CBMS4303

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

SEPTEMBER2015

NAME:
IC NO:
MATRIC NO:

Introduction
Thumbkin House Restaurant or also known as THR, can be found within the city of Kuala
Lumpur and has become one of the most well-know restaurants in the region. Recently, the
management team of the restaurant has decided to implement a new state-of-the-art technology
called the Information System (IS). In which a waiter takes an order at a table, and then enters it
online via one of the six terminals located in the restaurant dining room. The order is routed to a
printer in the appropriate preparation area; the cold item printer if it is a salad, the hot-item
printer if it is a hot sandwich or the bar printer if it is a drink. A customer's meal check-listing the
items ordered and the respective prices are automatically generated.
First of all, let us understand why Information System (IS) is vital to the overall running of THR.
Manager must organize resources such as personnel, material, machines, money and information,
so that they can be implemented efficiently. Organizations have multiple functional systems.
These usually include sales systems, call center systems, financial systems, inventory systems,
logistic systems and more. IS combines information from multiple systems. This helps
management staffers better understand their own departments' contributions. In many cases, the
combination of data, such as sales figures combined with available inventory, help the manager
take the appropriate action in order to meet the customer's needs.
The primary function of IS is to help a manager take an action, answer a question or ask the right
question. The questions or actions should directly relate to tactical or strategic goals. A sales
manager who uses projections from the financial systems to compare with actual sales from the
sales system can better gauge whether goals will be met. If the target is not going to be met, then
the manager and his group can review their past actions and make necessary changes in order to
increase sales and meet goals.
What It Means?
IS provides solutions provide you with advanced systems to improve your customer service,
automate production, control costs, and move information throughout your restaurant and
organization. With IS you can:

Manage your entire enterprise easily and efficiently directly from your corporate office.

Quickly see sales trends and capitalize on them.

See key metrics in-store that assist in running your restaurant efficiently.

Streamline ordering, so you can get food to customers more quickly.

Offer more customer points of purchase including web, mobile, and kiosk devices
With IS solutions, you get all the tools you need to manage from back-office to front-of-house,
so you can focus on serving your customers.

Information System: In Restaurant Business

How IS can be used to track
In restaurant business especially THR, the decision to be made in strategic planning, managerial
control and operational control is the planning, managing and operational control of easily run
out food item. If the food item are easily runs out, the availability of these food item must be
included in the strategic planning, managerial control and operation control for better the serving
the customers. A strategy should be in place for the availability of food item most of the time, in
doing this managerial and operation control follows for better decision making.
The information require to make such decision will be base on the current IS reporting system.
The report on detailing the food items ordered and the percentage of sales versus total sales and
the voided order report and the feedback from wait person, potential user and customer. This
helps management in planning and operational control of the availability of the food item and
better management decisions.

According to the illustration above, in order to make the system a more complete in MIS rather
than just doing transaction processing is by additional IS system dashboard for managers. The
dashboard will show information on the number of food item ordered in a day or night, the
availability of food item, the number of cancelled or voided order and a sales reporting
dashboard detailing the percentage of sales versus dashboard. The dashboard may include the
totals item ordered per day, week or month and also the easily run out food item for a better
management information system. These reports may include also the frequent customers who
dine in the restaurant, and the percentage, time and frequency of their visit and the food ordered.
The probable effects for making the system more formal to the customer and the management is
better service to customer and better management decision making. As detailed in the item above
the management will have a dashboard for the information of the customers who dine in the
restaurant and the food ordered, which on the next visit when the customer was identified they
can offer the frequent ordered item or recommend a different food item. The management can
send invitation to the customer who frequently dine and inform of the current promotion, new
menu and free meals or drinks.
The output produced

Usually, output or processed information in a usable format, comes in many different forms:
monitor or printer for visual work, a speaker for audio. Sometimes our output is short-term, such
as printing a photo, and sometimes what we work on needs to be kept around for a while. That's
where storage comes in. THR managed to track the food items stock level in the end with the
advantages provided by the IS technology. At the end of the day, THR will always be able to
keep their food items stock level at a safe rate without having to worry about it too much thus
enables them to concentrate more on the quality of their foods.
Information System: Food Delivery
THRrestaurantutilizescomputerizedmanagementinformationsystems,whicharedesignedto
improveoperatingefficiencies,providerestaurantandSupportCentermanagementwithtimely
accesstofinancialandoperatingdataandreduceadministrativetimeandexpense.Withtheir
currentinformationsystems,theyhavetheabilitytoquery,reportandanalyzethisintelligent
dataonadaily,weekly,period,quarterandyeartodatebasisandbeyond,onacompanywide,
regionalorindividualrestaurantbasis.Together,thisenablesthem tocloselymonitorsales,
foodandbeveragecostsandlaborandoperatingexpensesateachoftheirrestaurant.They
haveanumberofsystemsandreportsthatprovidecomparativeinformationthatenablesboth
restaurant and Support Center management to supervise the financial and operational
performanceofourrestaurantsandtorecognizeandunderstandtrendsinthebusiness.Their
accountingdepartmentusesastandard,integratedsystemtopreparemonthlyprofitandloss
statements,whichprovideadetailedanalysisofsalesandcosts,andwhicharecomparedbothto
the restaurantprepared reports and to prior periods. They have satellite technology at the
restaurant level, which serves as a highspeed, secure communication link between the
restaurantsandourSupportCenteraswellastheircreditandgiftcardprocessor.
StrategicPlanningofTHR
The restaurant and franchise industries are among the most reactive of all business sectors.
Companies often jump into franchising without doing the appropriate homework, while
restaurateurs will often react to new trends (e.g. to becoming involved in the Internet) without
carefully examining their options. In many cases, opportunity is only assessed when it knocks on

the door. Our industry is unique in that it has been growing for the last seven decades without
incorporating the basic business strategies applied by almost every other industrial and retail
sector. This reactive approach is one of the main reasons the restaurant industry has an 80 percent
bankruptcy rate, and why average industry profit level is only five percent of gross sales.
Instead of being reactive, restaurateurs must realize that one of the most significant and powerful
business tools available to the industry is strategic planning. Strategic Planning is a proactive
methodology which can assist in determining future goals and growth strategies. It also helps
create and structure action plans to achieve those goals.
The strategic planning process has a variety of components, including a mission statement,
external and internal environmental assessment, strategic objectives and priorities, strategic and
tactical actions/initiatives, and performance analysis. Because it is an ongoing process, operators
should continually re-evaluate the strategic plan to ensure it keeps pace with corporate, economic
and industry developments.

According to the illustration, there are a few steps that needs to be followed by THR in order to
achieve what they intend to. Let's discuss those steps respectively.
1. Defining the Company missions
THR want to make suree that each guest receives prompt, professional, friendly and courteous
service. To maintain a clean, comfortable and well maintained premises for our guests and staff.
To provide at a fair price - nutritional, well-prepared meals - using only quality ingredients. To
ensure that all guests and staff are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. To thank
each guest for the opportunity to serve them. By maintaining these objectives we shall be assured
of a fair profit that will allow us to contribute to the community we serve.
2. Setting the company objectives and goals
THR aim to sell delicious and remarkable food and drinks. That the food and drink we sell meets
the highest standards of quality, freshness and seasonality and combines both modern-creative
and traditional southern styles of cooking. To consistently provide our customers with
impeccable

service

by

demonstrating

warmth,

graciousness,

efficiency,

knowledge,

professionalism and integrity in our work. To have every customer who comes through our doors
leave impressed by it and excited to come back again. To create and maintain a restaurant that is
comprehensive and exceptional in its attention to every detail of operation. To provide all who
work with us a friendly, cooperative and rewarding environment which encourages long- term,
satisfying, growth employment. To keep our concept fresh, exciting and on the cutting edge of
the hospitality and entertainment industry.
3. Designing the business portfolio
The process of assessing THR's competitive position and business performance relative to
its market. Used in strategic planning to optimize investment activities and effectively
allocate resources towards the right business opportunities.
4. Planning marketing and other functional strategies
In this case, THR needs to combine all of its marketing goals into one comprehensive plan. A
good marketing strategy should be drawn from market research and focus on the right product

mix in order to achieve the maximum profit potential and sustain the business. The marketing
strategy is the foundation of a marketing plan.

Summary
THR and its exploit on IS has proven to be effective and efficient. IS increases the level of food
items thus allowing them to concentrate more on the taking order process, food preparation, and
so on. But, it is important to note here that Information System (IS) is not necessarily a specific
combination of functional systems, but instead is created based upon the business need. CRM
(Customer Relationship Management) systems combine data that relates directly to the customer
experience. ERP (Enterprise Resource Systems) combine data used in the entire sales process.
Decision Support Systems or Data Warehouse often combine summary data from multiple
systems in order to show executives a snapshot view of the entire organization. On the contrary,
many managers mistakenly believe that, for MIS to be effective, all data from all systems must
be combined. The value of IS is based upon how much it can help managers manage. If this
means bringing just the data needed from several systems and ignoring the rest for now, the end
result still has worth, which is the ultimate goal of IS.
Last but not least, the entire process of (IS) does not only include software systems, but the entire
set of business processes and resources that are used to pull together information from functional
or tactical systems. Data is then presented in a user-friendly and timely manner so that mid and
upper-level managers can use it to take the right actions. The entire system is designed so that the
company will meet its strategic and tactical goals. This is important in order to have a very
smooth running of THR's business day in day out. THR as we know is one of the biggest
restaurants in the city so they can't afford even the slightest errors because in the end those are
what differentiate between winning and losing your customers' heart.