PROJECT #1

CONSULTING PROJECT FOR A SMALL GROWTH COMPANY

Erika Bloom is the CEO of Bloom's Blooms, a flower wholesaler and retailer. Erika has just retained your group to research technical solutions to administrative problems the company is facing. The company has grown rapidly over the last three years and has been having problems matching up floral supplies with products. Sometimes the flowers and ribbons do not arrive in time to be assembled into bouquets and other arrangements. Other times the company has more flowers than they can sell and have large spoilage losses. Several managers have asked for additional technology to solve their problems. Erika feels that she needs more information to make these decisions. She wants your team to investigate the following topics and make recommendations about how they might help her business.

Here are the areas Erika would like you to consider:

1. Caroline Curtis has just been promoted to Vice President of International Purchases. Blooms has suppliers in fifteen locations in Mexico and South America. Flowers are flown in twice a week and distributed to the dozen Bloom’s Blooms shops in the Greater Gloucester area, but some suppliers insist that orders be placed a month before delivery. Ms. Curtis has read articles that companies like Wal-Mart do a good job getting the right products to stores at the right time. Caroline is proposing to implement a telecommunication system using EDI to link suppliers directly to the company. Erika would like you to explain how telecommunications systems and EDI work and how they might address Caroline's problem.

2. Ashley Burgess is looking for help in managing her sales force. They are on the road 90 percent of the time, making calls on customers and writing orders for both bulk flowers and arrangements. The people on the road must be able to communicate their orders and learn of new products. Sometimes the orders are not turned in to the company for several days, so it is hard to get the products delivered on time. Often the salespeople cannot sell the latest products because they do not know they are available. Ashley wants to implement a system to link salespeople back to the office. Erika would like you to suggest some options and explain how these solutions can help Ashley.
   
   
3. Janet Morgan supervises the flexible team of part-time employees who package the bulk flowers, ribbons, baskets, etc., for delivery to their local florist shops. She believes that her group could assemble the arrangements and bouquets less expensively and more quickly than the local shops can. What she needs is a way of coordinating sales orders and purchases, as well as employee availability. Janet wants to get a Database Management System for the company. She says that Erika and Caroline could also use such a database for keeping track of purchases, sales, customers, etc. Erika wants you to explain what a database management system is and how it could be used to improve her business operations.
   
   
4. Jason Jasper believes Blooms can expand into the lucrative mail order/online business. If he can develop a system of Blooms reservation stations in local grocery stores, malls, and bookstores, retailers and/or customers can place orders electronically, reserving flowers and making sure that they don't sell more than can be produced. Jason wants to put in a transaction processing system similar to the airline reservation systems. Erika wants you to explain what a transaction processing system is and how it would help the company. Also, how could Blooms become a player in the area of e-commerce?

The written report should consider all four topics. The oral presentation can focus on one or more topics. In other words, in the presentation you may wish to delve more deeply into one or two topics or provide a topline summary of all the topics.