Club_It

Proposal for Club It upgrade XBIS/219 December 4, 2010 Koshy Joseph Proposal for Club It upgrade Club IT’s variety of music choices meets every customers listening pleasures. The music changes throughout the week giving the customers change, therefore keeping them interested and coming back. The ambiance of the club is nice, clean, beautifully decorated and has plenty of room for the customers to mingle. Club IT is on the right path to becoming the best night club in the city. After spending the day at Club IT watching how the club is run from the beginning to the end of the day has helped me to understand the business better (Axia College, 2010). Club IT is a downtown music venue managed and owned by Ruben Keys and Lisa Tejada. They both graduated with degrees in Business Administration in 2005 and decided to follow their dream of opening a nightclub. During college, they supported themselves by working as musicians; Lisa played jazz violin and Ruben played drums. They learned a lot about nightclub operations from their music experiences, in addition to business principles learned from their studies. Club IT’s customers are mostly Net Generation and Millennials. They regularly use mobile technologies such as Blackberries, PDAs, camera phones, and other wireless communication devices. Online shopping is a regular part of their lives (Axia College, 2010). Lisa and Ruben would like to see the business earn more profits and possibly open a second Club IT, but in order to earn more profits they will need to spend money upgrading their systems first. Currently Club IT does not have the technology needed to meet their clientele’s needs. They realize they must first implement a transaction processing system (TPS) before they can expect to receive high-quality data from an MIS (management information system) (Kelly Rainer and Efraim Turban, 2008, p.34). The purpose of information systems is to obtain the right information to the right people at the right time in the right amount and in the right format (Axia College, 2010). Lisa and Ruben’s club will benefit from information technology because they will be able to speed up the processes they use to record information. Providing services such as WIFI and creating what is called a hot spot will help attract more clientele. By purchasing electronic registers, adding a network, social networking, online sales, and using e-commerce trading the company can achieve the financial earnings they need to open the second Club IT. New systems will mean that training will be required. Many companies offer training when one purchases their software or equipment, if they do not Lisa and Ruben can hire a trainer for a day. I would suggest that Lisa and Ruben oversee the training provided to the employees, to ensure the employees fully understand the system. Because the staff consists of 19 people, I would suggest a small training session for all of the employees at one time. The employees would be offered additional pay for taking the training session on their personal time. The staff will learn to use the technology throughout their shift as Lisa & Ruben will be available for any questions until everyone is accustomed the system. Many of the employees will not need to use all aspects of the system, so they should learn their part very quickly by simply using the systems. Currently the company’s information technology is very simplified. The employee’s personal information such as mailing address and emergency contact information are recorded along with sick leave, vacation, bonus, and wages. This type of information should only be available to the manager and owners as well as the individual employee. Orders are completed on a spreadsheet that was created in Microsoft excel with ordering links pasted into the sheet. The orders all need to be approved by Lisa or Ruben before placed. The daily sales and the budget are also being recorded on a spreadsheet that is also manually entered by the responsible parties. QuickBooks 2010 would be a suggestion for the company; this program is the best selling financial software for small business owners. With QuickBooks one can enter transactions quickly and accurately, manage accounts payable and receivables, manage customers, and vendors, monitor inventory, track employee hours and manage payroll, reconcile bank accounts, set up and manage budgets, create standard or customized business reports, and analyze business performance. This will solve a number of the technology issues the company is possessing with their current systems. Wi-Fi service with a network setup would provide Lisa and Ruben access outside their small office providing them with the opportunity to use the computer in other areas of the building other than their office. The customers would also be able to log onto the wifi service and use the Internet for their personal use as well. Intranet would provide them with internal website that they can place information on without public access. Here they could put company newsletters out and run reports off of the information they input into the system. Online sales are an option that would provide Club IT’s customers with the ability to purchase concert tickets and merchandise online instead of having to purchase them at the club. Club IT does not currently have online sales available. Tix.com offers software for online ticket sales with no set up fees, start-up costs, annual maintenance fees, or long-term commitment. Tix.com will make it possible for your clientele to purchase tickets online, through the call center, at the box office, e-tickets, ticket printing and e-mail, and box office ticket printing. Online ticket sales are very popular right now and for some companies it accounts for half of their sales for events. The prices are reasonable and your customers can pay with a credit card. E-commerce (EC) are transactions that are conducted in a wireless environment, especially via the Internet. The top e-commerce trends for small business right now is Maximizing Cross Sell Opportunities. Today e-commerce success is not just about destination and simply getting customers to your site. It is about engaging customers and ultimately winning the sale. Adding additional touch points via links and other recommended products is an easy strategy to keep a customer’s attention. Cross selling has long been an effective sales strategy to increase revenue and e-commerce is continuing to optimize this website functionality as well. Electronic registers would provide you with the information of who logged in, what was ordered, and keep track of the sales for the night. This way you know which server is making the most sales, what you have sold for the evening such as what sold the best and how much you made for the night can be printed out on a report from the system. You can also run reports to see how the club’s merchandise is selling or if it is selling. In my opinion the sales for the t-shirts and hats would sell better if they were available to the customers in different colors. Giving the customer more choices increases the appeal to the merchandise. Networking is also a great way to improve the information technology of the club. I would suggest adding Club IT to a site such as face book and advertise daily about what is going on at the club. Many clubs hire promoters to advertise for their club on social networks such as face book, which is another option to get your company on the web and recognized by those who do not live in the area. You could also advertise your merchandise on the websites and provide a link to the website for ordering the merchandise. These are a few suggestions to get your company on the right path I do hope that they are helpful. These changes could be implemented within one to two weeks and would be a reasonable price range and well worth the investment. Training should be very easy to comprehend and should only take one or two days to retain. Club IT has a net income of $28,269 to set up these changes should cost less than $10,000. QuickBooks premier cost $399.95 for the software, face book is a free service unless you would want to pay them for advertising, tix.com prices depends on how many purchases are made, and e-commerce software is available to download free on the Internet. So the main cost would be for the electronic cash registers that cost approximately $2,500 and I would suggest purchasing two of them at the least. The cost of the software and equipment are reasonable enough that I will leave you funds to pay for a training instructor and meals for the training class and additional pay. These upgrades will only cost you additional maintenance fees approximately once a year for the QuickBooks update and register maintenance. Once the updates are put into place Lisa and Ruben should conduct evaluations at least once every two weeks for the first three months to ensure that everyone is using the systems correctly and have no questions. They can run reports and compare the results to make sure that everything they want recorded is being recorded. Once they are sure everything is being recorded, I recommend an evaluation be completed at least once every three months to monitor the clubs progress, or problem areas. Club IT currently has been using manual entry spreadsheets to conduct their business and keep track of their ordering, sales, and budgeting. The software used for this is Microsoft excel that is usually in an office program installed into a person’s computer. I suggested upgrading to QuickBooks premier. The business is not currently using the Internet to their advantage or offering their customers convenient ticket and merchandise sale. I have suggested social networking and purchasing a contract with tix.com for online sales. Club IT has the ability to take their business to the next level. The company needs to upgrade their systems if they want to improve their night club. The suggested ideas here are all affordable and will pay off in the long run. The company can begin using technology to keep their records and provide the option of trading with other businesses. The club operations will be improved and easy for Ruben, Lisa, and the employees to use. Lisa and Ruben will spend less time manually entering amounts to spreadsheets, the employees will have a resource to look up their personal information, and the customers will have Wi-Fi for their personal needs. Networking will help bring in more business and different clientele, which will create more income for Club IT. The long-term goal for Lisa and Ruben is to open another Club IT, with these suggestions that goal should be in reach in the very near future. References Axia College. (2010). Club IT WebSite [Computer Software]. Retrieved from Axia College, Simulation, XBIS 219 website. Kelly Rainer and Efraim Turban, (2008). Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming Business (2nd ed.). Long Beach, CA: Wiley.