A) A brief summary of the focal business process and context (no more than a half page
Grattan grocery is a small family business that deals with a variety of Asian products. It is managed by two people where a part time student it hired twice a week to handle sales. It has one point of sale terminal and the primary operations include selling and placing orders to suppliers.
(b) Evaluation of the description of the focal process and context: Does it make sense? Is the evidence valid? Do you understand the situation? Are you convinced by the report?
The focal process and context makes sense and the evidence given is valid. This is basically due to the fact the business is small and is made of simple systems that are part of a small business. It’s only run by family member and one employ that is hired on rare occasions. The situation is understandable while the reports sounds convincing. By exploiting the capabilities of the point of sale terminal the manger can be has been able to minimize the number of personnel that would have been employed in the business. Therefore, the idea of not employing cashiers makes sense
(c) Evaluation of the correctness of each model presented in the report
This question should be discussed in three parts:
1) Rich picture
According to this model, the cashier, the customer, suppliers and manager are the principal players is the business process. The response to customer’s feedback is quite prolonged since the larger part of the process involves manual procedures. The cashier needs to manually check the warehouse then report to the manger who then confirms before he or she makes orders to the supplier. Application of this model seems to be challenging since it might result to intense loss of market that is customers before the solution is made. The correctness of this model is limited since its prone o human error and lots of inefficiency that be experienced
The rich picture model also implies that the availability of goods in most occasions is dictated by the supplier. This is simply because some orders cannot be made unless some minimal requirements are reached. Consequently this process encompasses manual counting of the available stock of goods in the warehouse. Such complex procedures undermine the profit level since the ordering process is normally prolonged. There are some cases where mismatch is experienced between the quality and quantity of the ordered products or even the type of the products. A lot of efficiency might be experienced before amendments are made.
Incorrect placement of prices might have a diverse effect to the business. This is basically because highly placed prices may lead to loss of customers since they very sensitive to price changes. On the other hand, undercharging may lead to extensive losses with the business. Consequently when a business applies this model, inmost cases there won’t be consistent and reliable suppliers. This means that, clashes might arise in case there in interference with the schedule. Thus, after evaluating various parameters regarding the correctness of the rich picture model , it proves to be a very incorrect model in business situations.
2) User interaction model/ user cases
This model explains the interactions between the systems and the actors in the business. Actors include people like workers, mangers and customers. The prices of the products on the shelves and in the systems are similar. Cashiers are not capable making any alterations on the prices of goods since they cannot retrieve the maintenance systems. The manager on the top level is the only who ha the authority of making any changes. Therefore this means that the product prices are prone to less bias. This means that the model is much more business friendly and more correct to some extent.
According to the model there are various methods that can be used in payment for the goods and services such as cash, debit or credit card. Availability of various modes of payment levels of customer service, thereby making this model much more customer friendly. This is less application of manual operations since the manager employs high authority systems to monitor the inventory maintenances process from the Point of Sale system. When the newly ordered items arrive, they are recorded in the business information system. This enables the manger to easily update information regarding changes in prices. With the user interaction system model the manager is able to acquire a sales report that is used for calculating daily income and tax.
3) The process model
According to this model the ordering and selling process reflects the actual business status in the world. The selling process involves consumers obtaining product then making valid payments. On the other hand the ordering process involves reviewing the stock, placing orders to supplier the receiving the good. This process is much more efficient since the selling process identifies the niche which then triggers the ordering process.
(d) Evaluation of the coherence of the report that there is consistency between models and with the process description and context as presented
Due to the fact that a number of models have been mentioned, the answer to whether there is congruence between the models and the processes is dependant on the models. For instance when looking at the rich picture model, it’s clear that there is no consistency between the model, the processes and the context. This is because the rich picture model is associated with a number of inefficiency. Being a small business, slowing the supply process, lack of employing technology may have adverse effects on the business.
Absence of systems that monitor inventory might lead various problems since manual work is accompanied with many irregularities. Poor pricing may lead to reduced profitability and give competitive advantages to other farms.
On the other hand the user interaction model is consistent with the context present. This model uses a high level of technology compared to the rich picture model and is also associated with some levels of efficiency. Using technology is one of the major aspects that should be considered in the success of the newly established small business. The businesses will incur low operational costs since the business only has one employee.
Reference
Hicks, M. J.(2004) Problem Solving in Business and Management: Hard, Soft and Creative Approaches. Cengage Learning EMEA.Stamford
