Leveraging IT for Business Advantage – Café de Coral Research Paper

Introduction

Information technology has actually penetrated all spheres and aspects of the organization management. The initial role of information communication technologies being support of different business operations has also gradually grown to be central to the strategic management of the organization.

The emergence of new IT systems has been the critical facilitator of the business reengineering process in most institutions. The use of information communication technologies by business has enabled them achieve competitive edge over their competitors. This technology has enabled operational efficiency through the production management systems.

Business process reengineering, product and service differentiation has also been facilitated by different IT systems like Computer Aided design, customer relationship management and marketing information system. Improved and faster decision making has been enhanced by the decision support systems and management information systems.

This research paper will look to describe how Café de Carol has embraced information technologies and how this has facilitated its successful growth.

Information technology in management

Most business organizations have their main goal being value addition to their shareholders. Organizations achieve this by profit maximization through the reduction of production costs and increase. This motive is usually very limited keeping in mind the current business environment where competition is very stiff.

In organizations, information systems constitute different components working together in order to achieve the organization goals. The management of an organization has the responsibility of planning, controlling and motivating its staff members for the achievement. The decision making aspects of the organization rely on data and facts that has to be collected and analyzed regarding various procedures of the organization.

Information communication technology came in to facilitate this process of information processing at different functional areas of the organization. The use of information communication technology has enabled the organization information systems process information faster, consequently making decisions faster. Current information system processes information on real time making decision making process almost instantaneous process.

Information technology and competitive advantage

Today’s business entities are in cut throat competition and each of them would like to be the market leader and be the most profitable in the industry. With such challenge, the strategic management are faced with long term survival of an institution decisions while the operations management having operational efficiency issues.

This makes the need for faster information processing and support a very critical necessity. Information communication technologies do come in to fill this gap thereby enabling the faster making of strategic and tactical decisions. According to Alter (2008) with proper leverage on IT, organizations will be able to minimize costs, provide competitive products and services, better customer relationship management and business reengineering.

Information communication technologies will not make business strategy but will facilitate the achievement of business goals. This requires that IT systems will have to be designed with focus on business strategy of the organization. IT will support the organization achieve a competitive edge where it has been aligned with the organizations’ business strategy.

Café de Carol with the mission of being the global food industry leader has strategically positioned itself for this with the company’s willingness to invest heavily in information technology. The company developed a very good customer relationship management (CRM) based on the core objective of ensuring that the customer experience in their shops is unmatched.

They have a customer loyalty program and online order processing system. The company currently has a mechanical and fully automated food processing plant with an enormous logistics support system using their own distribution fleet consequently achieving operations and production efficiency.

Customer Relationship management

The customer centered business approach by café de carols is a good perspective of management and production firm since without it, there is no reason for an organization to exist. Customer management systems have enabled organization to build emotional attachments with their customers and consequently personalizing their provision of services.

This makes the customer develop a feeling of greatness and loyalty to the organization. With these CRM systems, organizations are able to build relationship even though online purchasing and ordering. These systems will be able to make the organization segregate customers and adapt to their lifestyles, likes and attitudes where necessary consequently increasing sales and revenues.

Café de carol has high regard to the customer experience and satisfaction in their shops. The restaurants have been decorated with an exceptionally great concept. Additionally these restaurants and shops enjoy a number of high quality products, a Wi-Fi connection as a result making them a place of choice for meeting by most professionals.

Café de Carol has a great customer experience. It also has a wide range of products and services that makes them a community-wide service provider. The customer is able to choose for a quick service shops, specialty restaurants and institutional catering services.

Customer order processing system is a very important point in a CRM since it can determine whether the customer will be admiring the organization or not. The order processing should always be as friendly and informative as possible. It should be relatively predictive and the customer should understand when the products or services will be ready for them.

The CRM should be able to notify the customer when their product or service is ready for collection or use and the most convenient means of footing the bill. With the nature of Café de Coral business where ambience and absolute customer comfort is critical; the company image and shop ambience ought to be a splendid provision to their customers.

Building of a strong customer base will always begin with customer satisfaction and therefore it is very imperative that organization invests heavily on the information communication technologies that will in the long run facilitate efficiency in serving customers and which do not affect the their comfort.

With the Customer Relationship management in place, organizations have enabled the existence of soft relations with their customers consequently able to respond to their ever varying needs. The organization is also able to maintain customers for long term profitability.

Production & Inventory management

Operations efficiency is an asset to every organization like Café de Carols with the globe as it expansion boundary. With technologies to enable organizations to have operations excellence in place, institutions will always try to achieve on one of the areas which enhances their greatest strategic objectives.

Operations efficiency touches on functional areas of Production management, inventory and quality control. Production management and scheduling system is very important since it enhances timely delivery of products to the customer. This also will help the raw materials inventory management regarding their projections of the quantities of raw material needed.

Production responsibilities are usually very critical and for a service industry with centralized production units where quality is of essence, technology driven production management systems is very necessary so as to harmonize product quantities needed by the shops and the raw materials required that they also require. The system should also facilitate maintenance of required quality standards, even with the widely known perceptions that this industry is labor intensive, human judgments can always be enhanced by technologies.

Raw materials acquisition system is also a very critical side of the production process. Where to buy from, when to buy and the quantities to be purchased are critical decisions which require the support of a scheduling system. Production efficiency and quality will depend greatly on the availability of right quality and quantity of materials and this has been facilitated by the central purchasing system.

With the growth history of Café de carol, its operations and future aspirations of being a global leader in food industry, necessary technology aid is imperative. The production management system must be able to plan and schedule for the flow of information, inventory and products.

Café de Carol has fully leveraged on information technology in their whole production processes. Their food productions factories are mechanized and fully automated with a quality control departments and laboratories. With such level of production process management and frequent upgrade of their plant, café de Carol has remained the market leader in fast foods industry.

The company has also engaged in innovative process of developing new products and services. This high quality products development using advanced quality monitored technology has enabled the company products to be very competitive in the market.

Finished goods inventory system

Finished goods inventory system deals with general stock management. The system ensures that there is stock for distribution in the shops and other outlets. This system is there to ensure that goods are safeguarded from theft, bad storage conditions and destruction. The inventory system will also play a pivotal role in ensuring that customer satisfaction exercise is completed smoothly.

With the just in time approach to inventory management, most organization would like to invest in inventory management systems which will limit the stockholding costs while operating at high level efficiency.

Café de Carol has not only invested in a very excellent inventory management system but also technology to ensure that the qualities of its products are continuously preserved like cold and dry storage facilities. The food production process is equally an area where storage costs can be so high and consequently production process must be guided by very timely and high level market intelligence information.

Café de Carol has invested well in technology not only to improve on the logistics of raw material and finished goods but also in proper storage facilities. The Production factories have cold and dry storage facilities, central purchasing management system and distribution fleet.

Truck scheduling system

Logistics is usually part of the operations management. The food distributing trucks scheduling is an area which requires Information communication technology support.

For the effective truck scheduling, truck tracking system and scheduling should be in place. The scheduling module should be able to allocate truck to the route that will be less costly to the company. Café de Carols have distribution fleets which has a central management. The fleet ensures that the food will be delivered to the various shops at the required state of quality.

Sales & marketing

Café de Carol has been able to market their products strategically. With proper customer feedback from its integrated marketing information system, the company has been able to improve on the quality of their products and aid in innovating other new products.

The institutionalization of quality standards within the food processing plants has enabled the organization to maintain their clients. The company has been able to advertise its quality products by running a lot of TV commercials stressing their unique and high quality products.

Information technology has expanded the sales and marketing platform for the company. With their luncheon star, a school catering flagship, the website has been a successful sales and marketing forum. The company has fully leveraged on integrated market communication system in the area of collecting customer feedback by use of a web questionnaire through surveys.

This has given the company an opportunity to understand the customer needs hence supply of better quality products and services. VIP Loyalty program fully supported by information technology has proved to be not only a very great customer relationship management program but also a great sale and marketing support system.

Sales analysis & forecasting system

Market intelligence is a very great aspect of market information system. This is because information on customer needs, sales trends and feedback is usually achieved. Sale analysis is part of market intelligence where the analyst is interested mostly in trends and factors for the seasonal variations (Alter, 2008).

With this information at hand, forecasting model will be developed; this is a great management tool for planning. Sales analysis system for the café de Carol has a very elaborate market information systems supported by the segmental accounting reporting which has enabled the company to have efficient production and operations management.

All projections have been based on the market intelligence information. With the support of web based questionnaires, the company is able to get real time customer feedback which is very important for the operations and service improvements.

Vendor management

Vendors who supply critical raw materials to an organization are very important. Payments to vendors should be done promptly so that penalties or poor relationship is not experienced. Service or product providers have to be respected and if credit relationship has been developed, strict adherence to the terms of the relations is very critical. The organization should be able to service its debts within the credit period. This will ensure that the continuous service or product provision is enhanced.

Supplier performance system

Suppliers’ relationship with the company has to be cordial. Suppliers’ relationship with the company will have to be through legal contracts and mostly with the service level agreements. This relationship is very involving and tedious and can divert the company management to focusing on it rather than the profit motive.

Procurement function especially for critical raw materials should be treated with seriousness since failure to supply raw materials can lead to closure of the company operations. For the case of Café de Carol, the centralized purchasing system has enabled several stores to focus more on the customer service. The central purchasing system will usually ensure that the suppliers deliver quality products and process their payments.

Accounting management

Café de Carols’ financial management and accounting system is one functional information system that the company cannot do without. This is because it is much related to the administration and corporate governance. Financial position of a company is the only information investors would like to know about the company.

This makes accounting management a central role to the whole existence of an organization and the purpose of investment. Much of the corporate governance standards have been developed around accounting management since it is the only reporting system that will give information on the overall organization performance. The company’s financial position has been good even though the economic downtown had affected most of its global operations.

Manual Accounting information systems can no longer provide the information at the required speeds hence most organizations have migrated to computerized accounting system. Organizations’ financial information is currently required to be known on real time basis, since even income calculations have been narrowed down to per second calculation.

Accounting information system will therefore be the central system that will collect information from other functional area information systems. Café de Carol has been awarded many trophies on the area of corporate governance showing that their accounting management systems are perfectly managed.

Marketing Plan (4P)

The marketing plan for an organization lays down the tactical marketing strategy for the company. The marketing leverage points are usually around price wars, product promotion, product quality and the business location. With no direct elaboration of the Café de Carols’ marketing plan, the company has shown adequate clues of its strategy.

The company’s marketing focus has been around customer experience, product quality, promotion and branding. With the continuous branding and repackaging, the company has come up with a very innovative packaging design and super brands. Information technology has guided this process through customer feedback facilitation.

The company has also engaged in aggressive product promotions through TV commercials and also online commercials, this has consequently increased sales tremendously.

The use of the online order processing in the case of luncheon star product has seen it become the most used school lunch service program. With the support of information technology, an organization is therefore able to do marketing and order processing to a bigger catchment area.

Product differentiation is one area an organization can gain a competitive advantage and café de Carol has capitalized on this fully. The company has been in a continuous process of service and product reengineering. It has always been able to come up new products and services as a result growing its customer base.

Café de Carol stores have been strategically positioned so as to meet different client needs. The café brand has been recognized because of its uniqueness. Their stylish, ambient and comfortable dining environment has always given customers great experience and satisfaction.

The competitive prices of the brand Café de Carol has also given them a niche in their market. The company’s’ large scale and low cost production has enabled the company to price its products competitively. Wide product ranges has also made it possible for the company to serve a larger and differentiated market.

Conclusion

The varied information communications technologies have made it possible for business organizations to expound their business horizons. The use of these technologies has not only enabled faster decision making in a very competitive business environments but also helped businesses have a competitive edge over their competitors.

The giant global organizations like Café de Carol can monitor their global operations from one central management centre on real time basis. The information technology has colonized all the functional departments of every modern organization making their use very invaluable.

With much information flow and ever changing business environments, business organizations have to change and appreciate technologies that will enable them make timely decision. Café de Coral has actually put up strong investment in information technology that has enabled it to be competitive and expand tremendously.

References

Alter, S., 2008. Information systems: a management perspective. Boston: Addison Wesley.