MIS Project

Complete and submit ONE Hands-on MIS Project from either Chapter 1 or Chapter 2 of the text book.

There is no word/length requirement. Just try to answer in a way that's clear and makes sense.

The projects in this section give you hands-on experience in analyzing financial reporting and inventory management problems, using data management software to improve management decision making about increasing sales, and using Internet software for researching job requirements.

Management Decision Problems

1. 1-7 Snyders of Hanover, which sells about 80 million bags of pretzels, snack chips, and organic snack items each year, had its financial department use spreadsheets and manual processes for much of its data gathering and reporting. Hanover's financial analyst would spend the entire final week of every month collecting spreadsheets from the heads of more than 50 departments worldwide.

She would then consolidate and reenter all the data into another spreadsheet, which would serve as the company's monthly profit-and-loss statement. If a department needed to update its data after submitting the spreadsheet to the main office, the analyst had to return the original spreadsheet, then wait for the department to resubmit its data before finally submitting the updated data in the consolidated document.

Assess the impact of this situation on business performance and management decision making.

2. 1-8 Dollar General Corporation operates deep-discount stores offering housewares, cleaning supplies, clothing, health and beauty aids, and packaged food, with most items selling for $1. Its business model calls for keeping costs as low as possible. The company has no automated method for keeping track of inventory at each store.

Managers know approximately how many cases of a particular product the store is supposed to receive when a delivery truck arrives, but the stores lack technology for scanning the cases or verifying the item count inside the cases. Merchandise losses from theft or other mishaps have been rising and now represent more than 3 percent of total sales.

What decisions have to be made before investing in an information system solution?

Improving Decision Making: Using Databases to Analyze Sales Trends

Software skills: Database querying and reporting

Business skills: Sales trend analysis

1. 1-9 In this project, you will start out with raw transactional sales data and use Microsoft Access database software to develop queries and reports that help managers make better decisions about product pricing, sales promotions, and inventory replenishment.

In MyMISLab, you can find a Store and Regional Sales Database developed in Microsoft Access. The database contains raw data on weekly store sales of computer equipment in various sales regions.

The database includes fields for store identification number, sales region, item number, item description, unit price, units sold, and the weekly sales period when the sales were made.

Use Access to develop some reports and queries to make this information more useful for running the business. Sales and production managers want answers to the following questions:

Which products should be restocked?

Which stores and sales regions would benefit from a promotional campaign and additional marketing?

When (what time of year) should products be offered at full price, and when should discounts be used?

You can easily modify the database table to find and report your answers. Print your reports and results of queries.

Improving Decision Making: Using the Internet to Locate Jobs Requiring Information Systems Knowledge

Software skills: Internet-based software

Business skills: Job searching

1. 1-10 Visit a job-posting website such as Monster.com. Spend some time at the site examining jobs for accounting, finance, sales, marketing, and human resources. Find two or three descriptions of jobs that require some information systems knowledge. What information systems knowledge do these jobs require? What do you need to do to prepare for these jobs? Write a one- to two-page report summarizing your findings.