Application Of Management Information System in Domino’s
Question
Task:
You must write a report on the application of an information system in a specific business.
You should choose a company or organization and investigate a particular information system used by it – the system could be an ERP, a transaction processing system, a CRM system, a POS system etc. The work must include business name, sector it operates in and system used (therefore custom-built proprietary systems are not allowed). At the very least, the report must include the problem faced by the company, the software system chosen as a solution and how the system helped resolve the problem. The report could also include information on costs (if these can be easily identified), implementation schedule, implementation process or difficulties encountered, possible staff issues faced (e.g. training, redundancy, ethical), post-implementation performance etc. The approach is that of a short case study.
Answer
Introduction
Information system holds tremendous significance in the contemporary business environment as it helps in the process of storing operational data along with communicating documents and records (Fadhil, Mahmood, and Ahmed, 2021). In addition to that, information system helps business organizations in the process of decision-making based on enabling better data and information analysis. This report will analyze the application of an ERP system in Domino’s in three sections. The first section will analyze the problem faced by Domino's so that the need for the ERP system can be understood. The second section will analyze the chosen ERP system so that its advantage, as well as disadvantages, can be understood. Lastly, the third section will analyze the ways by which the chosen ERP system helped Domino’s to resolve the problem.
About Domino’s and its industry of operation
Domino's Pizza Inc. which operates as Domino's is an American multinational chain of pizza restaurants that was founded in the year 1960. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. Domino’s operates under the industry of Foodservice Franchising and the competition in this industry is tremendous. In the modern-day marketplace, Domino’s has well over 14000 pizza restaurants across 85 countries and is arguably the global leader in terms of pizza delivery (Domino's, 2022).
Problem faced by Domino’s
Domino’s faced operational and communication challenges that proved to be a major obstacle in terms of achieving the desired sales numbers and efficiency (Scherr, 2018). In the fast-paced modern lifestyle, it has become important to deliver products and services within a short span of time and Domino's understood the importance of enabling faster pickup and delivery due to the growing competition. The order management system of Domino’s plays a vital role in terms of its operation as the customers of Domino’s place their orders through both mobile and web interfaces. However, Domino’s was facing problems related to performance issues of the company’s order management system (Srivastava, 2020). One of the primary reasons behind this problem was that several users indulged in browsing offers and menus but were not placing orders. In addition to that, some of the users did not even log in to the company’s system as customers. Thus, there used to be a high load of browsing and the company's existing server was not able to handle the load (Srivastava, 2020). Thus, Domino's suffered a setback in terms of processing and delivering customers' orders that negatively impacted their profits by tarnishing the company’s reputation among the masses.
The rapid rise of digitalization has led to people choosing online platforms for ordering the desired products or services (OECD, 2020). In the context of Domino’s, the customers use computers or mobiles to browse and order pizzas along with processing payments as well. However, the existing order management system of Domino’s did not possess the relevant configuration or features that could have supported large browsing and ordering at a time. Thus, the business activities of the company got severely hampered due to the inefficiency of the order management system. The senior management at Domino’s became worried about the prospect of the business due to severe issues on a daily basis that cost them massive losses. On the other hand, competition in the Foodservice Franchising industry became intense as several companies started focusing on implementing efficient order management systems so that the maximum traffic of customers can be handled. In addition to that, the competition also became intense because the customers started demanding faster delivery and the existing server or system of Domino's failed to satisfy such growing demands. Therefore, the problem with Domino's became a major cause of concern as it threatened the existence of the company in the future due to high technological advancements.
The chosen software system by Domino’s for solving the problem being faced
Domino’s decided to eliminate the problem with order management and processing by implementing Amazon Web Services (AWS) as an ERP software system (Schouw, 2020). In the contemporary business environment, cloud computing has emerged as an integral component of business organizations across different industries. AWS is one of the most popular forms of ERP system and improves efficiency and provides support to several business activities. AWS helps in improving storage, server, remote computing, and networking that have become a necessity for contemporary business organizations.
One of the major advantages of AWS is based on its ease of use as the ERP system’s interface is user-friendly and the interface is able to provide access to a wide range of services and applications. In addition to that, there is an availability of well-documented APIs that can help in gaining easy access to the platform (Mukherjee, 2019). The second major advantage is based on a highly diverse array of tools as the AWS ERP system helps in more than 70 services that include mobile, software, database, analytics, and networking (Mukherjee, 2019). In addition to that, this advantage also helps in the aspect of the IaaS platform that helps in saving significant resources and time. The third major advantage is based on unlimited server capacity and this has changed the cloud computing space. It has been observed that the need of the contemporary business environment is aligned towards higher server capacity as there are millions of customers accessing a company’s website or application. Therefore, the advantage of unlimited storage is a major positive for contemporary business organizations.
On the other hand, there are several disadvantages of the AWS ERP system as well. The first major disadvantage is that sometimes it makes the aspect of billing confusing. It has been observed that business organizations that lack IT professionals struggle with the billing system based on its complication. The second major disadvantage is based on the fact that there are some limitations with security and EC2 (Alqahtani and Gull, 2018). It has been observed that several organizations that use AWS face limitations based on region as there are limited numbers of resources available. Lastly, the third major disadvantage is based on general issues as AWS as temporary issues with cloud computing, which leads to the users facing downtime issues with servers. However, this issue gets sorted but the disruption is a major concern.
The ways by which the chosen ERP system solved the problem of Domino’s
Domino’s decided to launch a project named “3TEN” based on the implementation of AWS after discovering that the existing order management system of the company was not proving to be effective in terms of handling customers' browsing load and orders. Thus, there was a delay in terms of picking and delivering an order. The AWS ERP system helped Domino’s use predictive technologies for the purpose of reducing delivery times as well as pizza making. The first step was based on Domino’s creating a data lake that consisted of key order information with assistance from Amazon Simple Storage Service. In addition to that, Domino’s used AWS glue for querying the data along with using Amazon SageMaker for the purpose of building and training models of machine learning. This step has solved the problem of Domino’s based on accurately predicting the likelihood of the order being placed (Srivastava, 2020). The most significant advantage has been the option of full automation based on the use of DevOps Integration and Machine Learning.
Initially, a trial was conducted by Domino’s in some stores of Australia where the employees were able to see the customers’ orders along with indicators of the likelihood of more pizzas being ordered (Amazon, 2021). Therefore, this helped the company to drastically improve its order pickup and delivery time. It has been observed that the customers of Domino's were able to receive fresher, hotter, and faster pizza based on the improvements caused by the project "3TEN". Customer satisfaction has become a major need for contemporary business organizations and this is where Domino’s focused on by implanting AWS. Overall, the AWS ERP system has proven to be immensely beneficial for Domino’s because the company has been able to provide highly efficient service to its customers in the competitive market landscape.
However, the implementation of AWS by Domino's was not an easy task as the project was expensive and some of the staff faced challenges as well in terms of adapting to the new system. In the initial stages of the ERP system planning, some of the employees struggled to read the predictions particularly due to a lack of technical knowledge or expertise. In addition to that, the implementation schedule of the “3TEN” project also did not allow the company to waste much time as it became the need of the hour to address order management problems.
Conclusion
In the end, it can be concluded that the implementation of the ERP system by Domino's transformed the business structure of the company in a positive way. This report has analyzed that Domino’s before the implementation of AWS struggled with server issues and this negatively impacted their customer outcomes. Thus, the company tried to revolutionize the concept of pizza delivery by enabling the fastest order pickup and delivery service. Overall, this report has helped in gaining a proper understanding of the positives and negatives of AWS by associating it with the project "3TEN" of Domino’s.
References
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Fadhil, S.N., Mahmood, N. and Ahmed, N.F. (2021). (PDF) The Significance of Management Information System in Improving Organizational Performance and Effectiveness. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351809204_The_Significance_of_Management_ Information_System_in_Improving_Organizational_Performance_and_Effectiveness [Accessed 5 Mar. 2022].
Mukherjee, S. (2019). Benefits of AWS in Modern Cloud. SSRN Electronic Journal, [online] 1(1). Available at: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1903/1903.03219.pdf [Accessed 5 Mar. 2022].
OECD (2020). E-commerce in the time of COVID-19. [online] OECD. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/e-commerce-in-the-time-of-covid-19-3a2b78e8/ [Accessed 5 Mar. 2022].
Scherr, C. (2018). How Domino’s Pizza Overcame Communication, Operational Challenges. [online] Hospitality Technology. Available at: https://hospitalitytech.com/how-dominos-pizza-overcame-communication-operational-challenges [Accessed 5 Mar. 2022].
Schouw (2020). Successful international multi-site ERP project at Domino's Pizza. [online] Schouw Informatisering. Available at: https://www.schouw.org/en/customers/dominos-pizza/ [Accessed 5 Mar. 2022].
Srivastava, M. (2020). How did AWS help Domino's Pizza to get solutions to the challenges they were facing? [online] Medium. Available at: https://ms064763.medium.com/how-aws-helped-dominos-pizza-to-get-solution-of-the-challenges-they-were-facing-1d74d00ca8b1 [Accessed 5 Mar. 2022].
