Robert Rosin, Alex Power, Anthony Nikula, David Orella

R.A.A.D. Pens

Robert Rosin, Alex Power, Anthony Nikula, David Orella

Dr. Jason Chen

BMIS 235-01-G7 Term Project

April 26, 2010

COMPANY

Since 2010, R.A.A.D Pen has been supplying an award winning design and supply track record of success based upon five key pillars.

Our People:

The R.A.A.D Pen team includes some of the best, most knowledgeable people in the industry. Our highly skilled professionals work directly with the owner and execute your needs from start to finish.

Our Process:

R.A.A.D Pen has a proven process which delineates all major milestones so everyone is on the same page and you can make informed decisions each step of the way.

Our Partners:

The highest quality supplies from leading manufactures are personally selected by R.A.A.D. Pen specialists. High end materials are supplied by leading fabricators, and natural surface materials are personally selected and delivered directly from the warehouse. And to make it all work, R.A.A.D. Pen has longstanding relationships with the finest supplier in the region.

Comprehensive Documentation:

R.A.A.D Pen ensures that design and construction documents are complete and setting up proceeds in accordance with the budget. Everything is accounted for, including your peace of mind.

Continual Improvement:

Never resting on our laurels and always striving to do better, R.A.A.D. has a focus on enhancements that includes continual team reviews, measurement, and process development.

Our company has decided on creating an information system that would allow us to keep track of all our records in a nice orderly manner. The new system would allow us to project the profits that we want to meet. We would get a better understanding on our consumers’ behavior.

OBJECTIVE

Our group hopes that this new information system that we install would provide a fast and easy way for us to access our records. We would create a system that would make it easier to look through all the information. An OLAP would make it fast for an employee to search through our records. The company would also be creating a website. This way, a customer can go online and search our products and go through our information.

Creating this information system makes it possible for our company to see what products are being bought and by whom. We could use this information to see what products we need more of and whom we want to make a deal with. It helps suggest new business plans that we would have to face. By using the new IS and the Porter’s Five Forces Model of Industry Structure we can figure out where we want to put our focus on. We can use the information to focus more on customers and suppliers, which would allow us to make a better product.

SDLC

Our company is using the five step system development life cycle process when it comes to creating our information system.

The first step is the system definition. Our goal and purpose of our information system is to create an easy and organized way of searching through our records. We want a system that would allow us to look at our information and see our customers’ behaviors and what products are being sold. Next we have to assess our feasibility. The information system that we want to develop is easy and cheap. It is not a confusing system and since our company is only selling a few products it is technically feasible. Then we will form the team and continue on with the project.

We follow up the system definition with the requirements analysis. We must determine our requirements. This is the most important part of the cycle. We need to decide what forms that we are going to be using. We are hoping to use a certain pivot table/OLAP that will allow us to search through the information fast. Before we can move on we must get our users’ approval which would just be our team.

Our component design has us using a PC with a LAN connection to the public internet, most likely located in our store. Our program that we will be using is OLAP and this is a off-the self software with adjustments because we are using OLAP but we will be designing them for our specific needs. We will be moving over our database from our existing records. We then have to teach our employees the new procedures and prove to them that the new information system is necessary.

The fourth step of the life cycle is to build the system. We have to create the tables and implement them into our company. We will be testing out the new system for the first few months and see if it actually helps out our company and is worth the time. We will be converting to the new system by phasing because it is the most relaxed and the easiest transition.

Finally is system maintenance, we have to make sure that our new system runs smoothly. We want to make sure that this new system would be able to last for a long time so we would probably have to update and keep it current.

BASE MODEL

The distribution analysis data base makes an easy and fast way to figure out frequently asked questions. In RAAD Pens’ case, if a manager wanted to look through the data and get specific information relating to products, customers, and sales representatives. The manager would open up the file and click on the pull-down and select a specific topic. For example, if the manager wanted to find their best customer by profit. They could go and select a customer’s name and the total profit for that customer would appear next to the name. The distribution analysis creates a way for all the data to be easily assessable with the correct answer next to it.

OLAP / PIVOT TABLE

This table was created in a manor to better understand our customers purchasing behavior. The major filters for this table are the sex and name of the customer. In manipulating the sex filter we can understand the purchasing actions of just women, or just men dependant on what we are looking for. The other major filter is the customer. In changing this we can learn more about an individual customer to better suit their needs. The columns are divided into the dates that the orders were made. Now, not only can we understand the goods that they prefer but when they are most likely to make a purchase. In knowing this we can contact our customer proactively to fill their office supply needs as efficiently as possible. The table is also largely oriented to increase knowledge of the demand, profit and costs of each individual item available for sale. This was done by adding the products to the rows. It can be further expanded to provide a more detailed break-down of each product. We firmly believe this OLAP table with further our knowledge of our valued customers so we can best orient our business to them while also maximizing profits.

For our purposes, we used a pivot table to display our data. By using a pivot table, we were able to break down the data on a single customer basis. This way is much more efficient and allows us to see which customers are buying more products. In our pivot table, we broke down each of the 6 customers and determined their needs quickly. For example, we were able to see how much Rick Crawford spent on products and the bulk of items that he purchased. Instead of scanning through the table and finding the data one row at a time, using a pivot table allows us to analyze the data in a fast and convenient way. We can manipulate the pivot table and data by breaking down the customer name, order date, profit, total sales, unit prices, sales rep, etc.

The data to the database that was used to create the reports in these excel workbooks. If you scan through this source data, you'll notice that it's difficult to see the trends and results, even if you sort or filter the data. There are just too many records to analyze at a glance.

PORTER’S MODEL

A crucial aspect that is substantial to all businesses is Porter’s model. R.A.A.D utilizes the capabilities of Porter’s model in various ways. As with most firms, we feel that the customer is always the most important element to consider. To generate a high amount of profits, you have to revolve all of your efforts around the wants and needs of the customer, because they will ultimately be the ones purchasing your product. Since we are offering a wide variety of pens, our product differentiation will be what sets us apart from other competitors. Our next priority will be competitors within our industry. With many brand name pens available on the market, it is important to maintain efficient information systems that are up to date. With our high-end and expensive line of pens, large companies such as BIC, Papermate, and Pilot can be a big threat to our business.

A third aspect of Porter’s model that is critical to our success is the bargaining power of suppliers. Depending on the prices set by the manufacturers, the prices of R.A.A.Ds pens could fluctuate. Our last two forces in Porter’s model are perceived by us to be minimal because of our large cliental that we are dealing with. These deal with the threat of new entrants, and substitutes for our products and services. The new entrants would include companies who are just beginning in the industry whose ideas are innovative and unique. As for the substitutes, these include products such as pencils, cheaper pens than our own, computer processing, and other refined products. As for the cost of our product, it won’t be affordable for the average person. However the quality of our pens is our main focus. We provide top-of-the-line pens that are long lasting compared to other throw-away pens that last short periods of time. Instead of a company such as Office Depot or Staples who sell a wide range of products, our focus is strictly pens.

R.A.A.D uses all the value chain activities to provide effective products to customers. The five activities in the value chain which include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service are all pivotal to the success of our company. Each of our activities within the value chain contains linkages that work together to get the final product to the customer. To give us a competitive advantage in our industry, the efficient use of our information systems will allow us to revolutionize the pen industry. By maintaining detailed and easy-to-manage databases, we will be able to gain knowledge about our customers based off of our data. The support activities, which include firm infrastructure, human resources, technology development, and procurement, will all be used extensively to produce high profits. By transforming these inputs into outputs, we are able to generate value. Our marginal efficiency will be what sets us apart from other competitors.

WEBSITE

The website for RAAD Pens will allow for the inventory to be processed through an excel spreadsheet linked to the page. It will provide clear navigation for customers to be able to navigate with straight forward information about office products such as elite type pens and accessories. Order forms will be in an access format and orders once completed will be eliminated from available inventory within the company through a excel format inventory. For the pleasure of the customer, the webpage will consist of graphical images that illustrate what the products are. Each picture will have a description of what the product is the name of the product and if there is any warranties attached to the products.

When dealing with cost, our company will try to beat any competitor that is on the market in order to get the upper hand and to sell more products. In doing such, the cost part of the page will consist of two categories. The first being the category of cost which will have link that will take the customer to a excel sheet that has the information on an OLAP table to illustrate the cost of the products as well as the variety of products that are available. The next section will consist of competitors. This link will take them to a page that has all the leading competitors that are on the market so that they would be able to compare our prices to their. RAAD Pen even included telephone numbers to each company so that the customer can instead call the company if they are unable to go to another site.

The testimonies part of the page was done in part because it helps illustrate the high quality of the products that we care and that our customers are the ones who make the right decisions when they make a purchase.

When a customer makes a decision to order from our company, we would like to make sure they get all the warranties and such that come with the product. This is why the registration part of the page has the ability to allow them to select the product they bought and with doing so, we will be able to get all of their information. This will allow for our company to selectively cater to each customer with the type of products that they like. Also on the page is the section of “Used For” and “Do You.” These sections allow are company to know what type of customer we are catering to so that when advertising or trying to get the word of mouth out about us we will know which market to enter.

The ordering section of the page is quite different from most. First we only ask for the persons billing, shipping and payment method. Once that is complete, we would contact the customer and make the purchase more personable. This will allow the customers to feel more comfortable and allow for our sales representatives to suggest other products to go with their purchase.

Currently both the registration and order section of the site are not equipped with the ICG software that would allow for submission of the information. If this were to be an active site, the need software would need to be purchased so that the products could be sold and the information would be acquired.

BENEFITS

Through hard work and working together as a group we ultimately will benefit from the over all experience for creating such a project that will allow us to apply the information and knowledge that we have obtain throughout the semester.