Reference no: EM13865264
Dirt Bikes U.S.A. is a small company headquartered in Carbondale, Colorado. It manufactures and sells its own brand of off-road motorcycles. The company, founded in 1993, produces customized dirt bikes for racing and off-road recreational riding using the best quality components from all over the world. Today, the company faces a new set of challenges and opportunities. You have been asked, as a consultant, to apply your knowledge of information systems to help Dirt Bikes U.S.A. solve some of the problems it is encountering.
Task 1:
Examine the Dirt Bikes U.S.A. case study and review How to Analyze a Case Study. After reading the case study, review the following information:
- Company History and Background
- Organization Chart and Employees
- Products and Services
- Sales and Marketing
On the basis of this information, answer the following questions:
1. Which products should the company restock?
2. Which stores and sales regions would benefit from promotional campaigns and additional marketing?
3. When (what time of year) should the company offer products at full price and when should it offer discounts?
Task 2:
Dirt Bikes' management wants to be sure that it is pursuing the right competitive strategy. You have been asked to perform a competitive analysis of the company to find the information you need. Prepare a report that analyzes Dirt Bikes using the value chain and competitive forces models. Your report should include the following:
1. Which activities at Dirt Bikes create the most value?
2. How does Dirt Bikes provide value to its customers?
3. Who are Dirt Bikes' major competitors? How do the prices of their products compare with those of Dirt Bikes'? What product features do they emphasize?
4. What are the competitive forces that can affect the industry?
5. What competitive strategy should Dirt Bikes pursue?
6. What information systems best support that strategy?
7. (Optional) Use electronic presentation software to summarize your findings for the management.
Task 3:
Dirt Bikes would like to implement new software for production planning, quality control, and scheduling. The software will be used by 25 members of the company's manufacturing staff. The management is wondering whether to purchase the software from a commercial vendor along with the hardware required or to use a hosted software solution from a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider. (The hosted software runs on the service provider's computer.) You have been asked to help the management with this rent-versus-buy decision by calculating the total cost of each option over a three-year period. The cost of purchasing the software includes the initial purchase price of the software (licensing fee of $100,000 in the first year), and the cost of implementing and customizing the software in the first year ($20,000).
Hardware costs include a server to run the software (a first-year purchase of $4,000), one information systems specialist devoting half his or her time to support the software ($55,000 in full-time annual salary and benefits with a 3 percent annual salary increase each year after the first year), and user training in the first year ($10,000).You also need to account for the cost of annual software upgrades ($5,000). On the other hand, the costs of renting hosted software include the rental fees ($2,500 annually per user), implementation and customization costs ($12,000 in the first year), and training ($10,000 in the first year).
1. Use your spreadsheet software to calculate the total cost of renting or purchasing this software over a three-year period. Identify the lowest- price alternative that meets Dirt Bikes' requirements.
2. What other factors should Dirt Bikes consider, besides cost, while determining whether to rent or buy the hardware and software?
3. (Optional) If possible, use electronic presentation software to summarize your findings for management.
Part -2:
Dirt Bikes U.S.A.-Redesign Database
Task 1:
Dirt Bikes U.S.A. sells primarily through its distributors
It maintains a small customer database with the following data:
- Customer name
- Address (street, city, state, ZIP code)
- Telephone number
- Model purchased
- Date of purchase
- Distributor
The distributors collect this data after each sale and then forward it to Dirt Bikes. Dirt Bikes would like to be able to market more aggressively to its customers. The marketing department would like to send customers e-mail notices of special racing events and of sales on parts. It would also like to learn more about customers' interests and tastes, their ages, years of schooling, other sports in which they are interested, and whether they attend dirt bike racing events. In addition, Dirt Bikes would like to know whether its customers own more than one motorcycle. If a motorcycle was purchased from Dirt Bikes, the company would like to know the date of purchase, model name, and distributor from whom it was purchased.
If the customer owns a non-Dirt Bikes motorcycle, the company would like to know the manufacturer and model of the other motorcycle (or motorcycles) and the distributor from whom the customer purchased that motorcycle.
On the basis of the above information, perform the following activities:
1. Redesign Dirt Bikes' customer database so that it can store and provide the information needed for marketing. You will need to develop a design for the new customer database and then implement it using database software. Consider using multiple tables in your new design.
Populate each new table with 10 records.
2. Develop reports that would be of interest to Dirt Bikes' marketing and sales department (for example, lists of repeat Dirt Bikes customers, Dirt Bikes customers who attend racing events, or the average ages and years of schooling of Dirt Bikes customers) and print them.
Task 2:
The management is concerned that Dirt Bikes' computer systems could be vulnerable to power outages, vandalism, computer viruses, natural disasters, or telecommunications disruptions. You have been asked to perform an analysis of system vulnerabilities and disaster recovery planning for the company.
Answer the questions below. You may refer to Table 7.2,
"Examples of Computer Crime," on page 242 of your textbook for more information.
1. Identify the threats to which Dirt Bikes' systems are most vulnerable.
2. Classify the most critical systems at Dirt Bikes. What would be the impact on the company if these systems could not operate? How long could the company survive if these systems were down? Which systems are the most important to back up and restore in the event of a disaster?
3. Use the Internet to locate two disaster recovery services that could be used by a small business, such as Dirt Bikes. Compare them in terms of the services they offer. Which of the two services should Dirt Bikes use? How would these services help Dirt Bikes recover from a disaster?
Task 3:
Dirt Bikes cannot fulfill many of its orders on time because of delays in sourcing some important motorcycle components and parts, such as fuel tanks. Complaints are mounting from distributors who fear losing sales if the dirt bikes they have ordered are delayed too long. Dirt Bikes' management has asked you to help address some of its supply chain issues. Based on this information, answer the questions listed below:
1. Use the Internet to locate alternative suppliers for motorcycle fuel tanks. Identify two or three suppliers. Find out the time and the cost of shipping a fuel tank (weighing about five pounds) by ground (surface delivery) from each supplier to Dirt Bikes in Carbondale, Colorado. Which of these suppliers is likely to ship the fuel tanks in the shortest amount of time and at the lowest cost?
2. The management wants to know about any supply chain management software that would be appropriate for a small business, such as Dirt Bikes. Use the Internet to locate two providers of supply chain management software. Briefly describe the capabilities of the two software
applications and indicate how they could help Dirt Bikes. Which of these products would be more appropriate for Dirt Bikes? Why?
3. (Optional) Use electronic presentation software to summarize your findings for management.
Task 4:
Dirt Bikes' management believes that the company could benefit from e-commerce. The company sells motorcycles and parts primarily through authorized dealers. It also advertises in various magazines catering to dirt bike enthusiasts and maintains booths at important off-road motorcycle racing events. You have been asked to explore how Dirt Bikes could benefit from e-commerce and by selling online through a website.
1. Prepare a report for management that answers the following questions:
a. How could Dirt Bikes benefit from e- commerce? Should it sell its motorcycles or parts online? Should it use its website to advertise its products and services or to offer customer service?
b. How would a website provide value to Dirt Bikes? Use the Internet to research the cost of an e-commerce site for a small-to medium-sized company. How much revenue or cost savings would the website have to produce to make it a worthwhile investment for Dirt Bikes?
2. Prepare specifications to describe the functions that should be performed by Dirt Bikes' website. Provide links to other websites or systems in your specifications.
3. (Optional) Design the home page for Dirt Bikes' website along with an important secondary page linked to the home page using a word processor or a Web page development tool of your choice.
4. Identify some important website features that can be used to create customer relationships. Analyze the challenge that Dirt Bikes may face in the course of creating customer intimacy and loyalty.
Task 5:
Dirt Bikes promotes itself as a "learning company." It encourages employees to undergo training to help them advance in their careers. As employees move on, their positions fall vacant. These positions must be filled quickly to maintain the company's pace of production.
Dirt Bikes' human resources staff would like to find a way of quickly identifying qualified employees who have the training to fill vacant positions. Once the company knows who these employees are, it has a better chance of filling open positions internally rather than paying to recruit outsiders. Dirt Bikes would like to track each employee's years of education and the title and date of completion of any training that each employee has attended. Dirt Bikes' existing employee database is limited to basic human resources data, such as employee name, identification number, birth date, address, telephone number, marital status, job position, and salary. Click here to download some sample records from this database. Dirt Bikes' human resources staff maintains employees' skills and training data in paper folders.
On the basis of this information, prepare a system analysis report describing Dirt Bikes' problem and suggesting a solution that can be implemented using database software. The report should include the following points:
- Description of the problem and its organizational and business impact
- Proposed solution and solution objectives
- Information requirements to be addressed by the solution
- People, organization, and technology issues to be addressed by the solution, including changes in business processes
On the basis of the requirements you have identified, design the solution using database software and populate it with at least 10 records per table. Consider whether you can use or modify the existing employee database in your design. Print out the design for each table in your new application. Use the system to create queries and reports that would be of interest to the management, such as the names of employees who have a college education, or have undergone training in project management or advanced computer-aided design (CAD) tools.
If possible, use electronic presentation software to summarize your findings for the management.
- Submit a report including the answers to the questions posed in this part of the project.
- Include appropriate databases to support your answers.