Strategic Information Systems for Business: Giant Eggplant Case Study

This case study analyzes the strategic information systems of Giant Eggplant, a business selling fruits and vegetables. The assignment begins with an overview of the organization, describing its operations, products, and the challenges it faces. It then delves into the revenue and expenditure cycles, providing detailed descriptions of the processes involved, from customer transactions to inventory management. Data flow diagrams (DFDs) are developed for both cycles to visualize the flow of information. The study identifies physical internal control weaknesses within the current system, such as manual processes and a lack of automation, and also describes necessary IT controls. The paper also recommends improvements, including increased staffing, automated database systems, and enhanced data management practices. The goal is to improve overall business performance, profit margins, and efficiency through strategic information systems.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Strategic information systems for Business and Enterprise
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the organization.......................................................................................................2
About the revenue cycle..............................................................................................................2
Data flow diagram of revenue cycle...........................................................................................4
About the expenditure cycle........................................................................................................5
Data flow diagram of expenditure cycle....................................................................................6
Analyzing physical internal control weakness..........................................................................7
Description of IT controls.............................................................................................................7
Recommendation of the system.................................................................................................7
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................8
Reference.......................................................................................................................................9

2STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Introduction
The aim of the assessment is to identify the key processes that take place at
Giant Eggplant. The organization Giant Eggplant sells fruit and vegetable in the market
of Victoria. Apart from this the organization also offers a wide range of agricultural,
bakery and dairy products from the local to the bakeries (An 2015). The organization
currently facing serious issues and thus it is important to ensure that all the process are
executed successfully within the system.
The paper will focus on evaluating the process and procedure related to the
company. The paper will develop a data flow diagram for revenue cycle, for expenditure
cycle and will also focus on analyzing the physical internal control weakness.
Overview of the organization
The giant eggplant focuses on delivering proper products towards the bakeries.
They offer a wide range of product such as fruit, vegetable, dairy, bakery and agriculture
products (De Bon et al. 2014). The company executes the business function with 25
employees. The key members that are associated with the organization are sales staffs,
administrative staff and store farms. However, the growing needs of the product have
increased within the Giant Eggplant and thus, there is a need to improve the system.
The organization was facing several issues with the profit and sales margin. Thus it is
important to evaluate the processes that are carried out within the organization. The
organization needs to evaluate the performance effectively so that it does not hamper
the overall production.
The two key subsystems that are associated with the Giant Eggplant are revenue
cycle and expenditure cycle. The main function that is carried out within the revenue
cycle is to manage the cash flow within the organization (Van Der Heijden 2014). On the
other hand, the expenditure cycle aims at offering a better way of managing the
products and ensures that the vendors are managed efficiently.
About the revenue cycle
The revenue cycle is provided below:
 At the checkout counters, shopping carts of Customers are bought. The
customers that come for their shopping takes a cart at the entrance of the shop
and then start with their required shopping.
 Staff from the sales team process the sales, the items were chosen by the
customers are processed such as their price tags are scanned for the billing
process.
 Staff from the sales team stock up the shelves, the sales team perform multiple
tasks around the store (Mindel and Mathiassen 2015). Along with processing
sales at the counter, they arrange the shelves of the food item too.
 The draws of cash registers are collected by the supervisor of the store from the
office of the finance clerk.
 The supervisor has to sign a log for taking custody of the drawer, this is done for
the safety of the cash registers.

3STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
 The supervisor then places the drawers at the specific registers of cash, the
different cash counters have their assigned drawer.
 Sales are done with the customers through card or cash, the sales staff complete
the billing of the items.
 For credit card, customers have to tap their cards on the EFTPOS terminal and
provide their password. The transactions through the cards get deposited directly
to the account of the store.
 The receipt of the purchase is given to the customer after the transaction is
completed by the customer.
 For a transaction in cash, after the cash is received from the customer, sales
staff issues a receipt against the purchase and makes needful changes (Hess
and Benjamin 2015).
 Supervisor hand over the drawers of the cash register back to the financial clerk,
when his shift ends.
 The receipts of card and cash are stored in the drawers of the cash register and
submitted to the finance clerk.
 Supervisor signs the log for returning the drawer of the cash register, similar to
the time of taking of the drawer.
 The clerk of the finance department counts the sales of the whole day from the
receipts of card and cash obtained from all the sales made in the store.
 The total amount of sales of the day is recorded in the computer of the finance
department by the finance clerk itself.
 The sales record is done in the general ledger and sales journal for keeping
proper accounting of the cash flows.
 The deposit slip is prepared by the finance clerk against all the sales made in
one day.
 Finally, the cash obtained is put in the local bank.

4STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Data flow diagram of revenue cycle
The above diagram is designed for the purpose of understanding the revenue
cycle associated with the Giant Eggplant. The main process flow that takes place within
the above designed DFD are described in the above diagram (Meesang et al. 2016)
The four main elements that are responsible for interacting with the system are
customer, supervisor, finance clerk and sales staff. The sales staff manages the stock
related data and ensures that all the data are updated within the system. The cash
received from the customer is processed towards the sales staff. The finance clerk
signs the log and sends the cash towards the system (Elmasri and Navathe 2017). On
the other hand, the supervisor is responsible for signing the logs and sending it to the
system. The customer is responsible for checkout so that all the data can be delivered
successfully towards the giant eggplant revenue cycle.

5STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
About the expenditure cycle
The expenditure cycle starts at the warehouse of the store, they maintain all the
inventory of a single day related to the products and purchases (Singh et al. 2015). The
processes of the expenditure cycle are as follows:
 The clerk at the warehouse checks the shelves at every evening for the
replenishment of items.
 The restocking of the products is done by the warehouse clerk only.
 The changes in the electronic record are done in the warehouse computer by the
clerk after restocking.
 The warehouse clerk makes a list of items required at the warehouse.
 The list is prepared in association with the supplier and availability of the
products.
 The prepared lint is finalized for placing the order to the supplier and the order is
printed into a hard copy.
 The order is placed against the list prepared of the requirement of the products to
the supplier over the phone call or via email.
 If the order is made through calling then the order list is faxed to the supplier
(Rahmanian 2015).
 The packing slip is checked by the warehouse clerk when the order is delivered
to the warehouse.
 The new items are stocked in the shelves of the warehouse by the sales staffs
only.
 The record of the stocked items is updated by the clerk in the warehouse
computer.
 The final purchase summary is prepared by the clerk and send to the finance
department along with the invoice from the vendor.
 The invoice is checked for any errors and updated in the temporary file.
 Daily checking of the file is done by the clerk till the payment of the invoice is
done.
 The Cheque is updated in the register of electronic Cheque by the computer of
accounts department (Lluberas 2018).
 The invoice is filed by the accounting clerk
 The invoice is finally mailed to the supplier.
 The journal voucher is printed out by the accounting clerk.
 The journal voucher contains the cash disbursements of the entire day.
 Finally, the journal is received by the financial clerk for updating it in the ledger
using the computer of the finance department.

6STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Data flow diagram of expenditure cycle
The above dfd diagram is designed for the purpose of identifying the key process
flow that will take place within the organization. The key elements that interact with the
system are warehouse clerk, accounting clerk, vendor and finance clerk. Warehouse
clerk is responsible for sharing the stock related data towards the expenditure system
(Chourey and Sharma 2016). The marketing shelves review and data are processed
towards the system. Further, the system shares the purchase orders are shared with
the warehouse clerk. The vendor also receives invoice statements from the expenditure

7STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
cycle. The supply products related data are shared towards the expenditure cycle for
the purpose of managing the data (Deng and Shao 20014). Stock records are essential
for managing the performance of the system. Thus it can be stated that with the help of
a proper system it becomes easy to enhance the performance.
Analyzing physical internal control weakness
 The number of staffs is less at the store, a single person has to handle several
duties.
 At the purchase counters, recording the purchases are manually done which is
time-consuming.
 Manual counting of the sales by the finance clerk takes a huge amount of time.
 Loss of receipt may occur during manual transfer of purchase receipt from
counters to the financial clerk.
 A stand-alone computer in the finance department fails to do all the electronic
work related to the finances of the company.
 The store only has two payment system that is cash and credit card.
 The sales are recorded in the ancient accounting system of journal and ledger.
 The warehouse clerk places the orders for new products by the traditional
method of email and calling (Pagotto and Halog 2016).
 The daily reviewing of temporary purchase file by the accounting clerk wastes a
lot of time.
 The warehouse clerk prepares a hard copy of product purchase and manually
send that to the finance department. The hard copy may be lost in the process.
 The accounting clerk pays the supplier by mailing the Cheque, which is not safe.
The presence of hackers makes the whole process unsafe.
Description of IT controls
There are several issues that are identified within the system of the Giant
Eggplant and thus it becomes very difficult to manage the overall performance. The sell
and profit ratio has also hampered widely in recent years (ISSE 2017). Thus it is
important to include effective IT controls that will be capable of managing the
performance. The key IT controls that are needed to be placed within the organization
for improving the production and profit rate are listed below:
 The organization needs to adopt an automated system for recording all the
necessary details of inventory and purchase.
 The system within the organization needs to be updated so that it can store more
data for the purpose of improving the performance of the organization.
 Database of every data needs to be developed so that data loss can be
prevented (Ong 2016).
 Adaptation of new technologies is essential for the purpose of protecting the
performance of the system.
Recommendation of the system
The organization has faced several issues while managing the profit and sale
ration. Hence it becomes essential to ensure that proper has enhanced within the

8STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
system so that the development process can be improved. The list of recommendation
are listed below:
 The staffs need to be increased so that the performance can be improved within
the organization.
 The organization should include proper automated database system for
improving the performance.
 The data related all the performance needs to be improved so that the accounts
related data can be managed.
 Each data must be reviewed before processing so that the chances of error can
be reduced.
Conclusion
Thus from the above analysis of the systems within Giant eggplant, it can be
stated that there is a need to implement a proper and effective system that will be able
to enhance the services that are offered towards the customers. The paper has
identified the major issues that are faced by the current system. Based on the issues
identified certain recommendations are provided so that it becomes easy to improve the
performance within the organization. Due to the huge expansion of the business, it has
been observed that there is a need to analyze the issues properly so that the profit
margin can be increased within the organization. Thus the report prepared has included
all the necessary aspects that are essential for improving the performance of the Giant
Eggplant.

9STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
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