Category: MBA Projects

Executive Summary

 This case study is about XYZ Store which is retail apparel having 30 Stores. The major focus group is young ladies’ fashion and they have stores around the world.  The existing process of sale is controlled, or transaction check is happening at 4 stages i.e., Sales Associate, Billing Accountant, Finance controller, and Store Manager. The study in this case gives an insight into the implementation of technology and how it enables organizations, especially Retail Apparel Store in this case to grow their operations which indirectly increases their profitability.

The study is been done systematically with contemporary evaluation and analysis of existing systems of Retail Apparel Stores which Includes Six strengths of Retail Apparel Stores with respect to their controlling systems, accounting systems, Sales transactions, The systems of the existing calculations, etc., there are challenges which were observed particularly Integrity issues. There were differences observed in terms of money as well as in terms of items.

At the time of the global count, the difference in stock is observed and at the time of quarterly financial audits, the difference in cash is observed. There may be several reasons for fraud and a few reasons may be pressure from work, personal issues, etc., Usually, the retail organizations’ work is on sale per square feet which excludes public areas, carpet areas, etc., and even brand sales Versus retail space allocated for that particular brand. There were a few analyses pertaining to the centralization & De centralization of Databases of the Retail Apparel Store which were given in this report.

Six Strengths of Retail Apparel Store Controlling Systems

Below mentioned are the competencies observed in Retail Apparel Store controlling Systems which were observed:

1. The store manager was held responsible for all activities of the store.
2. Dedicated audit team who does surprise visits to stores and audits.
3. Multiple levels of controls and audits of financials as well as materials and products.
4. Job allocation and well-defined operations process.
5. The maximum sales volume happens through the electronic payments mode
6. Not technologically but through other means of communication, all 30 stores are connected to each other.

Concerns Retail Apparel Store has overcome by Incorporating competency in controlling Sales Transactions

1. The store manager is getting completely occupied with the administrative role and he could not focus on the growth of sales, increasing customer base, customer satisfaction, etc., strategic roles.
2. Getting manpower on a part-time basis as and when required and their payment which is hourly based required petty cash whereas maximum sales happen through electronic payments hence managing this is becoming a herculean task for the store manager.
3. The Surprise auditor’s strength is less and the turnaround time for surprise visits to individual stores is happening at 3 months once which is less when usually it should be a minimum of monthly once.
4. Manual maintenance of records and documents.
5. Defining exact job roles and allocating the same and the strategies like job rotation, succession planning, etc., are not observed.
6. Four steps manual process of controls is again a bottleneck or the pain point for decision-making and ensuring transparent transactions and record keeping.

 Situational Pressure Vs Fraud

As the automated system is not available in Apparel Store retail outlets there are many chances of integrity issues like differences in materials, cash, products, and sales, etc., the chances of employees’ involvement in fraudulent shall and the main reasons could be work pressure or due to an opportunity, or by mistake  (Carries Minnich, 2017).

Usually, this is termed the fraud triangle which consists of Opportunity, Pressure, and Rationalization are the components involved in fraud triangle. There are external factors and Internal factors also involved in this such as Management behavior type, emotional, financial, etc., which pertain to employees working in a particular organization especially Retail Apparel Store in this case.

Centralized Vs Distributed Database Management System

The database is the brain of the system and based on the database only the major decision-making reports get generated. Data comes from various resources but the access to data shall be structured with controls and maintaining logs and documentation of the same is the key.

The centralized database shall consist of data from all 30 stores which can be made available or accessible to HO and the top management and there shall be a decentralized database management system that shall be part of the centralized database and shall be made available to the respective store manager to add or access data.

Conclusion

The Retail Apparel Store 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 the implementation of an Integrated technological solution that 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 a proper technological solution in place.

Introduction:

Every product will have a life cycle which is called PLC and maintaining the life cycle using technology in a systematic process is called a Product Life Cycle Management System (PLC). Every product shall have an expiry date. Any product management, right from the introduction to disposal is called PLC. It helps companies to increase profitability by selling products within expiry dates. If companies don’t have systematic expiry dates process management of their products leads to having a huge quantity of stocks without a sale and for disposal which is a loss for any organization.

If we see apparel, accessories, etc., usually companies sell products with discounts and offer if their products are going to expire in the near dates. There are products that cannot be sold using discounts and offers and a few of them are medicines etc., where companies have to dispose of the expired medicines is a process defined by the pollution control board etc.,

The entire product management cycle consists of five important steps they Stage of product development, the Stage of Introduction of the product to the market, the stage of growth which can also be called sales, the Stage of maturity, and the final stage id decline or disposal. Every product and service will have all these five steps irrespective of the company size and volume. It is not mandatory to follow these five steps exactly where based on products and companies’ strategies they can also be further divided into smaller steps.

Objectives of the study:

• The understanding of the concept of PLC.
• The process of PLC management system.
• How PLC helps organizations to increase their profits or to control losses.
• How technology is incorporated in PLC.
• The practical applicability of PLC and analysis.

 Scope of the Study:

The scope of the study is to understand the concept of PLC and it can be designed using technology with well-defined systems and processes. The examples of a few real-time companies and their case studies shall also be studied, and the findings and the conclusions shall be derived, and the scope is limited to study using books, articles, journals, and case studies.

Need of the Study:

The success of any organization depends on the performance and sales of its products or services. There are many areas where organizations operate and one of the important and crucial areas is managing the product life cycle. Unless companies have the data pertaining to the expiry dates of their products with alarming pop-up mechanisms etc., companies will not have any clue and finally, products shall remain expired before sales within timelines, if the pop-up mechanism is there then the companies can sell their products with various strategies like offers, discounts, etc. if the product expiry dates are coming close. Hence there is a huge need for studying this concept called PLC management system.

Limitations

Every study shall have limitations and the limitations in this research are:

1. Time is one major constraint
2. The availability of data where in case of studies there may be many aspects that might have been included in that particular case study.
3. Working on Applicability in industry type could not be done

Research Methodology

Denscombe (2007) cited that a social analyst can make use of a variety of surveys to perform this. While carried out, however, the alternatives have the tendency to rotate around the philosophy of qualitative and quantitative research the primary data and the secondary data were collected through books, journals, articles, and other internet sources and the same is applied by talking case studies of different companies and finally the findings and recommendations along with conclusion were given. The future scope of further research is also given in the conclusion chapter. This research is qualitative research.

Conclusion

Except in product development, stage rest of the stages the price, promotion, distribution, sales, market share, competition, etc., plays an important role. Companies can sustain themselves only if they follow the technology-driven product life cycle. The key components of PLC are Strategic goals and competitive analysis of Product, price, Promotion, Logistics, and Distribution at all stages of PLC which are product development, Introduction, growth, Maturity, and decline. Their PLC management should be done using technology which shall enhance quality in strategy at all levels of the PLC.

There should be a separate standard operating procedure and policies which should have guiding principles and which shall help companies to develop and execute PLC to have sustainability, consistent growth, and increase in profitability. There are so many organizations that were there in our childhood but do not exist now. The products which are there in our childhood are not there now. Landline phones are rarely seen, and the big and remote TV is not there now, which clearly shows that every organization should have well-defined PLC in place.

Product Data Management (PDM) is the requirement that has come up based on product life cycle management, various numbers of products, variants, and the complexity of managing the data in a systematic order. There are various standards that certify the quality of the PDM systems and a few of them are ISO 13584, STEP, IEC 6130, etc., The PDM has become the need of the hour for organizations. Small-scale companies might not require the PDM system, but medium and large-scale industries definitely require the PDM system.

The retail and apparel companies and the companies who manufacture more variant products should have the PDM system to track and trace the sales and the status of their products. Usually, companies engage third-party companies to take audit their product and the global count is the concept that happens every six months. This study gives the concept and the overview along with the strategies which help organizations to set up their PDM systems based on their requirements.

Objectives of the Study:

• A deep understanding of the concept of PDM
• Analyzing different models of PDM
• To analyze the various Components of PDM
• To understand the various Phases of PDM
• To analyze how PDM helps organizations
• To know the frameworks and the bodies which certify the standards of PDM

Scope of the Study:

The scope of the study is related to PDM and its design and implementation in manufacturing industries. The theoretical concepts along with the case studies of manufacturing industries is been covered. There are cases where organizations struggled because of not having well-defined PDM systems and policies and there are companies who have transformed and restructured their policies where the special emphasis has been given on PDM and they came to success track with these systems and the scope of this study covers all aspects of PDM.

Need of the Study:

The competition in every business is increasing and companies have to sustain in this competitive environment there is a need for companies to manufacture various different types of companies and managing the data of the products is important to have track of the products and hence there is a need of PDM system and that is the reason and need for study on Product Data Management (PDM) System and that is why this topic is been selected for the research study.

Limitations:

Every research shall have limitations for this study the major limitation is the practical approach. Time is one more constraint. The live study in companies who manufactures more types of products in bulk quantities. The study could have been done in a pharmaceutical company that manufactures more types of drugs for every drug the data sheets are different and there are expiry dates that vary from product to product how do pharmaceutical manufacturing companies manage their product data, what are the systems which they have designed and how does it work for them, are there any chances to make them much more competitive, etc., are the areas which shall have been made this study much more productive one.

Research Methodology:

Every study or research has to follow a systematic approach, which is called methodology. The research methodology which is been adopted in this study is qualitative research. The primary and secondary data is been collected from sources like the internet, books, articles, and journals. There are few case studies and data collected from people working in different organizations and the data collected is verbally noted and it is not been recorded or documented as the data collected is not structural and not formal. The collected data is been analyzed and based on which findings and conclusions are derived.

Conclusion & future Scope:

There are many types of Product Data Management software, technologies, tools, and solutions available in the market but integrated solutions like SAP, Oracle, etc., are preferred as the data pertaining to a company and individual product are used by different departments for different purposes and the data should be available in customizable formats to generate analytics and metrics, etc.,

There is a concept called STEP which describes the standards and the quality of the PDM system. The key components of STEP are Language Expression, Classification of entities, the alignment of attributes to objects, Arrays and relations between data sets, Data Representation, Data Visualization, Integration of data sources and resources, etc., There are certifications available for PDM for quality standards and they are IEC 6130, ISO 13584, etc., Data security and the access control are very important and crucial elements in PDM. Technology is evolving at a faster phase and it is helping organizations to grow it is the organization’s tactic to adopt and update to new technologies to have sustainability and growth as the competition is very high.

Designing and maintaining product data in multiple languages which suits the respective country is also very important this concept is called localization and many companies are maintaining data only in English language but it is very important to maintain a website, product details, etc., in all countries languages where they have their business operations and this strategy does not cost more but the security is the concern, If companies adopt this and secure this shall definitely yield very good results. Product data management is only one part where this part plays a very important role in product manufacturing techniques and processes as well as in maintaining product life cycle.

There is a lot of scope for future study as the PDM varies from organization to organization and even from industry segment to industry segment. Every industry has its own work flows and data flows and it is necessary for an individual organization to have its own technology and product-related data management.

The markets are evolving, more and more new products are getting introduced to the market, and competition between products and organizations is increasing hence the scope for further study of PDM has a larger scope. It’s not only Product development but along with PDM, there are also concepts like Product life cycle management, Design for manufacturing techniques, and the process which are an integral part of PDM all these are interrelated, and the scope in huge for future study.