Alcorp Industries Case Study

ALCORP INDUSTRIES

Information Systems Management

College of Business Administration

November 24, 2014

Case Study

ALCORP Industries is rapidly growing manufacturer of household cleaning Items. The company began in 2009 with only with ten employees, an office and a warehouse from which it conducted all its business. However, the organization has grown and now employs over 500 persons. The company currently has four (4) main departments: Human Resources, Sales and Marketing, Finance, and Manufacturing and production; each with its own sub- departments. The company occupies a very large commercial complex consisting of several offices dispersed over the landscape. Its products are passed down the supply chain to retailers by a third party company, REAL Distributors. REAL Distributors, distributes its products to hundreds of retailers both locally and oversees. The company would however like to eliminate the cost associated with this arrangement and sell directly to the retailer and consumers using the internet. They however are in the dark as to how this might be accomplished.

Currently the company has several legacy systems serving each department with no interconnection between departments and data is incompatible and inconsistent. This disparity in data causes frustration among the employees as errors are frequent and it hampers the efficient and effective performance of their duties. One particular sore point relates to the payment of warehouse employees. Each time an employee arrives to and leaves work they sign the log book which is used to keep track of their working hours. Each employee is to work the typical 40 hour work week. Overtime hours may be granted but must be approved by HR. At the end of the month the log book records are copied and sent to HR where the hours are collated and payment approved accordingly. The payment approval is then sent to payables where the cheques are prepared. The process is...