Business Information Systems for Small Restaurants: A Case Study

Challenges faced by a Small Restaurant Business

Write a business report in response to the provided case study. While most of the material can be found in both the case and study notes, you will be required to do further research in the topic area to broaden your knowledge. The topic in the case study relates to Business Information Systems, Business Processes and how organisations use Business Information Systems to achieve their strategic goals and objectives.

In this assignment, you will develop skills in reviewing a case, identifying key concepts within the case that need to be addressed, researching these concepts, synthesising ideas about these concepts and writing a business report which offers context-based recommendations. This will give you an opportunity to develop work-ready skills in the process of researching, planning and writing a business report.

1. Introduction: Also serve as your statement of purpose for the report. This means that you will tell the reader what you are going to cover in your report. You will need to inform the reader of:

1. Your area of research and its context
2. The key concepts you will be addressing
3. What the reader can expect to find in the body of the report
4. Body of the report will need to respond to the specific requirements of the case study.
5. It is advised that you use questions posed in the case study to assist you to structure the report by means of subheadings in the body of the report.
6. Conclusion: summarise any findings or recommendations that the report puts forward regarding the concepts covered in the report.

Kylie’s parents have retired, and she has been put in charge of the family business - a successful restaurant which showcases the family’s regional food. Dishes are based on her mother’s delicious recipes and they are fully booked almost every night of the week. Kylie and her team regularly get asked why they do not expand so that more people can enjoy their superb food. The family are very proud of their success and expanding the business offers them many opportunities. Kylie knows that expanding a business is very tricky, even a successful business like her family’s.

There are many challenges that Kylie has discovered as she has taken over the day-to-day running of the business. Many of the business processes are manual – it took Kylie many months to persuade her parents to even get an EFTPOS machine for the credit and debit card payments of their customers. Her father took care of the accounts in a paper cash book and ledger at home which frustrated their tax accountant and inventory management was based on her mother’s estimation – if anything ran out one of the waiter’s would be sent to the supermarket down the road. If business slowed her parents would photocopy some flyers in the library across the road with specials and get the waiters to do letterbox drops in the local area or put them under car’s windscreen wipers.

Kylie feels like she is trying to run the business with a blindfold on. She knows that there are great opportunities, but she will need to make some changes to how the business is run. Her parents ran the business on hard won knowledge but it will take Kylie time to build that knowledge - every transaction is data which she knows she can be used to run the business better if she can organise data into information with meaning and value. She especially knows that inventory management is only one of her challenges where she could save money and make sure that she does not lose sales. She knows that information systems can help however, it isn’t her area of expertise.

Her friend, Methat, is doing a bachelor’s degree in information systems and has offered to help her make sense of what computer-based information systems a business needs, to replace the manual systems and procedures her parents did on paper or via estimation. Methat reassures Kylie that it is a good idea to understand the key concepts of computer-based information systems and that she will make better decisions to support the family business. Methat suggests that they review and write up a report including:

1. the four information technology components
2. how these technology components are brought together in organisations based on the key foundations, pillars and the roof
3. the different types of computer-based information systems that function between businesses and other organisations
4. make a list recommending the first three systems she should prioritise to give the restaurant good foundations for successful growth and expansion.