Nostalgic Record Store Information System Plan Recommendation

Nostalgic Record Store Information System Plan Recommendation

Recommended Systems Benefits and Drawbacks

Comparing Costs and Benefits of Systems

Creating a new music store that specializes in selling nostalgic music will have a myriad of potential albums, artists, songs, titles and formats to contend with. In addition to accurately pricing these many products to ensure a profit is made, having a very accurate measure of inventory positions will also be critical. As many fans of nostalgic music are in the older age groups and rely on the Internet do to their shopping. All of these systems will need to support e-commerce in addition to in-store retailing and selling as well. The five systems the store will need include the following:

Accounting and Financial Management System

E-Commerce and Online Catalog Management System

Merchandise Inventory Management and Pricing

Sales Force Automation System

Transaction and Point-Of-Sale Applications

The following is an analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of each of the information systems recommended for the record store.

Recommended Systems Benefits and Drawbacks

Starting with the accounting and financial management system which will be the center of the IT architecture for the music store, the advantages of this type of system are its ability to quickly generate financial reports, track inventory positions, and report on incoming supplier deliveries. In short this system acts as the central coordination point for all activity in the store from a financial standpoint, coordinating accounts payable, accounts receivable and payment schedules for suppliers and all expenses. The Microsoft AX Platform is well-known as a scalable platform for stores looking to automate their accounting and financial management systems (Lamont, 2008). The downsides or drawbacks of this system are its cost, the large amount of time it takes to keep the records current, and also the time it takes to learn each new edition of software.

The second system that is required is for tracking the customer activity both within the store and online. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems' benefits are the ability to create highly effective and targeted selling programs, the ability to track which promotion is generating with sale, and the ability to fine-tune product and promotion strategies to customers. There is also the advantage of being able to get up and running with the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) versions of CRM quickly as well, as Salesforce.com has been able to build nearly a billion-dollar business on (Limbasan, Rusu, 2011). The downsides of this type of system is the high cost to keep its information current, the costs involved in creating a more effective series of strategies over time that reflect customers' changing needs using analytics (Limbasan, Rusu, 2011) and the high cost of integrating these systems with e-commerce ordering systems to track purchases (Sarapovas, Cvilikas, 2008). They are invaluable however in understanding how and why customers buy products and their analytics can help define future strategies for selling with a very high level of precision when analytics are used.