Business Information and Demographical Data at Club IT - Assignment Example

? Full Paper Introduction Working as an internee at Club IT turned out to be the most substantial experience for my business career. Likewise, the owners of the club including Lisa Tejada and Ruben Keys have tailored the club’s environment in to a thrilling and exciting place for work. Moreover, they helped me a lot and acted as a mentor that gave me confidence to achieve my objectives. The club has already gained customer loyalty due to repeat clientele. During my internship, the club was busy and providing services almost every night, except for the weekends, as the environment is always crazy and thrilling due to the crowd. In spite of a strong clientele, owners are always thinking innovative strategies to expand business. During my internship at the club, I have learned day to day club operations and the night as well. The report will categorize business information and demographical data along with an IT based technological solution to automate day to day operations and address issues that may arise. Moreover, the technological solution will also enhance customer experience to the next level that will portray a positive impact on overall business profitability. Business Statistics The primary objective for Club IT is to provide an exciting and desired environment for young as well as old people. The demographics for the visitors of different age groups may be between 21 years to 35 years of age. The club demonstrates a unique high energy environment with traditional dining options along with live music acts incorporated with a revolving door. A large majority of clienteles are associated with the digital age and are quite familiar with latest computing technologies. Likewise, the awareness of Information Technology in the employees and the customers will facilitate the club to deliver value. The expansion of the business will be sustainable by integrating the social environment of the customer with social networking modules integrated with the Club’s website. Moreover, the website will also provide product information, different food deals, dates of live music events all one a single graphical user interface i.e. on a website. The website must be designed to demonstrate dynamic information, as it will maintain interest for the online visitors. As the owners seek opportunities for improving the business model of the club on a continual basis, they are now showing interest for enhancing business operations via acquisition of information systems. Likewise, these information systems will be utilized for automating several business functions including finance, human resource and marketing. Moreover, the purchases and deliverables can be monitored and tracked from different vendors associated with supply chain management. Currently, the club is already providing intranet services to the employees. Intranet demonstrates many advantages, as it provides a robust communication platform that can be utilized easily. Likewise, scheduled work hours and calculated wages can be computed on week to week basis. However, a storage medium i.e. a database is required for storing the required information. Moreover, if strategically aligned with the business strategy, the system can also address the future expansion and workload management of day to day operations of the Club. New Requirements The new plan empowered with IT enabled services will enhance customer experience in the club. Likewise, one of the prime features of these services will be a Wireless hotspot, as it will provide Internet access within the premises. These services will portray impact on business and will help the club to host corporate events. After the introduction of corporate events, food and drink requirements will increment. Moreover, with the help of wireless Internet, customer will use online club IT portals to order food and drinks. As the service time will be decreased, staff productivity will automatically augment. Consequently, a robust communication with the staff will be achievable, as the customers can easily communicate via Club IT online portals. There are many options owners can consider to improve business, however, implementing Wireless networks and order management system deemed to be the right option. As these systems will deliver value and decrease total cost of ownership resulting in increased productivity. Moreover, after conducting cost/benefit analysis and risk management, these system proved to deliver benefits outweighing the acquisition and maintenance cost. However, if the cost deemed to be more than the delivered benefits, these systems may not have been considered for acquisition. M-Commerce These IT enabled services forced Club IT to address mobile commerce. Mobile commerce is defined as “Mobile commerce, which is widely predicted to be the next wave of e-commerce. Sometimes known as m-business, it encapsulates any kind of information transfer or transaction that can be initiated from a mobile phone or other portable information appliance device” (M-commerce.2003). As mobile commerce offers a convenient service available on a smart phone or a mobile phone, customers will like the service resulting in high profitability. Likewise, a satisfied customer will also refer his/her friends to the club. As per the current scenario, Club IT website is offering corporate event schedule, live music events schedules, food and drink menus on venues and other services. As the schedule is available online, customer can book or reserve their tickets online. Likewise, the ‘contact us’ tab will provide an inquiry form that will provide an opportunity for customers to interact with the staff and share their suggestions, complaints, ticket reservations etc. moreover, an email system will route emails to the customers about upcoming events, live music shows, corporate events, promotions, offers, special discounts on tickets and much more. Furthermore, by utilizing cookies, emails can also be relayed to the visitors of the website who may be a part of Club IT clientele later. As mentioned earlier, wireless Internet portals and the websites will provide automated ordering systems for customer convenience. As a result, workforce requirements will be reduced and can be utilized on other functions of the club. System development, deployment and after sales support should not be cost effective in the early stages, but they will deliver value at a later stage, as adequate training is required for the staff. Moreover, there are other options that include off-the-shelf packages. These packages are considered to be less costly but only provide limited functions and integration with other modules. Furthermore, hosting services for the website can also be purchase on a yearly basis, as long term storage plans save cost and deliver value. The technical support expertise can also be outsourced to third party services. Selecting Adequate System After considering a complete customized system or off-the-shelf package, only one option can be selected, as club IT wants to acquire a system that will be aligned with all the requirements. However, if the cost outweighs the benefits, off-the-shelf package can also be considered. As club IT is a small medium enterprise, developing a fully customized system will result in substantial cost. For corporate organizations, a proved and tested business model is required to align with the customized system. Likewise, two approaches for designing systems can be used in aggregation with one other. These two systems are Joint Application Development (JAD) and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) (Turban, n.d). However, for executing these systems, specialized teams are required for system development and design. Moreover, a separate function of Information Technology with a specialized team capable of handling system related incidents will become a necessity for the Club. All these new changes will mark a substantial cost for a medium size club and will not be considered as a wise decision. The preferred solution will be to implement pre designed software along with after sales support will be a feasible and much better option. Digital Dashboards Digital Dashboards are considered as essential tools for demonstrated variety of information. Moreover, these boards display Key Goal Indicators (KGI’s) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for defining patterns of the current progress and the desired results to be achieved. This type of information can be utilized by the management of the club to review the performance and the capacity of improvement for each function of the club. However, integration of other applications is required, as data will be processed based on the criteria defined in the dashboards. Moreover, the dashboards also provide different charts displaying three views. For example total unit sales, percentage of sales by Pie chart, unit sales illustrated by representative and customer category (stacked bar) and unit sales (Lehman, Lehman, & Feazell, 2011). Conclusion The future of Club IT is bright with continual improvement in profitability, as customers are increasing and love to visit because of the energetic and thrilling environment. Likewise, the club is considered to be successful in a very short period and there is a lot more capacity for exploring other options to gain customer attraction. However, owners realized critical success factors and growing the business is one of them. As far as acquisition of information systems is concerned, it will not be a feasible option to maintain them in-house as the business is already on the rise. As the organization expands, a new customized can be considered that will be implemented by best practices. Moreover, the club has evaluated Wireless Internet technology and order management system to be feasible and valuable to the business. The dedication starting from the top level shows the commitment to provide quality service to the current and potential customers by redesigning the traditional approaches. Therefore, these IT solutions will definitely contribute a great deal for generating substantial revenue along with spreading club features on social networking and via emails. The re-designing of the website will be the first step towards a complete transformation to a corporate computing environment for the club. The newly developed website will incorporate latest scripts, dynamic contents, interactive templates and multimedia to attract visitors. Moreover, the site must be easy for the online customers to place orders and reserve tickets. Instant online support chat rooms can answer questions from the visitors and change the perception for the club that may be incorrect. The management and maintenance of the website can be hosted to third party hosting services to save the maintenance cost. Hence, the online presence of Club IT will definitely market the club to dispersed locations that may also attract tourists coming for small vacations. By calculated and informed decisions from the top management and revenue on the rise, integration of IT enabled services will definitely enable Club IT to gain record profitability and popularity within the region. References Lehman, M. W., Lehman, C. M., & Feazell, J. (2011). Dashboard your scorecard. Journal of Accountancy, 211(2), 20-27. M-commerce. (2003). Essential Internet, , 129-130. Turban, E.Introduction to information systems: Supporting and transforming business Wiley. Read More