Hi There ,

You have done this paper for Joey in earlier this month or last month. Well I need your favor for more time. I want you to prepare a power point presentation. Let me know if you can help with this or not 

 

Power Point For this assignemnt.docx 

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

A.  INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM

John Stec’s family owns two coffee shops called “Scholar’s Café” that are located near three different University campuses in Omaha NE. The coffee shops have traditional climate where the students come to read the books, study and spend time with friends. John Stec was against modernizing his business with Wi-Fi and other high-tech futures. He’s an older gentleman and not very technology oriented; also he is concern about information-security. But with growing number of Starbucks and Scooter coffee shops around the City, Scholar’s Café is starting to lose their customers.     

Stec’s family has no choice but to make their coffee shops more technology friendly and accessible for college students, yet find a way to keep their unique climate and separate themselves from other popular coffee shops to gain competitive advantage.

B.  BACKGROUND ON THE COMPANY

Scholar’s Coffee was started by John Stec in 1964. The coffee shop has a long history as a nearby University coffee shop that is a great place for students and hosted a lot of notable alumni. Scholar’s Café started with one original shop in University of Nebraska location and within 6 years opened two other locations, near Bellevue University campus and the other shop close to Creighton University. On the top of the coffee, Scholar’s Café also serves their clients with variety of pastries and breakfast sandwiches that are ordered from local suppliers- Gerda Bakery and Sam’s Deli, by the phone the day before and deliver fresh every morning. There are also several copies of daily press such as Omaha World Herald, Walls Street Journal and New York Times available for clients free to use.

Since Scholar’s Coffee is a family business, John wife Carol is strongly involved in business and helping her husband to manage locations as well as taking care of finances. To keep their financial records, Carol collects receipts, bills and credit card reports in their physical form and make the quarterly state taxes as well as annual with the help of local Tax/Accounting Company. After John and Carol’s children; Anna and Jeff grow up, they start to be involved in family business. Anna has earned her Bachelor degree in Business Administration and Jeff in Management of Information Systems. Both children were trying to convince their parents to make significant structural changes and modernize Scholar’s café environment.  In late 90’ Scholar’s Café adopted credit card payment processing services for their business since that was a must for the Stecs to meet customers’ needs. Besides that no other changes had been done.

C. CORE ANALYSIS

            The scholar’s café need to integrate and fit in the modern learner. The issue here is that the owners who are elderly are not technology savvy and are not of the idea of including too much technology to their business and want to remain as traditional as they were before. Though, John is being convinced of adopting the technology idea in his three businesses, he is worried of his need to remain unique as well as avoid exposing the students to information that would be very harmful to them.

            His children who have joined the management think that adding in a bit of technology will make them more competitive. They argue out that the environment is changing and the people they are targeting in their coffee shops also are much modernized, hence they have no choice if they have to keep their business growing strong.

The diagram attached in part F illustrates current Scholar’s café computer network. The coffee shop use only one computer without additional server for data storage. The internet access goes directly from modem so there is no way to use other wireless devices. There is laser printer connected to computer throe usb cord. And phone line fax machine. The coffee shop has two telephone lines, one in the shop area and one in the back office. The credit card terminal is a basic Dial-up, phone line based terminal connected to the phone line.

D.STATUS REPORT             

            This part focuses mainly on the history of the coffee shops. The coffee shops having been started in the 1960’s. It means that they are re-known to the alumni of the three universities and therefore, have got a good customer base. This is a family business that has been operated by family members only, hence all the decisions are made by the family.

            On this note, the only time when the coffee shop moved towards technology was in the late 90’s when they were required to incorporate the use of credit cards to allow them serve the students well. The coffee shop has got its own fair of history, and as any developing company, they need to focus more on improving their business and make it very competitive (Redman, 2008).

            It is important that they realize that history today is shaped with technology. The more technology you adopt in your business the more it becomes very user friendly. For instance, John used to offer the students free articles like magazines and newspapers to read while they were in the premises. He can still offer them this though electronically. Which means that he will have saved on buying new papers each day, as the free Wi-Fi available will be enabling the students to read the magazine and newspaper online or electronically, since either way, newspaper sale has dropped significantly lately.

The Scholar’s Café is deciding to hire small networking company that would help business to improve their current network as well as create safe Wi-Fi environment for clients and office.

E. CASE CONCLUSION

            To start with, what can John do to make him look very unique and very natural just as before? How can john transform and include technology like Wi-Fi in his shop and at the same time protect themselves and sensitive data from outside treats and monitor the information that the students will be accessing while at the coffee shop? Which other types of technology can they use apart from Wi-Fi that is not currently available at their rival coffee shops? Lastly, after spending so much modernizing the coffee shops, will they be able to recover the money? Will the customers they lost also come back when their services finally improve? If you were the one in this situation, what would you do? Would you adapt to the changes? In this regard, please write a recommendation to the management as to whether it is appropriate to adapt to the technology era or not. Your recommendation should factor in what the two sides are debating about and their implications. Address the recommendation to the stakeholders of the business. Also analyze any possible mistake that can arise should john agree to modernize (Yeung, 2002). Also note whether John has a point in remaining as traditional as possible without having to input any kind of technology to the business.

            However, there are factors that they must be considered while transforming to being the modern coffee shop. Some of the recommendations would be to adapt to the idea that the children made. It is only right to move with technology and modernize the cafeteria; this will help john’s family remain in business. For that to happened the  the family need get in touch with IT experts that based on the current situation and  budget could  came up with proper IT strategy.

F. OTHER SECTIONS

Competition evaluation

The biggest competitor of the Scholar’s Café is Starbucks. On the top of high graded coffee beverages, pastries and breakfast items, Starbucks offers not only free Wi-Fi – you can also access the Starbucks Digital Network. According to Starbucks website thanks to their digital network “You can check the news and access local information while connected to our free Wi-Fi service. From exclusive movie trailers and other videos to a bounty of other premium offerings, the Starbucks Digital Network offers you a world of content from one convenient, comfy location” (Starbucks Digital Network, 2015).

The best way to compete with Starbucks and other popular coffee shops is to offer clients similar services. In order to do that Scholar’s Café need to make significant changes in their current network structure.  

Scholar’s café current network

The diagram below illustrates the current IT infrastructure of Scholar’s café. As we can see the current model is simple but also very outdated. There is a lot of room for improvement, but as a small family owned business Scholar’s Café have limited budget. 

 

Figure 1. Scholar’s Café current network

 

TEACHING NOTES

A.         The case study Scholar’s café is based on the story of elderly man who’s managing few coffee shops around the town. Because of growing competition from big franchise such as Starbucks the owner of Scholar’s café is slowly losing customers who prefer modern style coffee shops where they can work and study because of available Wi-Fi network. The owner of the Scholar’s café need to find the way how to survive in this competitive business and in the same time, keep the unique character of his coffee shops.

B.         At the end of this case study students should place themselves in the position of system analyst that Mr.Stec hired to help him reinvent his business. The students should evaluate the problem; come up with the best solution for Mr. Stec that would fit his needs and budget. Be respectful to owner’s vision, keep in mind his concerns such as cyber security and develop the Visio diagram with proposed changes to the system. 

C.         The students should use their analytical skills, have a basic idea about how to develop and deliver the IT value proposition as well as come up with the right strategy for business value. Student should also practice how to professionally communicate with less technology oriented and sometimes difficult clients, gain their credibility and trust.

D.         Some of the recommendations are to create separate sub network that would be available for customers. The good idea could be also to install fire wall on the main server so that to control the amount of the information the students can access while at the cafeteria. A firewall will enable them to block any information that they do not want accessed from the cafeteria. I also recommend that the students do a considerable research on what network to adapt before implementing it; this will help them know the options they have before they finally land on one.

To ensure return on investment; Scholar’s Café could also use their new system to connect with the vendors who supply the shop with the pasties and deli items. Applying small business accounting software such as QuickBooks is the other way that could  making the  business process easier and potentially save the owners time and money. 

The other recommendation more from the marketing side is to create the Scholar’s Café website that would be also a home page for everyone who is connecting to the coffee shop network. On that website the client would see promotional offers, new items as well as read local news and University updates. Having Universities involve would help Scholar’s Café to keep their unique – student’s coffee shop style and create a bond with students. 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Jones, J. W., Steffy, B. D., & Bray, D. W. (1991). Applying psychology in business: The handbook for managers and human resource professionals. Lexington, Mass: Lexington       Books.

Redman, T. C. (2008). Data driven: Profiting from your most important business asset.

Yeung, Y. (2002). New challenges for development and modernization: Hong Kong and the          Asia-Pacific region in the new millennium. Hong Kong: Chinese Univ. Press.

Starbucks Digital Network. (2015). Retrieved May 10, 2015, from starbucks.com: http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/wireless-internet/starbucks-digital-network

McKeen, J. D. (2011). IT Strategy: Issues and Practices. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.