Business Report on Inventory Management and Business Intelligence for Laurel Pty Ltd

This report has its focus on the analysis of the processes of inventory management, including the process of manufacturing and the overall purchase process. The paper also seeks to investigate the processes involved in terms of further business evolution particularly in regard to the adoption of Business Intelligence (BI) and digital dashboards.

Running head: BUSINESS REPORT 1
Business report to Mr Laurel, the CEO
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Author’s note

BUSINESS REPORT 2
Business report to Mr Laurel, the CEO
Executive summary
The case involving new innovations at Laurel Pty Ltd is hardly a new phenomenon.
This is particularly within an area such as accounting for a car manufacturing firm. Indeed,
the CEO’s decision to search for some advice in terms of how to expand the business over the
coming years is not outlandish. This report has its focus on the analysis of the processes of
inventory management, including the process of manufacturing and the overall purchase
process. The paper also seeks to investigate the processes involved in terms of further
business evolution particularly in regard to the adoption of Business Intelligence (BI) and
digital dashboards.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary..................................................................................................................................2
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................4
How the introduction of business intelligence could impact on the organization, taking into account
(BI and digital dashboards)......................................................................................................................6
Impact of BI and digital dashboards on Laurel Pty Ltd.’s Management decision making........................6
Impact of BI and digital dashboards on Laurel Pty Ltd’s efficiency of the manufacturing process..........7
Conclusion...............................................................................................................................................7
References...............................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The fast paced and continuous increase in data volumes within the companies has had
a massive impact on the information gathering processes. It has become almost impossible to
undertake and manage appropriately the momentous as well as extensive information
gathering processes manually (Geissdoerfer, etal.2017). It is because of this shift in terms of
business information requirements that the use of business intelligence solutions has become
very handy or significant if businesses are to continue to remain competitive. Business
intelligence solutions are critically important because they are fitted with suitable
technologies necessary for aiding the collection, storage, integration, editing and analysis of
the current data. As much this kind of topic was only a preserve for large companies some
few years ago, it has presently become an equally important topic for the small and startup
businesses as well. For that matter, the market for the business intelligence has evolved and
also experienced significant growth over the years (George and Bock, 2011). This report has
its focus on the overall potential associated with the use BI and digital dashboards for Laurel
Pty Ltd particularly in its inventory management processes and overall decision making
processes. The table below illustrates the internal control weaknesses associated with Laurel
Pty Ltd, the related consequences of the identified weaknesses and the proposed control
mechanisms for the mitigation of the weaknesses. There are notable weaknesses in the
receiving department and several beauracracies in the purchasing departments. All these can
be corrected through the use of BI and digital dash boards.
Internal Control
Weakness
Impact of the
weakness
Control to mitigate
the weakness
Inadequate records
for documentation.
Poor record
documentation leads to
errors in double transaction
recording. This is dangerous
for the business because
duplication of numbers with
the system is fatal. Without
an appropriate record and
the number of
documentations, it becomes
difficult to trace documents
relating to follow up claims
as well as customers. Poor
inventory documentation
also complicates the process
of purchases and sales of
inventory.
It is important that
the organization undertakes
the cataloging of the exact
inventory that a business has
and where it is. It is
recommended that the
organization puts in place
electronic inventories
through the use of bar-codes
and RFID tags. These soft
wares will help to keep an
appropriate track of all the
inventories held by the
business. The organization
should undertake the
numbering of all the
locations of the items in the
inventory. Tracking systems
will also need to be put in

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place.
Overstocking When a lot of
products are ordered, there
are high costs associated.
Most of these costs relate to
storage and warehousing
(Baden and Mary, 2010).
There are also losses arising
out of obsolescence,
deterioration and shrinkage
of products. Over stocking
therefore enhances the risk
of mistakes in terms of
inventory reordering from
the suppliers or the sale of
imaginary inventory. Such
mistakes also lead to lost
sales as well a loss of repeat
customers.
The business will
have to employ tactics such
as sales, product discounts
as well as bundling. This
will help the company to
move the ordered products
in terms of huge quantities.
In so doing, the company
will be in a position of
overcoming some of the
potential problems arising
out of overstocking (Daas,
etal.2012).
Lack of physical as
well as logical security
A lack of appropriate
physical security for the
business inventory could not
only result into the damage
to the inventory but also its
loss. In the same manner,
lack of security could lead to
unauthorized access of the
business’s sensitive
inventory details which is
potentially detrimental to
good inventory practices
(Hummel etal. 2010).
To enhance the
security of the
organization’s inventory, the
company should invest in
computer equipment and the
associated networks. The
networks should be
protected by passwords and
these passwords should be
changed on an appropriately
regular basis. By having
protective devices and
firewalls as well as software
within a computer system is
a significantly important
step in as far the prevention
of security breaches is
concerned.
Insufficient disaster
recovery, business
continuity plans and
backups
This could result into
the painful and time
consuming experience of
data creation. This is not
only impractical but also
highly illogical to consider.
They could also be
associated with long term
Systems should be
designed to ensure that
back-ups are performed
spontaneously and on a
consistent basis. The
organization will have to
ensure that backups are
made on the basis of the

BUSINESS REPORT 6
power outages or
commotions (Zott and Amit,
2009).
transaction volumes and
stored off-site. There should
also be a disaster recovery
plan characteristically
consisting of a crisis plan,
disaster retrieval plan, and a
permanency plan.
How the introduction of business intelligence could impact on
the organization, taking into account (BI and digital
dashboards).
Business intelligence (BI) is a processes based on technology. It is helpful in the process
of data analysis and presentation of highly useful information to help managers. Managers and
other business stake holders are able to make informed and useful decisions through the use of
such information. The application of BI and digital dashboards has several potential impacts on
the organization (Karl and Ralf, 2010). These tools help to accelerate and improve the process of
decision making. They also help in the optimization of the internal business processes,
enhancement of operational efficiency and driving higher organizational revenues as well as the
attainment of a competitive advantage over other rival businesses. BI systems are also very
helpful in terms of the manner in which can help the organization to identify business challenges
as well market trends that need to be addressed (Garbuio and Lin, 2018). In essence, BI
technologies are very helpful in as far enhancing the organization’s ability to view their past,
present as well as future operations. In the same manner, Digital Dashboards can be best be
described as electronic interfaces while help in the aggregation and visualization of data from
several sources including databases, web services as well as locally hosted files. The Dashboards
will make it possible for the organization to monitor the performance of the business through the
display of historical trends, real time information as well as actionable data (Visnjic etal.2018).
The digital dashboard shall be able to track inventory data which is of major importance to the
company. It will be in a position of tracking critical data from several sources and presenting it in
an otherwise easy to comprehend dashboard. The information availed on the digital dashboard
within real time is clean, easy to comprehend and consistent. This will therefore ensure that all
the employees from several departments within enterprise are in a position of viewing the
information on the dashboard and also understand the key performance indicators (KPIs) critical
for their growth and productivity(Lim, 2010).
Impact of BI and digital dashboards on Laurel Pty Ltd.’s
Management decision making
An integration of the BI and digital dashboards on Laurel Pty Ltd would come with an
involvement of particular business applications within a current information as well as analysis
substructure. BI dashboards are highly helpful in terms of their capacity to solve a problem of
this nature. This can be done through the consolidation of and ensuring that information is
availed on a singular screen. A Business intelligence dashboard will make it possible for the
company to have a complete and sufficient control of the manner of data management. It will

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also help to streamline the process of decision making through integration, support as well as
maintenance (Berglund and Sandström, 2013). In addition, BI would will make it possible for
managers to understand their business dynamics while also being able to anticipate and manage
the market changes and the associated risks. Through the embedding of data analytics within
their core strategy, it is possible for the managers to the organization to streamline its internal
business processes while also being able to identify the emerging trends in the product demand
(Chen, 2009). The CEO will therefore be in a position of interpreting the consumer trends and
also the monitoring of the emerging risks. This will aid the process of decision making based on
constant feedback and overall organizational improvement. In so doing, BI and digital
dashboards will help to drive analytical transformations and henceforth ensuring appropriate and
decision making processes.
Impact of BI and digital dashboards on Laurel Pty Ltd’s
efficiency of the manufacturing process.
The establishment of a real-time dashboard will help the organization to put some of its
most important and critical metrics as well as goals at the forefront and center at all times. In
addition, it would ensure that the manufacturing processes are always updated automatically. By
so doing, the company’s manufacturing processes will be enhanced and all processes will be
accomplished in a highly efficient manner (Borgh et al. 2012). Manufacturing assistants will not
have to spend several days trying to copy and paste data on the excel sheets every months. In
addition, the executive will not have to always be waiting for the updated KPI data. This because
the data will always be updated on an automatic basis. Manufacturing process decisions will be
made in a much faster manner in the event that there is a need for the strategy shift (Henning,
2012).
Conclusion
This report was premised on the need to provide an insight into the current challenges
facing Laurel Pty Ltd and how best to solve them through the application of business intelligence
and the associated technology. It is clear from the discussion that business intelligence and
several digital dashboards are highly critical aspects as far appropriate inventory management is
concerned. As has been indicated in the discussion above, BI systems are highly useful in far as
the conversion of the ever increasing data amounts for individual operational systems to
applicable information is concerned. The BI tools for analysis as well as evaluation attached to
the central databases offer a huge amount of support for the day to day work of the CEO
particularly in terms of the decision making process and efficiency in the process of
manufacturing. Additionally, BI and digital dashboard results also do serve to the needs of the
present company investigations. All in all, the use of the BI and digital dashboards help the
business in terms of streamlining the business processes, improvement of the customer as well as
partner relationships. They also said the reduction of costs, risk minimization and enhancing the
organization’s competitive advantage.

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