ClubIT Computer Company has been in operation for the last nine years. Robert Fraser established the company in 2001. The company offers information and technology solutions to small and medium scale business.
The company classifies its services and products into five categories: managing IT services, installation of hardware and software, web design or developing of in-house programs and finally it offers data recovery services (ClubIT corporate website, 2010). This paper evaluates strategic management styles in the company and gives recommendations on how to improve the services offered.
Problem of ClubIT
The company has highly experienced management team, who are not only trained in information technology but have basic management skills. However, the company is faced with the following problems:
- The company’s target market is small-scale businesses of between 2-200 employees; the company does not have a plan of advancing their technologies to cater for increased need of their target market as they develop to large-scale companies.
- Being a private owned company, the company lacks a strong succession plan
- The company lacks knowledge management strategy. Information and technology is changing drastically, maintaining employees are important in the sector but ClubIT does not have such a plan.
ClubIT Resources, customers and supply chain
The company main resources are in the experience and innovativeness of its employees. The company employs highly trained and talented IT experts who offer solutions to their target customer needs. When developing software, the company benefits from the experience of Robert Fraser, who has over 28 years of experiences.
It also taps intellectual assets in their young and energetic employees. To ensure that the company has quality hardware both for internal use and to supply to customers, the company has established strategic partnership with world major suppliers like Dell, HP, Lenovo and Microsoft. The company is a member of AJAX-PICKERING.
The company target market are small-scale traders, it aims at offering information and technology solutions to organisation of employees more than two but not more than 200. It offers various services that include, data recovery, development of websites and in house programs, supply of hardware and software and Information software and hardware maintenance services.
The company have an integrated supply chain management that deals with inwards, outwards and reverse logistics. The procurement department is active in ensuring that the company gets materials at the right time and the supplies are of an appropriate quality and quantity.
The company have good relationship with some of its suppliers and maintains a partnership kind of relationship. Some of its suppliers are Dell, HP Computer Company, Lenovo Computer Company, and Microsoft Software Company (ClubIT corporate website, 2010).
Incorporating enterprise resource planning (ERP) in ClubIT
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are strategic management tools that ensure that both internal and external processes in a business are efficient. It uses computer-based applications to manage different section of a company. It incorporates transactional backbone, advanced application and management dashboard (Alexis, 2007). Lets discus two ERP systems to be implemented in ClubIT:
Supply chain management system
Adopting an integrated supply chain system in the company will ensure that there is constant supply of goods and services. The system should look into forward, reverse and inwards logistics. The system will ensure there is an appropriate management of stocks that there is no one particular time that the company will have more stock than it requires or have a deficit of stock.
The purchasing department has the role of ensuring that at reorder level, there are appropriate measures taken to have supplies in time. An integrated supply chain management will offer information on the reorder level of various products (Sarika, 2004).
When the company adopts and integrated supply chain management, it will have a just in time stock management system. This system ensures there are minimal stocks in the warehouses thus reducing warehouse costs.
An integrated supply chain management assists in maintaining good supplier company relations. This is where the company and its suppliers maintain good partnership. This partnership is build when supplies are paid in time, delivery made in time and supplier makes quality supplies.
With an integrated supply chain, then the company will be able to monitor its creditors, have a ensure that quality goods are delivered when needed (Joel, Keah-Choon and Keong, 2008)
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Customers are the backbone of a company, when they buy from a business; they enable the firm get profits. Winning customers and maintaining leads to business continuity.
To win customers, the company should make products that address the needs of the target market. ClubIT target customers are small-scale traders, their needs in information technology varies and thus the company should ensure it has quality packages to address the varying needs. The cost of products sold by the company should be favourable to the customers and in this way, it will be able to sell a wide variety of products.
Having a computerised customer relationship management (CRM) system will assist ensuring that the customer needs are recognised and products are improved accordingly. For example by collecting and analysing customer feedbacks, the company will be able to know the kind of software that customers want and evaluate the level it is able to satisfy customers with the current products. This will go a long way in developing good customer relations.
When a company has good customer relation, it is likely to develop customer loyalty that will boost its sales in short and long term (Peelen, 2006).
Departments to be affected
Developing an integrated supply chain management will affect the following departments:
- Procurement and supplies department, they will use the system to make strategic decisions on which companies to procure from , the quantity to procure and the time to procure
- Stock management department, the department will be assisted in maintaining the appropriate level of stock, know when they expect additional stocks and what amount
- Warehouse department, the department will know the size of warehouse to maintain at any one point and when they expect to get goods
Customer relationship management (CRM) will affect the following department:
- Customer care service department, they will use the system to collect feedbacks from customers
- Research and development department, the department will be using information from the system in advising the company on the kind of products to make
Conclusion
ClubIT is an information and technology solutions company; it targets small-scale traders. The company boosts of its highly experienced and talented employees who can develop programs that meets the company customers’ needs. To improve its business processes, the company should implement enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to manage internal and external processes.
References
Alexis, L.(2007). Enterprise Resource Planning. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.
ClubIT corporate website. (2010). ClubIT. Web.
Joel, D., Keah-Choon, T., Keong L. (2008).Principles of Supply Chain Management. New Jersey: Cengage Learning.
Peelen, E.(2006).Customer Relationship Management. Amsterdam: Pearson Education.
Sarika, K. (2004). Supply chain management: creating linkages for faster business turnaround. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.