Reinventing It as Strategic Business Partner of Eats2go

REINVENTING IT AS STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNER OF EATS2GO

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Information Systems for Managers  

Submitted by :                                                                                      Submitted To:                            

Anuj Bhandari        (15504)                                                        Sanjay pudasaini

Anup Subedi (16530)

Dinesh

Gaurav

Soni

KUSOM-EMBA [SPRING 2016]

Abstract

Food service, in today’s world is one of the most challenging and momentously changing businesses. It becomes more complex when it is merely a startup, the targeted consumer is a healthy food seeker, the customer base is multiplying and there are time, space, budget and other resources constraints to carry on the business further. This case deals with a startup pushcart business, Eats2Go, striving to grow despite all the challenges just by making wise use of available resources. But with the demand to scale up and serve the growing number of customers, one needs to decide wisely in developing the infrastructure, creating a centralized system for management, operation and reporting. Fortunately, the world today has handful of options on technologies, concepts and approaches for businesses like Eats2Go which will be discussed in the report.

INTRODUCTION

Eats2go is a lunch pushcart business founded by three partners Juan Moreno, Kendra Banks, and Dave Slater to serve fresh and healthy food. All of the founding members have majored in hotel and restaurant management. Juan Moreno has experience of working in restaurants because his family owns a restaurants. Juan has also taken finance classes during his undergraduate therefore he has adequate level of understanding in accounting and finance. Kendra, who has interest in being a chef, has developed the menu of Eats2Go along with help of Dave. Dave has been a member of student council and has good networking with professional from various field. Eats2Go will be offering various food items in its menu. Sandwich such as Chicken pesto with pine nuts, lean roasts beef with spicy peppers, and smoked turkey with Dijon mustard and dill are being offered along with side dishes, chips, and drinks. Eats2go has rented Julio Moreno’s kitchen (Juan’s uncle) till 10 am to prepare sandwiches. The founders have rented a space at Robbinson Part for the operation of their pushcart business. Visitors of Robbinson park and students of the Campus are the target segment of the business.

Although Eats2Go is a startup company, it has managed to get seed financing from the bank and has been able to satisfy the customers which is shown by increasing sales volume. However, they have faced various challenges due to geographic and resource constraints with the increasing sales volume. Information technology can act as a strategic partner to work on weaknesses and mitigate threats being faced.

DISCUSSION

Within a month of its operations Eats2Go has been able to grow its business. The demand for its food has grown and its popularity in the area is increasing. As the sales of Eats2Go will grow it will face few challenges in the coming future. We have identified potential challenges that they need to overcome in order to run the business smoothly.

• Lack of accounting and CRM/SCM software: Eats2Go is using traditional system of taking and processing orders and manual entry of sales. It has already started to face the backlog in recording of sales. Similarly, Eats2Go will soon face supply chains challenges if it does not bring some changes.
• Lack of Marketing and advertising: Eats2Go is lacking proper marketing and advertising campaign. It has only distributed flyers and handouts on campus and few park goers. It can expand its reach by more effective marketing and advertising efforts.
• Lack of fresh food: Eats2Go claims to be serving fresh and healthy food alternative to the fast food restaurants in the area. But it has been preparing its food in the morning and selling the food during the day. Its food is definitely healthy but not 100% fresh. Due to this Eats2Go is always at the risk of losing its appeal with consumers.
• Lack of proper menu planning: Eats2Go started out with a menu that had limited number of items. After a month of operation they have realized that they need to have some decent options of healthier food in their menu. Therefore, they should consider reinventing their main menu and side menu.
• Limited number of resource: Eats2Go started out with very limited resources. It has no physical facilities where it can prepare food during daytime, seating facilities for consumers, and its human resource is limited to just the three founding members. If Eats2Go is planning on expanding its business it needs to come up with a proper plan to support its increasing sales.
• Lack of business information/competitor /industry research: As the market for healthier and fresh food is growing, Eats2Go need to get complete information about competitors in the industry and the nature of industry. To get this information it need to conduct a detailed industry research and survey.
• Due to  mobile nature of the business, operating a push cart is a physically demanding activity and their ability to conduct business is heavily dependent on their health, weather condition, and geographic constraints related to legal as well as social norms.

All the above discussed factors are contributing to existing inefficiencies in Eats2Go from two major Ends – Operation and Customer. There are attainable sets of actions to address these issues progressively and focus on the business growth.

Mitigation of Operational Inefficiencies

Eats2Go lacks efficient accounting and Supply Chain Management (SCM) software.   There is an alarming need of an Electronic Point of Sale (ePOS) system that enables an efficient recording of the sale of goods or services to the customer. A detailed analysis of available systems and installing proper ePOS system can definitely solve the operational and accounting inadequacies.

Closely analyzing the budget in implementation and operational overheads and also the need and scale of the business, Eats2Go can invest on Self-Monitoring, Analysis and reporting technologies (SMART) technologies like Revel iPad POS, SambaPOS  or TouchBistro.

Revel iPad POS is a premier restaurant management solution for businesses, used by 600,000 restaurants in the United States alone. It is a handy portal  with cloud support for inventory management, intelligent, finances/accounting and delivery management. Its iPAD only support and dependency with other accessories (Payment Device, POS Stand, Router & Wi-Fi access point, POS printer, Secure Cash Drawer) and license cost are some disadvantages that can be analyzed. SambaPOS, on the other hand, is entirely an Open Source application with much of the features required for Eats2Go.  TouchBistro could also be an alternative that records sales data, generates expense reports and other types of insights. It is used by over 3,000 restaurants and eateries worldwide across over 34 countries. This could be one medium cost system for Eats2Go.