Developing a Data Management Strategy for Stimpy - A Research Paper

Franchising model and IT systems at Stimpy

3.1 Case study: Developing a Data Management Strategy for Stimpy Stimpy is a multi-national chain of fast-food restaurants. Like many fast-food chains, they operate a franchising model where, as the franchiser they license their know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of their business model, brand and rights to sell their branded products and services to individual franchisees. In return, the franchisee pays fees and agrees to comply with certain obligations. Stimpy was one of the original fast-food outlets to establish in the UK. Throughout the 1970s & 1980s it was extremely successful with over 1,000 outlets, but other competitors have encroached on its market share and now it only has a few hundred outlets. Declining investment has meant that there has been little development of IT systems at Stimpy since the 1990s. However, a new investment company named OSIC (Old Stuff is Cool) is hoping to revitalise the Stimpy brand by trading on its heritage status and the new popularity of the retro dining experience, in the style of e.g. 1940s tea rooms. Stimpy originally had strict guidelines on how different aspects of the franchises business should be set up, particular the style, branding, menu and other ‘visible’ front-of-house features. However, it permitted some degree of choice with the back-office systems to enable franchisees to have some flexibility and thus negotiate a better deal. Therefore, outlets currently operate different types of Point-of-Sales (PoS) systems. These systems collect a variety of different types of information, depending on their age. Stimpy currently asks each franchisee to submit a monthly report for their outlet(s). These reports are analysed and used to make decisions about menu changes, offers, need for new products and so forth. Each franchisee also retains their own operating information e.g. staff costs, taxes, etc., which Stimpy does not currently analyse, but Stimpy holds useful information on the margins (profit /loss) of each outlet. OSIC is a relatively new investment company and with limited experience in the fast-food franchise market. It is aware of the limitations of the current reporting system and the important role up-to-date information will play in making Stimpy successful again. Therefore, it is looking to overhaul the Stimpy information collection and analysis systems. Page 4 of 8 Data warehouses have already been identified as a key technology for centralising and analysing data, but OSIC is looking for some advice on a specific strategy for implementing a system within the context of Stimpy.

3.2 Write a research paper with the aim of identifying the best strategy for the implementation of a data warehouse for Stimpy. OSIC is open to any data warehouse implementation strategy given the appropriate justification, however any case should consider practical issues around franchising (in general), the situation at Stimpy and the practicalities of loading data into the data warehouse, as well as theoretical considerations. 3.3 The following table shows the sections that you are required to include in your paper and which you will be assessed upon. The assessment of your paper will be a matter of academic judgement in the context of the Assessment Guide detailed in Section 4