Foundation of Information Systems Report: Marketing & Sales Solutions

This report analyzes the information systems challenges faced by Fiber Fashion, a fashion retailer operating in Australia with 110 stores. The company struggles with inefficient marketing and sales due to its reliance on spreadsheets for customer and sales data management, leading to issues like human errors, lack of agility, and poor decision-making. The report investigates these problems and proposes solutions, including the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to automate processes, centralize data, and provide detailed reporting capabilities. Additionally, it recommends the adoption of a Marketing Information System (MIS) to improve decision-making by collecting, storing, and analyzing marketing data. The report highlights the benefits of these systems in enhancing customer relationship management, improving marketing strategies, and ultimately boosting sales and revenue for Fiber Fashion.

Running head: FOUNDATION OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
FOUNDATION OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Background of Issue...................................................................................................................2
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3
Recommended Solution.............................................................................................................5
Enterprise Resource Planning....................................................................................................5
Marketing information systems..................................................................................................7
NetSuite ERP System.................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Appendices...............................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The systems of information are the system of organization those are intended for
compilation, dispensation, storing and sharing of information. In a perspective that is
sociotechnical, the information systems consist of four mechanisms. These include people,
task, structure and technology. Software assists the organization to organize and assess data.
The report deals with case study of Fiber Fashion. This is a fashion operating in
Melbourne in Australia. The Company is having several issues with the marketing and sales
of the company. Therefore, Information systems need to be implemented in the company in
order to assist them in their sales and marketing. The report discusses about the background
of the issues that can be solved. The report deals with the literature review of the issue and
the problem to the solution of thee issue face by Fibre Fashion. Lastly, the report provides a
recommended solution to the company so that they can resolve the problem of marketing and
sales in the company.
Background of Issue
The Fiber fashion is a fashion store operating in Melbourne in Australia. There are
total of 110 stores of the company that is operating in Australia. The company provides
apparels to its customers in Australia. The Company also has a website from where the
customers can purchase goods (Haider et al.,2017). The main operations of the company
include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing, sales, and services to the
customers. The main issue that the company is facing is in its marketing and sales. The excel
sheet that the company maintains in order to keep track of the customers are not very efficient
and the company can lose track of the customers. There are no new clients of the company
due to poor marketing strategies. The average sales of the company have dropped and the
number of the company has dropped due to the bad strategies of marketing and sales.

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Marketing and sales are one of the most important activities of the company. However, the
company is facing certain challenges in its marketing and sales. The marketing managers
cannot reach the new customers and this is the reason there are no new customers in the
company. The company is not getting enough revenue from all of the stores in Australia. Due
to bad marketing and sales of the company, the company cannot provide the customers with
excellent and the customers are not happy. The company lacks proper strategy in marketing
and sales and the company do not have any information system implemented in the company
by which the company can take decisions and make strategies of marketing and sales
(Jeanpert & Paché, 2016). The company is using excel sheets in order to keep track of the
customers, revenues and the average sales. As, the excel sheet is manually filled by the
company, there can be errors while filling the sheet. Therefore, the company can utilise some
software in order to keep track of the revenues and the customers and then use information
systems in order to generate reports. The problems of marketing and sales must be resolved
by the company in order to increase the revenue and provide proper services to the customers.
The company is facing severe issues of using spreadsheets in order to manage its procedures
of business such as number of customers, revenues, new clients of the company and many
such procedures (Andersson, Axelsson & Rosenqvist, 2018). There can be errors while
managing the spreadsheets during the hours of rush in the company.
A research question that can be recognised from the background of the issue is that
“What are the issues in marketing and sales” and what are the information systems that can
be implemented in the company.
Literature Review
Various companies utilise spreadsheets in order to manage important functions in the
business. The important functions include calculations of revenue, number of customers in

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each of the stores, new clients, products available in the inventory and many such functions
(Grossman, Mehrotra & Sidaoui, 2018). However, these companies can face and are facing
serious problems due to the utilisation of spreadsheets. The company Fibre fashion is also
issues for using spreadsheets in managing the functions of the company. The main reason
behind the issue of spreadsheets is that the employees of the company fill spreadsheets and
they are prone to errors. There are can be errors while putting the data during the rush hours
in the stores or in the company. There are various vulnerabilities of spreadsheets in business
that must be mitigated in order to provide excellent services to the customers (Swidan,
Hermans & Koesoemowidjojo, 2016). The vulnerability of spreadsheets in business includes:
 Fraud: This is the most damaging vulnerability of the spreadsheets. Manipulations in the
excel files of various companies have lead to loss of huge amounts of money. The main
reason is that there are lack of controls and it makes easier to modify the formulas and the
values.
 Human errors: human error is one of the important vulnerability of spreadsheets. The
employees of the company can make errors while noting down the values of the amount
of revenues and customers during the hours of rush and this can lead to complications in
the company (Mack et al.,2018).
 Unfit for agile businesses: this is the age of changes in the business. All the companies
are becoming agile. If the businesses are not agile enough to adapt the changes then they
could be left behind. The spreadsheets are unfit for the agile businesses. The people that
do not have any knowledge about documentation of software develop the spreadsheets.
When a new person takes over the spreadsheets in businesses, they have to start from the
scratch.
 Collaborative work: The spreadsheets are not intended for work those are collaborative.
Preparation, forecasting, budgeting and treatment are activities those are collaborative.

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There will be exchange of data among various offices of the company. If the offices of
the company are scattered then the data those are stored in the spreadsheets are exchanged
through the emails (Williams et al.,2018). These methods of exchange of data are
vulnerable to erroneous and duplicate data.
 Decision-making: In the spreadsheets, taking various data from various department or
various stores in the company in order to make good decisions will very time consuming.
The team members must be careful enough in order to keep the data integrity intact.
 Scalability: As some organizations grow, the data those are in the systems those are based
on spreadsheets are more distributed. It should be advised to the organizations those are
bigger to stop using the spreadsheets.
Recommended Solution
Enterprise Resource Planning
The ERP is software of business procedure management that permits enterprise in
order to utilise a system of applications those are combined in order to manage businesses
and then automate the features of back office those are associated to technology, services and
human resources. The recommended solution to the company is implementing an ERP
system in the company (Costa et al.,2016). The company must implement ERP system to
resolve the issues that the organization is facing regarding use of spreadsheets of the
oragnization. The main functions the ERP system will play is that it will take the data from
all the stores of the Fibre Fashion Company store the data in its database and then analyse the
data. This will reduce the discrepancies between the stores of the company along with major
errors and costs (Kurbel, 2016).
The next advantage that ERP will provide the Company is that it will automate the
procedures and reduce the human errors will putting the values of revenue, number of

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customers, personal details of the customers and many such when they are stored in the
company. Automation permits data to send from one portion of the system to another without
any kind of errors (Law, 2019). ERP helps the company to gather and stock up the data from
all the stores of the company in a single database. This helps to reduce the problem of storing
the data in various spreadsheets. ERP evaluates the data related to all the operations of
business of the company including the data of the clients, statistics of production, data of
sales and many more. The analysis of data provides easy admittance to the important data of
business and provides tools to the company in order to monitor the productivity of the
organizations and efficiency.
Another important advantage that ERP will provide to the company includes
reporting. ERP will provide detailed reports to the company and based on these reports the
company can take important decisions. The reporting ability of ERP will assist the company
to target the vulnerability of the business and it will ensure stronger performance of the
business (Nugroho, Ellianto & Nurcahyo, 2019). Customer relationship management is an
important feature of ERP that will assist the enterprise to administer the clients and the data
of the customers. CRM is a good option for the enterprises that have a large base of
customers and spreadsheets cannot be used. The CRMs those are present in the ERP
centralize the information of the customers and they permit for fast access when they are
working with other parts of system of ERP. Therefore, ERP system will assist the company in
their collection, storing and analyzing data and it will replace the spreadsheets in the
company. The company will get various benefits on implementation of ERP in the system
and the customers will be properly managed (O'Sullivan & Caiola, 2016).

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Marketing information systems
Another recommendation that can be provided to the company in order to resolve the
marketing and sales is the marketing information systems. A MIS in system of information of
management that is intended to carry out the making of decisions for marketing. In this
system, the data of marketing are collected, stored, evaluated and then they are distributed to
the marketing managers for making decisions (Limański, Popławska & Drabik, 2018). The
information systems of marketing will give the company with a incessant flow of information
for the making of decisions. The systems of computer and the registers of cash those are
electronic are connected with the retailers. Therefore, the purchase data of the consumers are
will be available to the company.
The marketing information system will help the company in order to make proper
decisions for the company. It is structured in order to provide various information for the
making of decisions. It assists in practical making of decisions as it consists of data that is
based on real-time. This system will provide reports and conduct studies as required. The
marketing information system that the company will implement in the company will utilise
computers in order to collect, store and then manipulate huge amounts of data (Limański,
Popławska & Drabik, 2018). These systems will combine the new and the old data in provide
information to the company and recognise the trends. The marketing information system is
oriented on future. The environment of marketing is not static. Therefore, the marketing
information system that will be deployed in the enterprise will assist to collect various useful
information for the solving of problems and anticipate the changes in future.
The marketing information system will gather and then sort the data and information
those are useful to the Fibre Fashion Company. The managers of the company can adjust the
marketing information system according to his requirements. The most important features of
the marketing information system are that it is flexible. The company can incorporate new

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changes in the system to upgrade marketing of the company. The marketing information
system is very economical (Martell, 2018). The company can create databases with much
information but marketing information system will store the information those are required.
Therefore, the information those are required will only be stored. This minimizes the efforts
and the cost of collection of data.
NetSuite ERP System
The advanced Enterprise resource planning system that can be deployed in enterprise
is NetSuite ERP System. The NetSuite ERP system is based on cloud, mobile enabled and
they are easy to utilise. It is designed for all the organizations. It provides solutions those are
modern and scalable in order to execute all the important operations of back office and the
financial business procedures in cloud. The NetSuite ERP system will help the company to
perform its procedures of business and make it efficient such as inventory, sales, purchasing
and many more (Rolling, 2016). It will also help the company in managing the financial part
of the enterprise and to increase performance of the organization.
The NetSuite ERP will help the company in its management of orders, inventory and
e-commerce functions. The company can host its e-commerce website using the NetSuite
ERP. As, the NetSuite ERP is based on cloud. The Fibre fashion Company can also move
into cloud. The ERP will combine all the important functions in one system. The NetSuite
ERP will assist the organization to access ERP system over internet (Snellman, 2017). The
benefit of the NetSuite ERP system is that it is cheaper as the resources of computing are
leased by month, they are not purchased directly, and they do not have to be maintained on
premise.
The Fibre Fashion Company will resolve the issues of marketing and the issues of using
spreadsheets once they implement the recommended information systems. The information

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systems will automate the procedures of the company and all the important functions of the
company such as inventory, customers, revenue, manufacturing and many more will be
handled by the marketing information systems and the enterprise planning systems
(Woźniakowski, Jałowiecki & Zmarzłowski, 2018). The company will have increased
customers and the sales of the company will increase. By implementing these systems in the
company, they can once again provide excellent services to the customers.
Conclusion
From the report, it can inferred that the Fibre Fashion Company is in trouble as the
sales and the marketing of the company was facing problems. Another issue of the company
was that it was utilising spreadsheets in order to keep track of the customers, revenue,
inventory and many more procedures. This has led to serious issues in the company and they
should be mitigated in order to earn revenue and provide excellent services to the customers.
The report deals with the issues that the company is facing that are the sales, the marketing
issues, and the spreadsheets. The report focuses on the review of literature on the issues those
are faced by the company. The report provides a discussion about the recommended solutions
that can be provided to the company. The recommendation includes an enterprise resource
planning that will help to automate the procedures of the company and it will replace the use
of spreadsheets in the company. It will collect and store the data of each store in a large
database and then analyse the data in order to generate reports for the making of decisions.
Therefore, the company do not need to use spreadsheets once it is implemented in the
company. Another recommendation that is provided to the company is the information
systems of marketing. The marketing information system will use systems of computers in
order to get the data of the customers. Using the data of the customers, it will analyse them
and then generate reports for the managers in order to make decisions regarding the
marketing of the company. Therefore, the issues that the enterprise was facing will be solved.

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Appendices
I have done the planning for the last 15 days. The planning includes the research about the
issues that is faced by the company. I have researched various literatures about the issues but
the obstacle that I have come across is that there are less literature review on the issues faced
by the company. I have researched about the various information systems that c be
recommended to the company. After the research, I have recommended enterprise resource
planning systems and marketing information system to the company in order to solve the
problems. There were no obstacles while researching about the information systems. I have
researched about a specific type of enterprise resource systems that are Netsuite ERP and it
can easily solve the issues. In the first week, I have planned to find out the issues of the
company and in the second week, I have researched about the information systems and
provided recommendations to the company.

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References
Andersson, P., Axelsson, B., & Rosenqvist, C. (2018). Future Studies of Marketing and Sales
Organization'. Organizing Marketing and Sales. Emerald Publishing Limited, 307-
315.
Costa, C. J., Ferreira, E., Bento, F., & Aparicio, M. (2016). Enterprise resource planning
adoption and satisfaction determinants. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 659-671.
Grossman, T. A., Mehrotra, V., & Sidaoui, M. (2018). Alternative Spreadsheet Model
Designs for an Operations Management Model Embedded in a Periodic Business
Process. arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.00484.
Haider, A. A., Zafar, A., Khalid, A., Majid, A., Abdullah, M. A., & Sarwar, M. B. (2017).
Marketing Management. Head, B, 22.
Jeanpert, S., & Paché, G. (2016). Successful multi-channel strategy: mixing marketing and
logistical issues. Journal of Business Strategy.
Kurbel, K. E. (2016). Enterprise resource planning and supply chain management. springer-
verlag berlin an.
Law, C. H. C. (2019). Managing Enterprise Resource Planning Adoption and Business
Processes: A Holistic Approach. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Limański, A., Popławska, Ż., & Drabik, I. (2018). Marketing information system and risk.
Limański, A., Popławska, Ż., & Drabik, I. (2018). Marketing information system and risk
reduction in managing a company on foreign markets.
Mack, K., Lee, J., Chang, K., Karahalios, K., & Parameswaran, A. (2018, April).
Characterizing scalability issues in spreadsheet software using online forums.