current loopholes in the system (Reifer 2002). To make things easier, the company can invite experts in software systems to analyze the software system to determine what is wrong. This can also assist in determining the software systems not needed (Reifer 2002). The experts can assign the tasks of the software systems not needed to the remaining systems. Some software systems can handle many different tasks, and Peet’s coffee and tea should focus on getting such software. That can reduce the number of software customizations and integration significantly (Reifer 2002). Another way Peet’s coffee and tea can reduce the number of customizations is by obtaining a better software system at once (Babra, Veirimaa and Ovio, 2012). Currently, there are many management software systems, which can work seamlessly in Peet’s coffee and tea. These software systems are mostly open source systems, which the information technology department can customize to fit the business operations and client needs. These systems can integrate all business operations including warehouse management, customer orders, and financials tracking and provide summary of what the management should do at certain times (Babra, Veirimaa and Ovio, 2012). The advantage of these systems is that they are readily available, easy to use and improves the customer experience. The large computer and internet system companies provide these systems. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Dell have good management systems for businesses. The systems from these companies are more or less the same in functionalities. Companies should be careful when choosing the management system to use. The management system should align with the strategic goals of the company to make sense. The advantage of the management systems is that they can address specific challenges a business faces. At the same time, these systems are easy to work with and faster to implement (Microsoft Developer Network, n.d). Improving software architecture The biggest challenge a business can come to terms with is poor software architecture. As in the case of Peet’s coffee and tea, it is evident, the software architecture was not good at all. Peet’s coffee and tea could improve the software architecture for easy business operations. Architecture should be that the different departments have their own software, and connected to the main company software. Software architecture must align with a business current performance and future expansion and operations plans. This provides information on how the software architecture should be (Microsoft Developer Network, n.d). When preparing such software architecture, the software architects leave room to integrate the future parameters without making new software (Clements and bass, 2010). This makes work easier for the business and the information technology department. Peet’s coffee and tea had to change the current system architecture to improve business operations. The different departments have their own system, which is to integrate with the main system. With this kind of architecture, all the departments can operate independently and the higher management can get all information from all the systems at one go (Clements and bass, 2010). Well-planned software architecture cannot have departmental system overlap, like the current scenario, where staff has to access more than one system to serve the clients (Nuselbeh, 2001). For this to work, Peet’s coffee and Tea has to look at the current architecture and determine how best the operations can be. In this case, the information technology department should look at the operations that can work combined and what should work independently. Having determined that, the information technology department should change the software architecture. The software architects should leave some room in the design for integrating future new stores to the system. According to Van Heesch and colleagues (2012), changing software architecture for a company is imperative in maintain competitiveness. This is especially important when a company has to change its business strategy (Clements and bass, 2010). Changing software architecture should follow certain guidelines. Van Heesch and colleagues (2012) imply the business managers should look at the current Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the business. This is important in determining what the company can use against its competitors. At the same time, the analysis assists the management to understand what the competitors have over the company. With that in mind, the business strategists and information technology department can strategize the best architecture system for the business (Nuselbeh, 2001). For the best architecture, Peet’s coffee and tea can consult businesses already assisting other businesses in the same for example Microsoft. Cloud based solutions Peet’s coffee and tea could also outsource the management of the services to other companies. Many companies offer cloud based management solutions today. Essentially, businesses interested in these services seem to do everything from the cloud (Kern, Lacity and Willcocks, 2002). Could based solution for business is virtualization and has helped many companies to manage their affairs from anywhere in the world. All stores and departments operate from one place but can function independently. Each of the departments or stores can do all its functionalities from different location. All data from the different stores and department pass to the main software, which can be in the headquarters. Additional software installed to the parent computer analysis the information submitted to and from the parent computer (Kern, Lacity and Willcocks, 2002). Peet’s coffee and tea could restructure to use the cloud based management software. In this case, the company management does not have to do much. After all, the cloud-based system does almost everything including ordering raw materials, go down management, and pick customer orders (Kern, Lacity and Willcocks, 2002). In addition, the system recommends to the management the activities the different departments and stores should do. The functions of the virtual system are in real time. This allows the management to make sober decisions fast (Kern, Lacity and Willcocks, 2002). However, this software is expensive to install and take a lot of time. In this case, it may fail to address immediate company challenges. Conclusion Peet’s coffee and tea started to serve a local community in Berkeley. The owner, Arthur Peet did not want to deviate from this objective. However, the subsequent owners realized they had to change their business strategy to remain in business. Peet’s coffee and tea launched an expansion program, which along the way overwhelmed the software systems the business used. This was a big challenge to the business and had to integrate the different software together creating a logistical nightmare. Peet’s coffee and tea had to change its software systems to operate seamlessly. The business can focus on re-engineering the current software to align with the current business strategy, invest in good management software or virtualizes its operations. All these strategies provide good management, ensure clients’ get the best service and products, and operate the logistics and financials of the company well. All the departments and stores can operate independently yet connected together through the systems. The management can access all these details in real time allowing them to make good decisions for the business. References Babra, M., Veirimaa, M, and Ovio, M., 2012. Product-Focused Software Process Improvement: 11th International Conference, PROFES 2010, Limerick, Ireland, June 21-23, 2010, Proceedings. New York: Springer. Clements, P and Bass, L., 2010. The Business Goals Viewpoint. IEEE Software, 27(6), pp. 38-45. International Directory of Company Histories, 2001. Peets Coffee & Tea, Inc, History, Vol. 38. St. James Press, 2001. Kern, T., Lacity, M, and Willcocks, L., 2002. Netsourcing: Renting Business Applications and Services Over a Network. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey : FT Press. Microsoft Case Studies, 2011. Peet’s Coffee and Tea. [online] Microsoft. Available at: [accessed 24 January 2014]. Microsoft Developer Network, n.d. Business Improvement Through Better Software Architecture. [online] Microsoft. Available at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266336.aspx [accessed 24 January 2014]. Nuseibeh, B., 2001. Weaving Together Requirements and Architectures. Computer, 34(3), pp. 115-119. Perez, M., 2013. Coffee Consumption Increases in U.S., Association Survey Shows. [online] Bloomberg. Available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-22/coffee-consumption-increases-in-u-s-association-survey-shows.html [accessed 24 January 2014]. Reifer, D., 2002. Making the software business case: improvement by the numbers. Boston: Addison Wesley publishing company. Van Heesch, U., Avgeriou, P, and Hilliard, R., 2012. A Documentation Framework for Architecture Decisions. J. Systems and Software, 85(4), pp. 795-820. Read More