Jerry Montgomery and Trusty Carpets - Assignment Example

The paper "Description of Need by Jerry Montgomery" is a good example of an essay on business. Jerry Montgomery and his business Trusty Carpets is into carpet business for 20 years. His location in a strip mall has recently become a busy shopping center thereby increasing customer traffic. Business is good and Jerry felt that he had to expand his business by using some of the newer technologies. An opportunity also presented itself when Metro Carpet Store across town was up for sale. Its owner Bill Hartworth is retiring and leaving the area.

Metro Carpet has a large display room and a warehouse and has a certain degree of brand recognition in the area due to a previous advertising campaign. Jerry believes that if he will acquire this store, it will help expand his market base and customer reach thereby improving his profit margin. Description of Need Jerry Montgomery’s business is doing well and an opportunity to expand is presented by Metro Carpet Store with the retirement of Bill Hartworth. His back office and support system, however, is disorganized.

If he will acquire Metro Carpet, this will confound his back office problem. But his back office should not hinder him from capitalizing on the opportunities present to him expanding his nor should deter him from expanding. He just has to use technology to aid him in his business and to help him organize his back office. Ultimately, it is aimed that his profit margin will increase not only to justify the use of technology but also to prove that the expansion is good for the business. In sum, the objective of the business is to improve the use of technology for his current store, and to include the same capabilities for his new location, support a mobile sales force.

These technological requirements, however, need to obtain funding. Jerry’s description of needs are; 1. Accounting software to help Jerry’s back office in organizing the present and store and expanded store. This software is to be used for keeping customer’s records (includes past orders, preferences and other information), carpet inventory ledgers and general accounting. One of the software that he can have is Backups software which will automate his back office operation (getbackops.com, nd) 2.

Venture into E-commerce – the planned acquisition of Metro Carpet Store has already some brand recall and customer recognition because of its previous advertising campaign on TV. Jerry can take advantage of it by making his business more accessible to potential customers through e-commerce. Albeit the infrastructure needed for e-commerce is relatively simple with a computer, internet connection and server, he would need to contract a web developer to create the website for him. 3. Support for mobile sales force – Jerry intends to have a salesforce on the field to improve his profit margin and justify the added cost on the use of technology.

For the salesforce to become effective in servicing the potential customers, they should have the support of technology. This would come in the form of laptops and mobile communication (smartphones) with added personnel for IT support. For laptops, he can have Dell Computers due to its value for money and excellent after-sales support (www.Dell.com, nd).