Australian Electric Supply (Case Study)
ICT700
Systems Analysis
Task 2
Case Study: Australian Electric Supply
Background:
Australian Electric Supply (OZES) is a young
business that supplies and distributes electrical equipment throughout
Australia. In addition to selling brand new equipment, OZES has casual
employees known as associate brokers that buy and sell second hand electrical
equipment. They do this trading through online retail and auction portals such
as eBay and Gumtree, and part of the brokers job is to choose the best portal
for an item, the listing price and reserve in negotiation with the customer and
the length of time the item would be listed for. They list the items for sale
under OZES but they earn income by taking 20%-40% of the sales profit as a
commission depending on the sales price. Before an item is put up for sale the
item is delivered to OZES by the broker for quality control and then OZES will
post to the purchaser once sold.
Currently OZES has few brokers who each store
their own record of sales in their own way. Some brokers use spreadsheets, some
a database and others keep paper records. Each broker considers different data
to be worth saving. The brokers have seen this data as an important asset which
belongs to them and gives them a competitive advantage. OZES records the
details of brokers including their bank account details so that the proceeds
can be deposited to the accounts. This account information can change from time
to time.
OZES finds value in this type of business and
are planning to hire new full-time brokers on a base salary plus 2.5% of the
sales profit of sold items. However, OZES has become concerned that it is not
gaining a benefit from the data generated from each sale and are beginning to
recognize that the ability to aggregate and analyse all the item data would add
value given its rapid growth. The existing associate brokers are concerned
about this idea as they see how they use their data as driving the commission
they earn.
OZES gets its business for second hand equipment
in one of several ways: Customers respond to advertisements placed by brokers
in specialist magazines and websites (that includes the associated broker’s ID)
or customers contact OZES because of recommendations from past customers. OZES
wants this information stored as part of the customer detail. When customers
initially contact OZES, they are asked to complete a questionnaire detailing
their name, address, email and phone contact details. They also need to state
the broker’s ID or the referrer’s name. Items can be purchased in joint names.
Once the items have been deposited at OZES, they
are checked, logged and placed in OZES’s secure storage. The storage area is
looked after by two staff and once an item is sold and paid for they pack and
send the item. It is very important that the items are tracked accurately once
they have been received and that the customer details are clearly associated
with the sold item. Currently, associate brokers come out to the counter to
drop off items or negotiate about their commission. This means that a broker is
interrupted many times a day to go to the counter, although multiple items from
one or multiple original owners may be included in one listing. The full
details of original owners of equipment including their name, address, email
and phone contact number are kept by the brokers. OZES is also interested in
accessing and recoding these details against each item received.
Once an item is sold an email report is sent to
the broker associated with the item including details of the sale price and the
commission. Once the item is paid for another email is sent to the broker to
inform them. The buyer pays the purchase price for the item into a trust account
run by OZES. Three working days after the item was paid for by the buyer,
proceeds of the sale are paid to the broker. The trust account must be able to
be balanced at any time. OZES wants to retain for each sale, the broker, item
number, original owner and purchaser details, and the sale amount.
In your role as a Business Analyst you have been
approached by the owner of OZES for guidance on evaluating and selecting a
suitable information system solution for their business.
Business Processes:
OZES wants to receive a standard sales report on
volume of sales and commissions earnt at the end of every month and be able to
run this report for custom dates and for individual customers and brokers. They
also want to include a provision for brokers to run monthly sales reports.
A JAD session with key stakeholders revealed the
following information to take OZES to a bigger level. The business processes
described below are the system requirements for this information system
solution:
•
A sale
item system which will gather all the data from the sales items, this data
would then be used by all brokers to assist in negotiations with sellers. OZES
wants brokers to gauge if data elements such as a type of item description or
included postage would attract higher selling prices.
•
A customer
relationship management system which would allow OZES to offer selling offers
to customers such as lower commission. OZES would also like to be able to track
high value customers.
•
The
warehouse staff will now receive items for sale, with the brokers ringing the
customer later to discuss the sale requirements. For returning original owners,
OZES would like them to be able to complete a form which could be attached to
the items with the receiving person just quickly checking. The idea is that
this will decrease the time taken to drop off items.
•
Each of
the several types of items will require different attributes to be listed, you
may look at online auction sites to gain those attributes.
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