Cmis Analysis
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Ace is a dealer of Subaru vehicles in Prince Edward Island. The company have a good reputation and brand recognition as a well-known Subaru dealer. Currently for every customer that comes through the door a sales representative fills out a form indicating the perspectives name, address, phone number, date of visit and make and model that they are interested in. Another form is filled out when the customer decides to purchase a vehicle, on this form they require the identification number of the vehicle, make and model, colour, options, base price, total price, and date of sale as well as the customers name. There are a few problems that should be addressed. By manually tracking every customer it is time consuming, hard to keep track, cannot identify repeat customers, cannot identify what channel of marketing the customers are coming from and they need to keep track of what kind of vehicle to order more so that they can reduce their inventory. There are many issues that Ace has to overcome in order to become more profitable and have better customer service with clients. Using technology to store information will definitely help Aces situation.
The problem with Ace is their slow and inefficient process of gathering, managing and tracking their customer information. By using widely available, simple and inexpensive software such as Excel and Database Ace could address their problems in a quick and efficient manner. Ace will need to have an enterprise networking system and Internet service provider (ISP) in place in order to become more profitable, create customer loyalty and keep track of customer. An enterprise networking is an arrangement of the organizations hardware, software, network, and data resources to put more computing power on the desktop and create a company wide network linking many smaller networks. This is very useful because Ace has to have a system where all their employees can have access to information at any given time. This will allow the sharing of information and create collaboration between different departments. Enterprise networking can also empower employees because they have more flexibility in dealing with their customers, this can also lead to employee satisfaction. Internet service provider is a commercial organization, with a permanent connection to the Internet, which sells temporary connections to subscribers. By setting up Internet service in the showroom customers can link directly to the manufacturers website to customize and price the vehicle to their own specification. The most important software for Ace is Database. Database is used for mainly for upper level management as well as the marketing and information technology department. Information technology staff creates two electronic forms for the sales staff to input all the necessary information for the perspective customer and the actual buyer. Perspective buyer form should include name, address, phone number, date of visit, marketing channel and make and model of interest. The actual buyer form should include vehicle identification number, make and model, colour, options, base price, total price, date of sale, name, phone number, address and marketing channel. Both forms should be in a standardized format so that the sales staffs enter only relevant information with fill-in-the-blank type of format. When all the information is collected it should be stored in a secure environment and the information can be accessible to anyone with access to the Ace database. Upper level management and the marketing team can use the information collected and analyze it to determine if there are trends in customer purchase. This information can also be used to increase customer relationships; by analyzing the data the marketing team can have a better understanding of what the major marketing channels are and create more personalized relationship with customers. By analyzing the information, management can also see what models, colour, and options or price the customers like more so that they can order vehicles according to their sales. This can reduce unnecessary inventory so that Ace does not have an overstocking problem and they do not have to provide incentives for the vehicles that are not as popular. Sales staff can also use Database to check for any sales leads that may still be interested in purchasing a vehicle. When the sales staffs greets a customer they can input their name into the database software and see if they have ever been to Ace before. This software will help the sales staff create a more personalized environment for the customer and helping them find the right vehicle with ease. Excel software is the main tool used by accounting and sales staff. Excel is a software program that is mainly aimed toward accounting because the focus is on ledgers and to solve accounting problems. The accounting team can use excel to determine what the median price of a vehicle is and create financial statements for the company and suggest any necessary cost reduction or trends. Accounting can use the advantage provided by Excel to identify which marketing channel is creating the most revenue and presenting this information to management so that they can increase advertising expenditure accordingly. Database should be the main driving force for Aces information technology needs because it combines all the tools that would help Ace identify repeat customers, conversion of prospective into buyers, most profitable marketing channel, identify what customers prefer in their vehicles and most important is the fact that Ace can use the data to create a personalized marketing tool for their customers. Excel plays a support role to Database because the main focus is accounting (determine cost and revenue), also making suggestions of what the company is doing right and what they need to improve on. With simple and readily available software Ace can be more efficient and improve their business.
To enhance the system capabilities we should have a budget for this project. The solution is to implement an enterprise networking system, testing of system, a firewall/anti virus, Excel and Database software and the constant monitoring and updating of the system. We are estimating the initial development cost to be $100 000. The ongoing cost to hire an information technologist and maintenance would be $40 000 annually. The enterprise networking system should provide the backbone for Aces information technology needs. This will give them the ability to store information on the Internet and have access to information at any time. The ability of enterprise networking is to share information among different departments help increase communication flow within the company. This will require the largest