Managerial Applications of Information Technology – MIS535
DeVry University, Keller Graduate School of Management
June 16, 2013

Table of Contents

Abstract 3

Brief Company background 3

Discussion of business problem(s) 4

High level solution 4

Benefits of solving the problem 4

Business/technical approach 5

Business process changes 5

Technology or business practicess used to augment the solution 5

Conclusions and overall recommendations 12

High-level implementation plan 12

Summary of project 12

Abstract The principal objective of this paper is to identify the different kinds of software and hardware available to improve the economic growth of the Smith Enterprise business. To add several IT strategic planning in order to solve the problem in the MacKenn Enterprises
Company. Smith Enterprises currently is losing money and has no inventory or supply management. It has no ability to track down current cost or any financial data. The company has no support of cataloging for pricing of any product. Records are not filed, and there is no real organization. By implementing new technology to this company it can be more productive and self sufficient. With new software and other new equipment it will make a tremendous impact and smooth management of the company.
Brief Company background The name of the company is Smith Enterprises. The company is just a small owned home business that has three family members who run the company. The company makes personalized items on items such as coffee cups, mouse pads, buttons, aprons, bags, shirts, with a touch of embroidery on many other items when requested. This company started in 1998, when my daughter was born. I wanted to personalize her bibs and hats. When I took the items to the store to have them done, I thought that was such a rip off. I always enjoyed sewing and hand embroidery. So I had to think of what would be a small business that would never fold. So I came up with the idea of personalizing items and embroidering clothes. So I turned it into a small business for half the cost of other embroidery stores. I do not have to worry about paying anyone for overhead costs or space rental. The company also gives a personal gift on just about every order over $25.00. Currently the company is using a high end industry embroidery machine and high end software that came with the machine. The embroidery machine is the most valuable part of the company.
Discussion of business problem(s) The business problem to be solved is how to stop losing money. We are losing money by not implementing any IT strategic planning into the inventory of all equipment and supplies. The business also needs to improve in the financial management aspect of the business.
High level solution The solution to this problem would be implementing IT strategic planning. This would be done by implementing software that would take care of accountability of equipment and supply. This would help keep inventory in order to improve financial lose. Maybe include financial management all in the same software if possible. This solution might end up with maybe two different software's due to inventory and financial being different platforms. The hardware would be a paper scanner for both financial reports and receipts which we already own. The other part of the hardware would be to integrate a hand held barcode scanner so that we could barcode each and every piece of equipment and supplies for better accountability. The hand held barcode scanner would also help in pricing individual items and keeping inventory at the same time. This would meet the companies needs for improving the business at this time.
Benefits of solving the problem The biggest benefit would be, not losing money on sales. The benefits would be, keeping track of all supplies and equipment. Knowing that there would be a good inventory of supplies needed when a customer makes a large order. It would lower our cost of supplies because we would not be duplicating on equipment and under stocking on supplies. On the financial management it would keep and maintain record keeping for tax purposes. It would keep better sales tracking. With this in place there would be fewer errors and less paper work. The company would pay no overhead or hire anybody else to train others or run the administrate portion of the company. Software that can handle these solutions would decrease wasteful hours in searching for items and increase the productivity of the product going out to the customer. This would also increase the retention of customer relationships. All this would make the company a better and organize business. Eventually move onto an online store.
Business / technical approach As a business / technical approach that I would implement in this company would be to conduct some hands on training to see how both the software and scanner work together. Since this is a small business company with only three people running it; it would not take much time to train and practice using the equipment. All the supplies and equipment would be located in one location. Once we feel we are ready and comfortable using the new software and scanner, we would start marking the equipment and supplies with barcodes and implementing into the new software. Business process changes With new software and hardware added to the company, I know this will improve sales and keep better track of the equipment and product. A simple change like this one would overall increase delivery and services. It would also improve the forecasting, managing cash and funding by at least 30%. By making this small technology change, it would not affect the company in such a drastic change, but a moderate change. The new changes would keep better customer information for better quality service to the customer. This would also take care of all the over and under stocking of supplies. Making it a better and organize company.
Technology or business practice used to augment the solution When I did my research on the software and hardware on the internet, I was over whelmed by how much software and hardware there is for a solution of this kind. It seemed like hundreds. I first started with the software that would take care of the inventory for items and accountability.
If the software came with a financial tracking, that was a plus. I choose four software's to do a quick overview of the capabilities that the software could do. I compared these software's:
Inflow, IMagic Inventory, Inventory Power, and Small Business Inventory. I compared their features in the areas of inventory, financial, other features, help and support, and ease of use
(Tech Media Network, 2013). Under Inventory, I wanted software that could handle bar- coding along with a handheld scanner. This was to help our company's product location and categorizing (Archon System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory Software, 20, North

Star Solutions, LLC, 2013, Tech Media Network, 2013). All four software's had this feature as

shown in Figure 1. We looked at organizing by category. By having organized by category

allows you to look at all your items by groups (Archon System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software,

2013, Inventory Software, 20, North Star Solutions, LLC, 2013, Tech Media Network, 2013). This feature was also included in all four software's shown in Figure 1. Next in the inventory section was a feature view overall inventory levels, which with this feature one could see how much inventory one has (Archon System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory

Software, 20, North Star Solutions, LLC, 2013, Tech Media Network, 2013). Three of the four

software had this feature as shown in Figure 1. Inventory Power did not include this feature at

all.

In the financial area, I covered three areas I was looking to have in the software. One was create/send purchase orders. This feature is like printing a receipt when the customer makes an order. All four software's had this feature as shown in Figure 1. This is an important feature in any inventory software (Archon System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory Software,

20, North Star Solutions, LLC, 2013, Tech Media Network, 2013). The feature manage

recurring orders covers exactly that, "Keeps track of repeat customers", (Tech Media Network,

2013). Three of the four software's had this feature as shown in Figure 1. Again

Inventory Power did not have this feature. This feature would help keep track of all our customers so that we would know what product the customer was interested in (Archon System

Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory Software, 20, North Star Solutions, LLC, 2013,

Tech Media Network, 2013).
.
Other features I was looking for were customer database, which cover all the information about your customers. This is another important feature that any inventory software should

have (Tech Media Network, 2013). Of course, all four software's had this feature (Archon

System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory Software, 20, North Star Solutions, LLC,

2013, Tech Media Network, 2013). A feature that allows more than one person using the

software at one time. More productivity for the company, by having one user can slow down

a business and lose customers. Two of the software's did not have this feature in it. This feature would be nice to have because there is more than one person in the company even thou it is a small company (Archon System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory Software,

20, North Star Solutions, LLC, 2013, Tech Media Network, 2013). The feature Multi-business means having the business in multiple locations. Only inflow software had this feature (Archon

System Inc., 2013). This feature was not that crucial to me or the company. The attach

photo feature is one of the company's powerful features. The ability to see the product

that you are looking for the customer, is a must. With this feature, one can not go wrong in selecting exactly what the customer wants. This feature helps the company tremendously account for every piece of product and equipment. Only two of the four had this feature, Inflow and Small Business Inventory Control (Archon System Inc., 2013, North Star Solutions, LLC,
2013).
In the help and support section of the software comparison, all four had online and email support. To my surprise only inflow software had a chat and phone support. I was a little disappoint on this feature (Archon System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory

Software, 20, North Star Solutions, LLC, 2013, Tech Media Network, 2013).

The ease of use category, I based it on all the features the software came with and the understanding of the language they used for explaining the use of the software.
Inflow seemed to have all the features that I wanted, but the price was just a little bit too much for the company. IMagic Inventory and Inventory Power where just about the same in all their features. They did not do everything I wanted the software to do. They also was a bit too much for the company. Small Business Inventory was very close to Inflow and had all the features that the company could use. The best part was the price was very reasonable. The software was $99.00 compared to $299.00 for the Inflow software (Archon System Inc., 2013, North Star

Solutions, LLC, 2013). The only thing I saw with this software was the ease of use. It was rated

5 by other consumers. My overall score was a 9 for Small Business Inventory Software (North

Star Solutions, LLC, 2013). Below is Figure 1, showing a closer look of the software features

comparison.

The hardware was compared to four hand held bar-code scanners as shown in Figure 2.
This was another item that I was surprised to see so many brands of scanners. I narrowed it down to these four: Intermec Barcode Scanner/Corded, Motorola-Symbol Barcode Scanner,
Honey-Well Area Imaging Scanner, and the Blue-tooth barcode Scanner. I was not aware of how many scanners and the price difference were out in the market today. I was just looking for a simple hand held scanner that would read and keep track of inventory. The company just needed a scanner that did what was necessary and under $200.00. My biggest surprise was how much scanners cost. The scanners vary from fifty dollars to a couple of thousand dollars. I was mainly looking for connection type and price. After comparing all four models, I saw how there was not that much different on what the scanner could do. Most of it was connection type and known for its technology. Therefore, after considering pricing and performance, I liked the blue- tooth barcode scanner. These options and portability are what the company needs. I did not like that they weighed more than most hand held scanners. The blue-tooth was reasonable in cost. I was not too happy with warranty it gave as opposed to the other scanners, given 5 years warranty compared to two year warranty for the blue-tooth (Opticon USA, n.d.).

Software Comparison
Product Name: inFlow iMagic Inventory Inventory Power Small Business Inventory Control
Inventory
Barcode Scan Adding x X x x
Organize by Category x X x x
View Overall Inventory Levels x X x Financial
Create/Send Purchase Orders x X x x
Configure Sales Tax x X x x
Manage Recurring Orders x X x Other Features
Customer Database x X x x
Allows Multi User Access x x
Multi-business x
Attach Photos x x Help and Support
Online info/FAQ x X x x
Email Support x X x x
Chat Support x
Phone Support x Ease of Use 9 8 7 8 Cost $299.00 $249.00 $199.00 $99.00 My Overall Rating 8 7 7 9
Figure 1. Software Comparison

(Archon System Inc., 2013, IMagic Software, 2013, Inventory Software, 20, North Star Solutions, LLC, 2013, Tech Media Network, 2013).

Hardware Comparison

Product Name Intermec -Barcode Scanner/Corded Motorola- Symbol Barcode Scanner Honey Well Area Imaging Scanner Blue-tooth Barcode Scanner Model SG10T LS2208-Sr2001R Xenon 1900 Opticon (OPR3301WBT-00) Reading Distance 1D bar Bi - directional 838 x 640 area Bi- directional Warranty 5 Years 5 Years 5 years 2 Years Connection Type USB and Key Board Wedge USB, RS232, Keyboard Wedge, IBM 468 x/469x, Wand Emulation USB, RS232, Keyboard Wedge, IBM 46xx (RS485) Bluetooth Unit Weight .23 lbs 5.15 oz 5.2 oz 10.2 Price $145.00 $102.00 $289.00 $216.00 My Rating 5 7 6 8
Figure 2. Hardware Comparison
(All Barcode Systems, Inc., 2013, Opticon USA, n.d., POSMICRO, n.d., Strategic Mobility Group, 2013).

Conclusions and overall recommendations My conclusion and overall recommendation would be to buy the Small Business Inventory software and the blue-tooth barcode scanner for the company. The total amount spent would be
$99.00 for the software and $216.00 for the blue-tooth barcode scanner. I believe that with these two items, it would help improve our sales and keep better inventory of the company's supplies and equipment.
High-level implementation plan My high level implementation plan would be to test out the software and see how it works for our business. Does it meet our needs for the company so that it would meet our strategic plan.
Implement the barcode scanner with the software and start a spreadsheet so that I could add all the supplies and equipment. Monitor sales and profits over a period of time to see if any improvement had been made.
Summary of project The Smith Enterprises came to a decision of comparing and selecting a software called
Small Business Inventory and a blue-tooth scanner for the business. The cost was right and the fix was not complicated. With these two items the company should be able to improve the total financial and inventory of the company, therefore making money instead of losing money.
References
All Barcode Systems, Inc. (2013). All Barcode Systems. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from Barcode Scanner/Wired/Intermec SG10T website: http://allbarcodesystems.com/products/intermec-sg10t
Archon System Inc. (2013). InFlow Features. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from InFlow Inventory Software website: http://www.inflowinventory.com/software-features.aspx
IMagic Software. (2013). IMagic Inventory. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from Inventory Software - Imagic Inventory website: http://www.imagicinventorysoftware.com/
Inventory Soft. (2013). Inventory Power 5 - Inventory Software for SME. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from Inventory Power Features, Inventory Software website: http://www.inventorysoft.com/new.cfm
North Star Solutions, LLC. (2013). North Star Solutions. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from Small Business Inventory Control website: http://www.nstarsolutions.com/store/product.php?productid=9834&cat=0&page=1&featured
Opticon USA. (n.d.). Opticon Wireless Scanners. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from Opticonusa website: http://www.opticonusa.com/downloads/documents/Wireless_OPR3301-INC.pdf
POSMICRO. (n.d.). Honeywell Xenon 1900. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from Honeywell Xenon 1900 2d Barcode Scanner website: http://www.posmicro.com/honeywell/xenon-1900.htm#
Strategic Mobility Group. (2013). SMG3 Strategic Mobility Group. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from Motorola LS2208 Coded Scanner website: http://www.strategicmobility.com/scanners/corded-scanners/motorola/ls2208?gclid=CNu8iojf0rcCFSJqMgod-msABw
Tech Media Network. (2013). 10 Top Ten Reviews. Retrieved June 15, 2013, from InFlow2013-top Ten Reviews website: http://inventory-software-review.toptenreviews.com/inflow-review.html