Management Information System: Broadway Cafe

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Abstract

However, being a booming business ever since its establishment in 1952, the ‘Broadway café’ has in the recent past succumbed to the effects of changing times with technological advancement effects in the 21st century taking the lead. The menu of the café ranges from varieties of coffees, teas, bakery, sandwiches, salads as well as soups. According to a critical analysis of the café, ordering processes in the café is manual as there is no computer system installed there. The grandfather’s memory stands out as the main reference point in merely all aspects of the café and this is seen as the main shortcoming in the operation of the business especially within the 21st century. This has direct impacts on the business by touching on such aspects as finance, sales, marketing, accounting, customer service as well as the human resource aspects. It is the postulation of this paper that the adoption of e-commerce strategies is an effective tool towards reforming the café especially in the modern day era of technological advancement.

Discussion

The Broadway café would be more suited in adoption of electronic marketing strategies, computerized information management as well as adoption of an online system of ordering and correspondences. These are among other emerging features especially within the food industry such as in which the Broadway café operates in. e-marketing strategies are not only convenient and efficient in saving costs of marketing but they increase the capacity of the advert to reach large number of target audiences easily (Baltzan, 2012). The internet has eased the mechanisms of advertisement and as such, the Broadway café would have itself to blame in the event of failure to exploit the great opportunities brought about by internet and technological advancement in general. Information management as well as data handling is poorly done in the café hence necessitating the adoption of the more improved systems of data/information management through computerized systems. Though the initial costs of installing computers systems in the café may be considered high, the efficiency realized through the system by far outweighs the costs incurred in installation. This would equally enable the management of the café to adopt advanced services of data handling such as cloud computing. Moreover, this system would enable easy correspondences with customers through social media platforms among other improvements. This would be effective in business transactions of ordering and reservation placements as well as passing on feedback and concerns, which would be very useful to the management for improvements.

The café would equally run a website through which marketing and interacting with customers would be enabled. The strategy would be very effective in attracting customers due to improved customer awareness as well as increase on overall sales of the café. Present-ability of a business website contributes highly to the overall effect realized through interactions of persons within the website. Healthy interaction on the website has a likelihood of attracting more customers while at the same time increasing on the sales margins.

There are main features that would be dominant in designing the business website and these are together with the capacity to have as much information as possible, higher interact-ability, ease of access as well as high level of confidentiality especially on customer information (Baltzan, 2012). This would be effective in overcoming strategic challenges that are posed by advancement of technology including increased security risks, high compromise of individual information as well as lowered probability of customers and or the café to lose sensitive information to unauthorized person.

Among other ways that such an e-strategy as the website developed is effective in reaching different players within an industry such as the suppliers, customers as well as the traders (Baltzan, 2012). For instance, the Broadway café would have an improved capacity in interacting with the suppliers at more ease. This would be against previously where correspondences were all through cumbersome tools and human brain. Effective designing and operation-izing of the website would play a critical role in attracting suppliers while at the same time creating opportunities for bidding and interactions. Besides, the creation of such an inter-phase and or a portal for the suppliers would make the café run more efficiently with suppliers being customized to own private information as against developing a public portal for an individual supplier.

Finally, the effects of a portal to the employees are multiple and they range from the ease of communicating grievances. Besides, customization of individual employees to such systems as biographic system, which, traces employee information for eases of management, the system would be effective in keeping individual information. The use of kiosks in the café would therefore have roles diversified/changed where official correspondences between the café management and the other parties would be done. Besides, the kiosks would continue to provide strategic retail outlets for the Broadway café.

References

Baltzan, D., W., (2012). “Business Driven Information Systems”, 3e. Retrieved from < HYPERLINK “http://connect.mcgrawhill.com/connect/shortUrl.do?accessUrl=r_farmer_busi_4415_winter_2014_rfarmer_1&logout=true&navclick=true” http://connect.mcgrawhill.com/connect/shortUrl.do?accessUrl=r_farmer_busi_4415_winter_2014_rfarmer_1&logout=true&navclick=true>