Retail Outlet is an retail store which has complete package of items which every house needs. Right from groceries to to electronics, cloths etc., all are available in this store. For case study I have taken few operational issues which were addressed in this assignment. MIS i.e., management information system shall be considered as dash board of all transactions which is a report. Its analytics driven reports which enables management to take right decisions at right time. Based on level of understanding, requirements, deep study, minute detailing etc., The MIS module can be customized and developed if necessary.
When it comes to Retail Outlet there are so many analytical reports can be generated which shall enable good decision making few of the are like performance based incentives leads to employee motivation and increase in sales, Individual store performance leads to develop competitive environments with in Retail Outlet stores again leads to increase in sales, watch on new products or trends in market in line with high moving and slow moving products/ items store wise to take shall lead to taking strategic decisions which shall again enable increase in sales.
Increase in sales increase in revenues which increases profitability when organization is in profits it leads to expansions and diversifications. Hence this MIS plays vital role in decision making and therefore all cycles mentioned store wise shall be integrated store wise so that analytical reports can be generated for taking strategic decisions by the management of Retail Outlet.
Below mentioned are the competencies observed in Retail Outlets controlling Systems which were observed:
- Store manager was held responsible for all activities of the store.
- Dedicated audit team who does surprise visits to stores and audit.
- Multiple levels of controls and audits of financials as well as materials and products.
- Job allocation and well-defined operations process.
- The maximum sales volume happens through electronic payments mode
- Not technologically but through other means of communication all 30 stores are connected to each other.
- Store manager is getting completely occupied with administrative role and he could not focus on growth of sales, increasing customer base, customer satisfaction etc., strategic roles.
- Getting manpower on part time basis as and when required and their payment which is an hourly based required petty cash where as maximum sales happen through electronic payments hence managing this is becoming herculean task for store manager.
- The Surprise auditors strength is less and the turnaround time for surprise visit to individual store is happening at 3 months once which is less where usually it should be minimum monthly once.
- Manual maintenance of records and the documents.
- Defining exact job roles and allocating the same and the strategies like job rotation, succession planning etc., are not observed.
- Four step manual process of controls is again a bottle neck or the pain point for decision making and ensuring transparent transactions and record keeping.
As the automated system is not available in Retail Outlet retail outlets there are many chances of integrity issues like difference in materials, cash, products, sales etc., the chances of employees involvement in fraudulent shall be more and the main reasons could be work pressure or due to an opportunity, or by mistake (Carries Minnich, 2017).
Usually this is termed as fraud triangle which consists of Opportunity, Pressure and the Rationalization are the components involved in fraud triangle. There are external factors and the Internal factors are also involved in this such as Management behaviour type, emotional, financial, etc., which are pertaining to employees working in particular organization especially Retail Outlet in this case.
Data base is the brain of the system and based on database only the major decision-making reports gets generated. Data comes from various resources but the access to data shall be structures with controls and maintain logs and documentation of the same is the key. The centralised database shall consist of data of all 30 stores which can be made available or accessible to HO and the top management and there shall be decentralized database management system which shall be part of centralised database shall be made available to respective store manager to add or access data.
The Retail Outlet has got strong controls with six strengths but they are not sufficient compared to Increasing business needs and requirements, hence there is a need for implementation of Integrated technological solution which shall enable management to address issues of Integration, Data Visualizations, report generations etc., and ensuring transparent transactions with all statutory and legal compliance. The decision making is the key and that shall happen only if there is an proper technological solution in place.