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50 Part 1 • SyStemS analySiS FundamentalS

CONSULTING OPPORTUNITY 3.1

The Sweetest Sound I’ve Ever Sipped

Felix Straw, who represents one of the many U.S. distributors Stern’s, based in Blackpool, England, is a European bev-
of the European soft drink Sipps, gazes unhappily at a newspaper erage maker and the developer and producer of Sipps. Sipps
weather map, which is saturated with dark red, indicating that most is a sweet, fruit-flavored, nonalcoholic, noncarbonated drink,
of the United States is experiencing an early spring heat wave, with which is served chilled or with ice, and it is particularly popu-
no signs of a letup. Pointing to the paper as he speaks, he tells lar when the weather is hot. Sipps has sold briskly in Europe
your systems group, “It’s the best thing that could happen to us, and grown in popularity in the United States since its intro-
or at least it should be. But when we had to place our orders three duction five years ago, but the company has had a difficult
months ago, we had no idea that this spring monster heat wave was time adequately managing inventory and keeping up with U.S.
going to devour the country this way!” Nodding his head toward a customer demand, which is affected by seasonal temperature
picture of their European plant hung on the wall, he continues, “We fluctuations. Places with year-round, warm-temperature cli-
need to be able to tell them when things are hot over here so we mates and lots of tourists (such as Florida and California) have
can get enough product. Otherwise, we’ll miss out every time. This large standing orders, but other areas of the country could ben-
happened two years ago, and it just about killed us. efit from a less cumbersome, more responsive order-placing
“Each of us distributors meets with our district managers to process. Sipps is distributed by a network of local distributors
do three-month planning. When we agree, we email our orders to located throughout the United States and Canada.
European headquarters. They make their own adjustments, bottle As one of the systems analysts assigned to work with the
the drinks, and then we get our modified orders about 9 to 15 U.S. distributors of Sipps, you begin your analysis by listing
weeks later. But we need ways to tell them what’s going on now. some of the key symptoms and problems you have identified
Why, we even have some new superstores that are opening up here. after studying the information flows, ordering process, and
They should know we have extra-high demand.” inventory management, and after interviewing Mr. Straw and
Corky, his assistant, agrees, saying, “Yeah, they should at least his assistant. In a paragraph, describe which problems might
look at our past sales around this time of year. Some springs are indicate the need for a systems solution.
hot, others are just average.”
Straw concurs, saying, “It would be music to my ears, it would Note: This consulting opportunity is loosely based on J. C. Perez,
be really sweet, if they would work with us to spot trends and “Heineken’s HOPS Software Keeps A-Head on Inventory,” PC Week,
changes—and then respond quickly.” Vol. 14, No. 2, January 13, 1997, pp. 31 and 34.

A PROBLEM DEFINITION EXAMPLE: CATHERINE’S CATERING. Catherine’s Catering is a small
business that caters meals, receptions, and banquets for business and social occasions such as
luncheons and weddings. It was inspired by Catherine’s love of cooking and talent for preparing
fine meals. At first it was a small company with a handful of employees working on small
projects. Catherine met with customers to determine the number of people, the types of meals,
and other information necessary to cater an event. As her company’s reputation for creating
superb food and the quality of the service began to blossom, the number of events started to
increase. The building of a new convention center and a prospering business community in the
city increased the number of catering events.
Catherine was able to manage the business using spreadsheets and word processing but had
difficulty keeping up with the endless phone calls about what types of meals were available,
changes to the number of guests attending the event, and the availability of specialty dietary items,
such as vegan, vegetarian, low-fat, low-carbohydrate, and so on. Catherine had hired a number of
part-time employees to cook and cater the events, and the complexity of scheduling personnel was
becoming overwhelming to the new human resources manager. Catherine decided to hire an IT and
business consulting company to help her address the problems her catering enterprise was facing.
After performing interviews and observing a number of key staff, the consultants found the
following concerns:
1. The master chef ordered supplies (produce, meat, and so on) from suppliers for each event.
The suppliers would provide discounts if greater quantities were ordered at a single time
for all events occurring in a given time frame.
2. Customers often called to change the number of guests for an event, with some changes
made only one or two days before the event was to occur.