P&G Case Study: Data Systems & Management

This assignment delves into Procter & Gamble's (P&G) implementation of data management systems to drive business growth. It examines the company's use of these systems for market share analysis, sales tracking, and informed decision-making. The case study also highlights potential challenges in human resource management and technology adoption. Recommendations are provided for P&G to successfully navigate these issues and maximize the benefits of its data-driven strategies.

Running Head: INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
Management Information Systems:
Procter & Gamble

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Executive Summary
Procter & Gamble is the largest producer of consumer products in the world in terms of market
capitalization. Having a successful market brand of more than 300 types of customer products
from different segments, like; beauty care, health and well-being and household items. It is a
well-established organization in soap and cosmetics industry. The major objective of this report
is to analyze the questions given in the case study.
In the process of managing the competition and expanding its business internationally, P&G is
confronting various threats via its functional departments, like; finance, human resource,
manufacturing etc. But the major reason behind its growth and success is its strong information
technology and its desire to implement some innovative technology solutions. To deal with the
challenges, the company is implementing different tools and programs. The report includes the
issues, which had to be addressed in the organization. It includes the benefits of different
programs, like; business sphere, business adequacy and Decision Cockpits. Furthermore, it
highlights the effectiveness of these programs for the organization.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Case Summary.................................................................................................................................4
Company Introduction.....................................................................................................................4
Case Analysis...................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion & Recommendations..................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Case Summary
This given case study emphasizes on how Procter & Gamble utilize the information systems to
enhance the process of decision making. P&G is making investment in logical talent, even
because the organization cuts the costs in other areas for fastening its decision making process.
Moreover, the case states that effective leaders develop the skills and capabilities, which are
needed for creating better and timely decisions under stressful and unpredictable situations. P&G
analytic platform is a small part of broader strategic initiative that targets to assist, deliver
insights to fulfill the requirements for the company in multi-channel, multi-format, multi-devise
and multi-nation of the globe, which it runs. Furthermore, the company is making investment in
analytics expertise as the business model for utilizing the data to operate the organization is
changing.
Company Introduction
Procter & Gamble is one of the fast growing consumer products company in India. It was
founded in the year 1837 and now it is known as one of the biggest company that is offering
consumer goods and improving the lives of people in different regions of country. It is
headquartered in Ohio, United States. It is offering its soaps and cosmetic products all over the
world. Currently, the company has 127,000 employees and more than 300 brands, which are sold
in 180 nations. It averages approximately 4 billion transactions daily. The net sales of company
in the last financial year were $83 billion. The below given graph indicates the revenues of P&G
for previous years.

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Figure 1: Revenues of P&G
The company is implementing various strategies to enhance its business operations, The CEO of
P&G advised a strategy to digitize the processes of company and business sphere, business
adequacy and Decision Cockpits is enabler of that objective (Laudon and Laudon, 2016). The
company is investing its funds in different strategies and digital platforms, like; data, analytics
platform etc. In implementing these concepts, the company is facing some challenges, which
need to be overcome by the company.
Case Analysis
Q1: What management, organization, and technology issues had to be addressed when
implementing Business Sufficiency, Business Sphere, and Decision Cockpits?
There are some specific issues, which need to be addressed while executing business sufficiency,
business sphere and Decision Cockpits. These issues are related to management, technology and
organization. These issues are stated below;
Management Issues
The management dimension of information system includes below-mentioned issues;
1. Planning
The company addressed the issues related to effective planning. There was a requirement for real
time information to develop real time decisions and execute the most suitable strategy. P&G

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should create an effective planning process for using the real-time data (Van De Walle, Turoff
and Hiltz, 2014).
2. Human Resource Management
Under the process of human resource management, there are some issues that need to be
addressed, such as;
 Having skilled and open minded team
 Training and development process: How to train current employees to use new methods
and tools
 Employee retention
 Need to find out faster solutions
 Compensations
3. Strategy
 Implementation of strategy to ensure that information is secured and did not use by its
competitors.
 Strategy to make sure that data gathered is used by the managers for decision making
process (Coronel and Morris, 2016).
Organization Issues
This dimension of information systems includes business processes, functions, hierarchy, culture
and political group of organization. As P&G is pursuing Information Technology innovations to
manage the competitive advantage (Galegher, Kraut and Egido, 2014). The organizational issues,
which need to be considered, includes, like;
Business process: The business processes of the company will be transformed and associated
with its new approach
Functional specialties: The organization requires structuring back its functional specialties,
primarily in the Information Technology division.
Culture: It needs to create a new and diverse culture and analyze how quickly the staff can
accept the change.
Needs: There is a need for fast data processing, identical data set and administration to manage
the data set effectively (Galliers and Leidner, 2014).
Technology Issues

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This dimension of management information system includes the hardware, computer system,
data management, networking, software, internet and telecommunication technology etc. By
executing business sufficiency, Decision Cockpits and Business Spheres, Procter & Gamble
change the process, under which it collects the data, reports and understands the data set
(Schwalbe, 2015). The technology issues, which need to be considered, are data management
technology, computer hardware to suit the related programs, software for upgrading and
networking technology to provide support to the solutions. Furthermore, the company needs a
uniform information system for processing the data set effectively.
Q2: How did these decision-making tools change the way the company ran its business?
How effective are they? Why?
P&G is implementing some new tools, which can change the way the company operated its
business.
Figure 2: Decision making Tools at P&G
These tools are given below;
Business Sufficiency
Decision
making
Tools at
P&G
Business
Sphere
Decision
Cockpit
Business
Sufficeincy

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Business sufficiency is one of the programs that are implemented by P&G Company. This tool
provided the managers with the predictions about market share of the company and some other
key performance metrics from the duration of six months to one year in future. On the basis of
analytic models, it is indicating that what is happening in the business currently in terms of sales,
market share and shipment (Peppard, and Ward, 2016). The efficiency of this model is analyzed
on the basis of analytic model;
Figure 3: Business Sufficiency Model
The why model: It refers to the sales data in the region, country, product line and store levels
with the drivers, like; consumption by consumers, advertising and promotion etc.
The Action: It shows the ways, which the company can adjust advertising, pricing and
marketing mix to respond to the estimations (Holtshouse, 2013).
Thus, this program assists the CEO and managers to check the categories of products and
markets, which are accountable for 60% of sales. The tool offers the data visualizations, which
indicate the changes the net sales and market share of company. Before the establishment of the
company, the company was utilizing this data for the decision making throughout the company,
which are from managers, brand managers and then lower level employees (Abdelhak, Grostick,
and Hanken, 2014).
Business Sphere
Business Sphere is another tool that is used by the organization in managing its information
system. This is an interactive system that is created to reveal the trends, opportunities, insights

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for the leaders at P&G and apt them to ask business questions, which can be addressed with the
information on the spot. Under this system, analytical business models and thousands of
algorithms collect the given data and organize it by territory, country, store level, product
category and other aspects and supervise the market trends to respond the consumption and
advertising within the country and individual locations (Stair and Reynolds, 2013).
Figure 4: Business Sphere at P&G
This program at company enables the senior managers to answer their particular business
questions and to envision the facts and figures in more spontaneous manner. It was seen as
command center, from where the senior managers collect personally or through video
conferencing and instantly determines the problems, which are faced by the business and who
can resolve it as soon as they increase. Currently, the company has over 50 business sphere all
over the world. This tool and program is very much effective as the company can get the data
about net sales, market share, stock, shipment and spending on advertising very fast (Weill, and
Woerner, 2013).
Decision Cockpit
Decision Cockpit offers the employees the access to the data resources. Under this program,
cockpits are the dashboards, which are displaying easy to read graphs, which illustrate the market

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trends and status of business. The system includes automated alerts, when there is occurrence of
some important event, control charts and the capacity to drill down to more described data
(Christopher, 2016).
Figure 5: Decision Cockpit of P&G
By giving the source of detailed and accurate real time business data, all the people in staff are
able to emphasize on decisions for enhancing business operations. It is very effective tool for the
organization as it can remove the time spending by the employees discussing the validity of
competing forms of information that is found in mails, letters, reports and spreadsheets. It is
decreasing the complexity in the generation of statistical report and cost cutting from sustaining a
standard data across the organization instead of redundant and duplicate information (Olins,
2017).
Q3: How are these systems related to P&G’s business strategy?
P&G Company is utilizing the distributed development process as the part of its international
model. This model enables the company for adapting different set of tools, which are totally fit
with the needs of organization. To get success, the company has strong information technology
implementation and desire to process new technology system for maintaining the competitive
advantage in the industry. The company has implemented three systems, i.e. Business
Sufficiency, Business Sphere and Decision Cockpits, which are proven very beneficial for the

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company (Deresky, 2017). These systems allow the managers and executives to make a fast and
appropriate decision. These have eliminated the difficulties in the statistical report and reductions
in the costs. By implementing these systems, the company is able to better forecast the future
occurrences, which may impact the business and respond to the market trends. These programs
allow the company in eliminating the time, which is spent debating information sets and process
a system, which make the employees and management able to emphasize on business decisions
utilizing the most appropriate data that is available at that moment (Simkin, Norman and Rose,
2014).
Conclusion & Recommendations
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that company is using effective systems for
managing its information and data. It is implementing different tools, like; business sufficiency,
business sphere and decision Cockpits. These systems are adopted very effectively and company
is having benefits from these systems. The CEO of the company has used the strategy to digitize
the process of company. The report has included different aspects of the company regarding the
implementation of these data methods. These methods are assisting the company in finding its
data in terms of market share, sales etc. From the above case study analysis, it can be stated that
these systems and programs are beneficial for the growth and success of company.
To deal with the possible issues, the company should address the needs for human resource
management. It should hire a skilled workforce and technical expert team, so they can
understand the implementation of these new systems. P&G should consider all the above-
mentioned issues and should address them to avoid the hurdle in the process of management
information systems. It should install new and advanced technology in the system. This data set
can assist the organization in effective decision making process. P&G should effectively manage
the set of data, as data is considered as the assets of the company. By looking at these
recommendations, the company will be able to successfully implement these systems and
programs.

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References
Abdelhak, M., Grostick, S. and Hanken, M.A., 2014. Health Information-E-Book:
Management of a Strategic Resource. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Coronel, C. and Morris, S., 2016. Database systems: design, implementation, &
management. Cengage Learning.

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Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures.
Pearson Education India.
Galegher, J., Kraut, R.E. and Egido, C., 2014. Intellectual teamwork: Social and
technological foundations of cooperative work. Psychology Press.
Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges
and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Holtshouse, D.K., 2013. Information technology for knowledge management. Springer
Science & Business Media.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.
Olins, W., 2017. The new guide to identity: How to create and sustain change through
managing identity. Routledge.
Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a
digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Simkin, M.G., Norman, C.S. and Rose, J.M., 2014. Core concepts of accounting information
systems. John Wiley & Sons.
Stair, R. and Reynolds, G., 2013. Principles of information systems. Cengage Learning.
Van De Walle, B., Turoff, M. and Hiltz, S.R., 2014. Information systems for emergency
management. Routledge.
Weill, P. and Woerner, S.L., 2013. The future of the CIO in a digital economy. MIS
Quarterly Executive, 12(2).