CLUB IT, PART ONE

Club IT, Part One Todd Bostwick BIS/219 8/22/2011 Paul Schwartz

Club IT, Part One Club IT is managed and owned by Ruben Keys and Lisa Tejada. Both Ruben and Lisa earned degrees in Business Administration in 2005 and decided to use their degrees to open a nightclub. During college, Ruben and Lisa supported themselves by working as musicians in various nightclubs. Throughout their time performing in nightclubs they learned about nightclub operations and the business. Ruben and Lisa have just finished remodeling the inside and are very satisfied with the results. Club IT is 6,000 square feet of fun with a kitchen and a full bar. The club offers a variety of music including hip hop, techno, electronic, and some top 40s.On Friday and Saturday nights, Club IT has live bands. On Monday through Thursday nights, the club hires a DJ. Ruben and Lisa run the office and handle all the records but realize their information management is falling behind. Club ITs Mission is, "We, Ruben and Lisa, offer you live music, DJ's, dance space, and refreshments that suit your lifestyle. You are our friends, and we seek to build a community that meets regularly at Club IT" (Rainer & Turban, 2000-2011, "Our Mission for Club IT (from the owners)"). The primary clientele of Club IT consists of young local professionals, adult students, vacationers, as well as commerce travelers. Club ITs entertainment structures consists of bringing many people of various ages together, from single adults, and young couples to older couples. These people are looking for a fun place to listen to music and have fun or just to eat and drink as they wait for the entertainment to become more appealing as the night goes by. Club IT needs to be more competitive by taking advantage of its information base. Club IT has several types of information to help to become more competitive. Some examples are, cost leadership, differentiation, innovation, operational effectiveness, and customer satisfaction. Club IT should focus most of their attention on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction

refers to the extent to which customers are happy with the products and services provided by a business (The Times 100, 1995-2011). Customer satisfaction is important because satisfied customers are more likely to be loyal. In addition, not only are they loyal, they continue to do business and refer other customers. According to research done by Bain & Company, an increase of 5% in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95% (Conklin, 2006). One way for Club IT to measure customer satisfaction is to use web-based systems such as a blog to develop a personal relationship with their customers and for customers to develop relationships with each other. In addition, Club IT could conduct on-line surveys on their website to find out what their customers wants and needs are. Club IT could also use focus Groups to get informal input from a group of customers. In turn, satisfied customers will most likely give Club IT more business by word-of-mouth. Another way for Club IT to generate clientele is by marketing directly to the public locations such as, hotels and restaurants, and through their company website. Club IT uses an intranet structure that only the owners and employees of the club can access. This is an excellent source for the club but it lacks security. The security of Club ITs intranet needs to be strengthened. Both the owners and all of the employees share the same password and login giving the employees access to information only the owners should have. Each employee should have their own password and login. By giving employees their own password, Ruben and Lisa will be able to track each employees use of company computers and control which files employees can and cannot access. Once Ruben and Lisa implement a stronger intranet they need to manage the information they collect. Because Club IT is a small business, Ruben and Lisa would not benefit from hiring a Chief Information Officer (CIO). Hiring an intern would benefit Ruben and Lisa since an intern

usually is not paid for their services and can train Ruben and Lisa until they are financially able to hire a CIO. However, Ruben and Lisa still need to be fully engaged in IT so that they have the necessary information to order the right products and the right quantity of products, but most of all, to keep their employees and customers satisfied. In conclusion, all businesses need an IT department to help them be efficient and to have a competitive advantage over their competitors. The strategies chosen to help Ruben and Lisa be more efficient in generating revenue from Club IT are just stepping-stones to help get them started. As they become more knowledgeable in information systems, they will be able to progress and implement other competitive advantage strategies.

References Conklin, M. (2006). Measuring and Tracking Customer Satisfaction. Zoomerang. Retrieved from http://www.zoomerang.com/whitepapers/customersat.pdf Rainer, R.K., & Turban, E. (2000-2011). Rainer, Turban: Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming Business (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://higheredbcs.wiley.com/legacy/college/rainer/0470169001/club_it/about.html. The Times 100. (1995-2011). Customer satisfaction. Retrieved from http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory--customer-satisfaction--278.php