How Big Data is Used in Retail Industry: Etsy

How Big Data is Used in Retail Industry: Etsy Big Data can be defined as the inability of traditional data architectures to efficiently handle the new datasets. Characteristics of Big Data that force new architectures are: 1. Volume: Size of dataset 2. Variety: Data from multiple sources 3. Velocity: Rate of flow 4. Variability: Change in other characteristics We all are aware of the 4 vs and they are considered as the core characteristics of Big Data. NIST perfectly explains these characteristics and further puts emphasis on needing a higher system architecture for higher performance. The system scaling is done using techniques called vertical and horizontal scaling. While researching definition of big data I realized most of the websites talk about the Vs of big data but none talk about how this is a full field but NIST explains us in detail about scaling and what it does. One thing to note is that this article was written in September of 2015 and since then a lot of things have changed and like any technology, big data is evolving and its definition and characteristics are evolving too. The four vs has evolved and are now there are seven vs which include [5] 5. Veracity: Refers to the completeness and accuracy of the data 6. Value: How much value does the data has 7. Visualization: The most important part where the processed data is presented so that readers can understand it. Big data has become a common name and it is being used in e-commerce for numerous ways. Big data is being used in e-commerce to give personalized buying experience to the customers. Using a customers browsing and buying habits to provide them with personalized recommendations can result in increased sales. We all aware of Amazon who provides their customers with Customers who bought this item also bought section which resulted in 30 percent increase in sales. Big data along with click-stream data can be used to monitor prices of products in real time and adjust the prices accordingly. Amazon uses different tools to monitor and adjust pricing of their own products accordingly. By this, they are making sure the customer gets the best price and no other competitor beats them with a lower price. Big data can also be used to send personalized offers which can be in form of emails or even pop-ups while they are trying to abandoned the cart. Etsy is an online e-commerce website which is a platform for selling handmade and vintage items. Most of the items they sell are handmade and made by individuals like you and me. Etsy was created back in 2005 in Brooklyn apartment by Rob Kalin, Chris Maguire and Haim Schoppik in their Brooklyn apartment [Citation]. Within two years Etsy had nearly 450,000 registered users and generated $26 million in annual sales. After that Etsy went through many changes in their structure and two of the creators left the company and then the hired Chad Dickerson, senior director of product at Yahoo to lead the company. Dickerson was hired as the chief technology officer and he took the company in an upward direction and was given the position of CEO later on. In 2013 Dickerson proposed tweaking its Terms of Service and allowed selling of manufactured goods which were not taken positively by other sellers but in the end, it helped the company and boosted their sales and revenue. According to Venture Beat in 2013 Etsy sales grew from $895 million to $1.34 billion. And in 2014 the numbers went up 43 percent to a total of $1.93 billion. In 2015 Etsy had more than 1.5 million active sellers and debuted it IPO. Chart is taken from Marketingcharts.com In 2014 Etsy was number eight on top ten shopping websites and this shows us how big and how much market they share and had about 22 million buyers [citation]. According to Chris Bohn a Senior Data Engineer at Etsy and according to him they want to use big data to understand more about their customers which include both sellers and buyers. They would like to provide a rich and smooth experience and their end goal is buyers find their products easier and sellers be able to reach the right buyers. According to Bohn, they want to use Big Data, To know how people are different in their shopping habits across the geography of the world. Lets first start with what type of data architecture Etsy used to use and what changes they made for been able to change with the time and to accommodate big data analysis. Initially, Etsy used to use monolithic Postgres database which consisted of listings, users, sellers, buyers, conversations and forums. As the company grew and their user database grew so they had to shard horizontally. The front end was driven by PHP. Ross Snyder, a senior software engineer said: The sites uptime was not that great and regular maintenance windows and site deploys often dissolved into outages. This all lead to Etsy creating a middleware which would help with scaling the website performance and at the same time the middleware would decrease the number of SQL calls. Etsy named this middleware Sprouter which they planned on making open-source and using it for a long time but after using it for while they decided to abandon it as it required DBAs to write stored procedures for nearly every piece of si te functionality and created a bureaucracy developers had to go through to get functionality made. It was never open-sourced and was rest to death. Then they moved from Postgres to sharded MySQL databases. According to Synder the reason they used MySQL at that time was Flickr is using it on an enormous scale. It scales horizontally, basically, to near infinity, and theres no single point of failure-its all master to master replication. During this process, Etsy decided to do some analytics and copied the data from SQL back to a Postgres server which they called a BI server but what they did not realize is that they went back to the original thing they wanted to go away from and it was all back to zero. They also realized that Postgres is not the best option for performing analytic queries and it was really hard to get a huge amount of data into the database. Here Etsy unknowingly faced the Volume characteristic of the big data. They again started their hunt for finding an appropriate replacement and came across HP Enterprise Vertica. One of the first reason they selected HPE Vertica is because it derives from Postgres and it has a Berkeley license which can enable Etsy to take it private and make changes to the code accordingly and do not have to republish it to the community. Using hp Vertica boosted the efficiency of their queries by running them 50x-1000x faster. With Vertica, there is unlimited scalability and this is a great feature for Etsy as they were a growing company. Vertica also stores 10x to 30x more data per server and also has compression. Etsy at start faced a problem with outages mentioned before and Vertica can guarantee maximum uptime and eliminate failures. It is also an open architecture with support for Hadoop, R and other range of BI tools. Etsy used a data replication tool to copy the data over to Vertica used Verticas open architecture feature to build their internal tools for doing analytics on the data. The big data problem here was to prepare their database to be able to do some analytic work and use the data they have been collecting. With Vertica, Etsy was able to quickly and efficiently analyze 30 terabytes of data. Bohn says that the greatest benefits are accessibility and speed and that use of the tool has spread to all departments. The fact that queries that previously took many days to run, now run in minutes, provides a dramatic example of the level of incr eased productivity gained company-wide. Apart from all the amazon functionality, Vertica was able to save Etsy $80,000 a month by switching from amazon cloud. By using Vertica Etsy did not have to hire any new people as Vertica uses a lot of similarity with Postgres and their developers already had experience with it. Velocity It is the measure of how fast the data coming in and for Etsy, it been top ten websites for shopping it was generating a massive number of clicks which needed to be stored. Etsy wanted to use this data to figure out where their customers are clicking and at what point they are leaving the website. Etsy took it to next step and used this clickstream data and joined it with their data to find details about the customer and what their buying history was in the past. This is how Etsy can get some value out of the clickstream data as it is the just path of click what a consumer goes through. The second type of data that Etsy has is the transactional data which includes order values, the category of sales, purchase frequency, the amount paid and shipping preferences. Variety Etsy had clickstream data, data about sellers, buyers, forums, messages and lot of different types and before they used to use Postgres which is not ideal for handling the variety of data. But with Vertica, they now can store any variety of data. Volume When we talk about volume we are talking about an insanely large amount of data and in our case, Etsy already had 30 TB of data which needed to be transferred and stored. By entering the world of big data, the employees were able to do much more than before with very little time. The first result of this whole change was all employees started using it as getting results was much better and way faster than a traditional database. It was not that they were getting different results but the time from entering the query and getting the output was shortened. By adding Vertica Etsy was then able to get information in real time right away. This feature was used by them when they introduced postage on their website where sellers can use postage service provided by Etsy to ship their products. The engineers wanted to keep an eye on this feature and know how it is performing in real time which was made possible using Vertica. All the departments were able to use this functionality and the people from finance department said, Wow, I can run these financial reports that used to take days in literally seconds.. Within very short time Etsy had 200 Vertica accounts and had a total of 750 employees which shows us how much popular this new change was. One of the surprises which Etsy faced according to Chris Bohn is that when they installed Vertica they thought only their analysts would use but it was so easy and so popular that they had to buy more licenses for their users. Vertica was being used for many other ways such as for their internal dashboards, running financial reports and for testing too. The result of this project resulted in total revenue of $119 million for the first half of 2015, up 44% on the same period in 2014. The number of active buyers grew to 21.7 million and the number of active users grew to 1.5 million. Etsy is the go-to place for unique products and gifts. None of this would have been possible without their keen embracing of Big Data and analytics. This project was successful as not only it led to increase in revenue but it also led to change in companys culture. Generally, the change in culture leads to change in technology but at Etsy, the technology changed the way people did their job. According to Bohn This is technology that has driven the culture. Its really changed the way people do their job at Etsy. It really has been impactful. After this project, Etsy realized that they were spending too much on AWS and they can save that money by buying their own servers. Bohn said Wait a minute. This is crazy. We could actually buy our own servers. This is commodity hardware that this can run on, and we can run this in our own data center. We will get the data in faster because there are bigger pipes. Thats what Etsy did by creating Estydoop which has 200 plus nodes and they ended up saving a lot of money and it would not have been possible if they did not do the big data project. Another thing which Etsy realized is that the market was changing and now smartphones were becoming common and been used for e-commerce. Etsy was able to use big data to figure out what each customer on their smartphone doing on their website and used that data to find crossover points and to change things accordingly. By this way, Etsy was moving along with the developing technology and not been left behind. Citation [1] 5 Benefits of Big Data for E-Commerce Companies and Shoppers. SmartData Collective. Accessed March 25, 2017. http://www.smartdatacollective.com/seanmallonbizdaquk/410001/5-benefits-big-data-e-commerce-companies-and-shoppers. [2] A brief history of Etsy, from 2005 Brooklyn launch to 2015 IPO. VentureBeat. March 05, 2015. Accessed March 25, 2017. http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/05/a-brief-history-of-etsy-from-2005-brooklyn-launch-to-2015-ipo/. [3] Akter, Shahriar, and Samuel Fosso Wamba. Big data analytics in E-commerce: a systematic review and agenda for future research. SpringerLink. March 16, 2016. Accessed March 25, 2017. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12525-016-0219-0. [4] April 8, 2014 by MarketingCharts staff. Top 10 Shopping and Classifieds Websites #8211; March 2014. MarketingCharts. April 08, 2014. Accessed March 25, 2017. http://www.marketingcharts.com/updates/top-10-shopping-and-classifieds-websites-march-2014-41856/. [5] Big Datas Role in Etsys Product Development. InfoQ. Accessed March 25, 2017. https://www.infoq.com/interviews/big-data-etsy-product-development. [6] How Etsy Uses Big Data for eCommerce to Put Buyers and Sellers in the Best Light. BriefingsDirect Transcripts. Accessed March 25, 2017. http://www.briefingsdirecttranscriptsblogs.com/2016/04/how-etsy-uses-big-data-for-ecommerce-to.html. [7] Sean Gallagher Oct 3, 2011 1:59 pm UTC. When clever goes wrong: how Etsy overcame poor architectural choices. Ars Technica. October 03, 2011. [8] Accessed March 25, 2017. https://arstechnica.com/business/2011/10/when-clever-goes-wrong-how-etsy-overcame-poor-architectural-choices/. [9] The biggest surprise Etsy encountered when applying HP Vertica to search | #HPBigData2014. SiliconANGLE. August 13, 2014. Accessed March 25, 2017. [10] http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/08/13/the-biggest-surprise-etsy-encountered-when-applying-hp-vertica-to-search-hpbigdata2014/. [11]The biggest surprise Etsy encountered when applying HP Vertica to search | #HPBigData2014. SiliconANGLE. August 13, 2014. Accessed March 25, 2017. http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/08/13/the-biggest-surprise-etsy-encountered-when-applying-hp-vertica-to-search-hpbigdata2014/. [12] Vertica Advanced Analytics Offerings. Vertica Big Data SQL Analytics Platform Free Software Trials | Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Accessed March 25, 2017. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/software-solutions/advanced-sql-big-data-analytics/try-now.html. [13] What does Etsys architecture look like today? High Scalability -. High Scalability. Accessed March 25, 2017. http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/3/23/what-does-etsys-architecture-look-like-today.html.

Introduction of Hospitality Industry

Introduction: During the technology improving, the world is becoming much smaller and more and more integrated; people are more willing and able to pay more time and money on travel and leisure. â€Å"According the World Tourism Organization, international tourism is expected to grow at an average of 4. 1 percent though 2020, ending with a total of 1. 6 billion tourists traveling worldwide. † [1] Therefore there are a lot of opportunities for the hospitality industry to improve.In these years, the hospitality industry had a huge improvement, and many top companies are looking for the new marketing in the emerging economies, such as Carlson, Hyatt, and Hilton. â€Å"Our Ambition 2015 strategy entails growing our hotel portfolio by at least 50 percent to reach over 1,500 hotels in operation by 2015. †[2] However, we are still facing many problems and difficulties in the different hotels, such as Human Resources management, guest satisfactions and food safety. Related article: Relationship Between Hospitality and Tourism IndustryIn this project, I am going to analysis the problem in the hotel and find the solutions for the problem which are based on the academic, then give the SWOT of my topic. I did my internship in Radisson Blu in China; position was F&B cross training, so my problem is based on my own real experiences. My problem is the lack of employees of the F&B Department. The solutions will link to the Human Resources, on the management skill side, that should be team work, time management and motivation.From the project, we will know the working process of the F&B Department, the guest’s satisfactions and how to motivate the employee and let them do the contributions to the hotel. Lack of employees is a general problem for the hotels, so the limit for the research is hard to find the special theory or method to solve the problem. Analysis the Problem: Hospitality is a huge industry. It is a high-growth projected for the glo bal hotel industry.Estimated 112,000,000 employees in the worldwide hospitality industry and this number will only grow. [3] In this situation, every hotel needs a big group of employees; therefore, the lack of employees is a general problem in the industry. Under the background of my experiences, in China, there are not a lot of people willing to join this industry. For the first reason, the wages are not really high. Secondly, cost a long period of time to get a good position. Thirdly, only a few of people did the rofessional education on the hospitality. In my hotel, lack of employees is a main problem, especially for the F&B Department. That causes we cannot make the guests 100% satisfaction, because nobody put the services into the details. Also, the division of labor is not clear also is the consequence. For example, one employee does the lobby bar work; in the meantime she also is a hostess. That means, if the guests are coming together, she is not going to take care both of them. That is a loophole in the work. SWOT Strengths |Weaknesses | |Employees have higher wages because there is a shortage in the |No detail, unique or particular services | |industry |No professional employees so no professional services | |Good environment to work | | |Opportunities | | |More jobs are offering | | |Many new companies and stages in the market | | Solution: The F&B should notice the HR to hire more employees and part- timers. For the employees, the HR and the F&B should work together, use the professional standard to do the particular training which is based on the weaknesses of the ———————– [1] American Hotel and Lodging Association [2] Carlson official website [3] International Labor Organization

Justification for an Internal Control System

Over the past years many organizations have fallen because of inadequate financial reporting and ineffective controls. To overcome this dilemma, the creation of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 requires corporations to take full control over its financial reporting and accounting by placing internal controls within its organization. Internal controls not only establish the foundation of reasonable assurance for meeting company objectives but also provide functions in achieving other objectives. These objectives are operational effectiveness and efficiency, relevant and reliable financial data, and verify law and regulation compliance. As a controller of this company one believes that internal controls are important for these areas to be successful. Although this business uses the insurance and portfolio approaches as controls to manage the association of risks with activities, one believes an internal control system would be more beneficial for this company. Current Approaches Insurance Approach Insurance is not as large as it can be for a company because it is a way of looking at the risk along with knowing that an acceptance of loss is present for a company. Companies basically carry insurance policies to prevent and cover large liabilities from natural disasters or accidents. Under this approach management is stating an acceptance of a loss is present for a company when insuring the company, assets, or its employees. For a company using this approach protection is the only gain in knowing the company has insurance to make a claim to replace or receive monies for the loss (McCarthy & Flynn, 2004, p. 75). However, the insurance approach is more of a tool for risk financing than a tool for risk management. This is because this approach is reactive in mitigating the impact of a loss rather than preventive in protecting the company from a loss. This approach can be beneficial for the company if a company can find affordable insurance with deductibles the company feels comfortable with. This is because the company would only be responsible for paying the deductible and the insurance company would pay the rest in the event of a catastrophic disaster. Portfolio Approach Unlike, the insurance approach the portfolio approach has more structure and complexity. This is because during the process of decision-making it gives more procedures and processes in making a decision (Thomas, 2002, para. 23). The main idea behind this approach is to maximize investments of a company while minimizing the risks of the company. Even though this approach organizes to an extent the decision-making process it does not provide protection assurance for the investment against risk. The portfolio approach is beneficial for a company when the company wants to measure the type of risk it wants to take on along with the likelihood of making a positive return on that risk. Internal Control System To an organization a vital component to risk management procedures is a reliable internal control system. This system helps regulate, reduce lost, and minimize risks along with accomplishing the organizational goals and success of a company (McCarthy & Flynn, 2004, p. 249). Benefits of an Internal Control System Generally the insurance approach is necessary for a company to overcome the risk of a loss. The portfolio approach is an effective approach but is more reactive than preventive. Even though a business may have insurance and portfolio approaches in place these approaches are not efficient and cost-effective enough to protect the company from risks like an internal control system can. Internal control systems are unlike the insurance and portfolio approaches because these systems are proactive tools in risk management. This type of system ensures the protection of company assets through a system of policies and procedures. In addition, this system establishes reliability in financial data along with establishes compliance with laws and regulations set forth from regulations like the SOX Act. These types of systems also help to improve internal and external communication processes within a company. Recommendation As a controller of this company, one recommends that management incorporates an internal control system into the company. This is because this system will be more beneficial to the company in the long-run than the current approaches the company already has in place. One believes an internal control system will help protect the company from uncertainties as well as ensuring the company is operating in proper accordance with its mission and goals. Justification for an Internal Control System The internal control system has been used since the company was in need of the system and until this day it has been working to its fullest potential. Internal control plays an important key in making sure that the accounting information, financial data, meeting the targets, and ensuring that the management policies are getting followed. There are two elements in making an internal control system successful. These elements are portfolio approaches and insurance. Even though they both help the internal controls, they are somewhat different.Portfolio approach is used in different ways, this helps make investments decisions easier. It also balances the risk against the routine of the company. When discussing portfolio management it is known that there are two types of management: active and passive. Active management can be only one manager or a team but regardless if it one or more. They all have the same idea in mind, which is to get a better market return and they do this by constant ly checking the funds portfolio. A passive management just checks the market index; it does not necessarily say that the passive management is less capable of doing its job.â€Å"Every company's risk management â€Å"solution† will be unique because the exposures and risk appetites all differ. The key is to have a reasonable under-standing of how each treatment option works, alone, and in combination with others, so that decisions are informed and results are less influenced by luck than by reason (McCarthy, Flynn, & Brownstein, 2004). The appetite for risk will always depend on the management team. We will need to understand every risk and think of the options before continuing. A great return is always good but a big loss will hurt more.Insurance is another element that was put in place with the internal controls. Insurance will protect the company in case of an error occurs. There can always be risks in a company, but it is the way we handle them, what is important. When they add insurance it is for a peace of mind, a company wants to be cover in case something did happen. Weather risks can happen anytime and any day. It can be challenging thinking best option for the business. Due to the fact that no one can know what will happen tomorrow but is it better to be protected. As the controller some of the aspects to look into is what do we need.There hasn’t been a tornado in this area for more than 50 years, the question to think is, and do we need tornado insurance? The company was built once but if a risk strikes, it would be really hard to restart the company without developing a financial plan. The company will continue to grow every day, and we need to keep that in mind with the insurance. When the insurance was first put in place, the management team covers everything they thought was needed. However, we may not need certain things that are currently been covered by the insurance. That is why it is very important to do a six month or even a year checkup on the insurance plan.As the controller of the company there are tasks to be completed such as compliance, reporting, budgets, analyzing, and goals. The internal controls help the company and especially the controller achieve all these tasks and stay up-to-date with them. Having internal controls can prevent any losses due to fraud and minimize the loss in assets. It also helps with everyday business activities and what to do in a situation in which a risk is encounter. For the previous reasons that were discuss the company’s success will be much better off having the internal controls with a combination of insurance and portfolio approaches.

Seetting and Acheiving Goals Essay - 949 Words

Marsden Dyson and Zack Canova 3/4/13 Adv. English 12 Mrs. Hornung Some people say that with dedication, persistence, and time people can accomplish any goal. Others say that people are limited in what they can accomplish and need to be realistic when setting goals. Shooting For the Stars Some people believe that dedication, persistence, and time people can accomplish any goal. Everyone should have goals when striving to achieve a specific task. Goal setting is used by top level athletes, successful business man, and achievers in all fields. A wise athlete once said, â€Å"Without time and effort put towards ones goal for the sport, you are nearly wasting your time and your teams time and you will never achieve ones goal for that†¦show more content†¦Dyson had realized in that spring season of soccer when he suffered another devastating concussion it was time to hang up the cleats and pursue his goal for his Green Jacket at the Masters. Marsden sat down with his swing coach to set up his objectives for his golf career. He realized he had a lot of work to do to reach that goal of winning a Green Jacket. Marsden’s father Jeff, had bought him a membership at Mattaponi Springs, where he would spend countless hours on the range an d around the greens. Dyson had a routine he would do every day; he would hit eight perfect shots with each club in his bag. The young man then would move on to the chipping surface, he hit fifty perfect shots that had to land within three feet of the pin. Whenever he had nothing to do, he would be on the range practicing, if he didn’t answer the phone and you needed him he was at the range working. He would put in dedication into his golf game twenty four seven. Dyson was finally recognized for his hard work when he got to play college golf at Hampden Sydney College. Marsden was still striving for that Green Jacket. When he was not in class or not at golf practice he was at the course hitting balls and perfecting his swing. On his way to earning that Green Jacket he had three NCAA Division 3 Championships at HSC. Most people said his hard was getting him so far

The Controversy Over Marijuana Use - 2265 Words

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In 1996 California became the first st ate to legalize the medical use of marijuana with the passing of Proposition 215. Within the following years several states began to decriminalize marijuana, and legalize marijuana for medical use, but it wasnt until last year that the states of Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana for recreational use. With many states changing the laws on the use of marijuana it beings a problem for the federal government being that federally marijuana is still illegal. The use of marijuana for medical and recreational purposesShow MoreRelatedThe Controversy Over the Medicinal Use of Marijuana (missing closing paragraph)2359 Words   |  10 Pagesabout marijuana in the United States is ever changing and not lacking in attention by any means. Just the topic of marijuana legalization brings about varying opinions on many different levels and which has the potential to divide a country, a state, a county, a city and in some instances, maybe a household. 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I Am Ready For The Next Level - 859 Words

[As a passionate health educator who has worked for over 5 years in direct patient care in various forms, I believe I am ready for the next level in my career. While the motive behind my professional experience has always been the desire to promote positive health outcomes and affect change in my community, my main job duties have primarily involved assisting patients and affecting health on an individual level.] In my current role as a bilingual (Spanish-english) care manager, changing the lives of the individuals I work with has only served to increase my drive to promote healthy change actively challenging the stigma around important health issues, through learning more and educating others. The more I work with members of underserved populations who face the systemic, and pervasive barriers faced by underserved and stigmatized populations on a daily basis, the more inspired I am to advocate for social justice and affect change and reduce stigma) on a broader level. 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Lodge Pole Park Management

Question: This assignment is based around a case study of a holiday resort, the LodgePole Park (LPP), Bowron Lake, Canada, whose owners are seeking to use information systems to improve its efficiency and competitiveness. You have been appointed as an IS consultant to provide guidance to Mr Mrs Martin. You are required to produce a business report to guide the Mr Mrs Martin on how Information Systems and Internet applications could improve their current business operations (See guidelines below). Answer: Introduction This is a case study of a Holiday Resort company Lodge Pole Park (LPP) that is based in Bowron Lake, Canada. The company was started in 1922 by Anne Campbell and subsequently was taken over by Samuel Martin, who was the grandson of Anne, in 1993. LLP had a significant number of resorts operating in the Quesnel region. The properties of LLP were different from other existing regular hotel or model business models as their services were targeted to travellers. The resorts were open year round and was all-inclusive of facilities including accommodation, three full meals, licensed dining room, licensed patio overlooking the water that had canoes, paddleboats, fishing rods, rowing boats, kayaks as well as both touring and mountain bicycles. The property also included some beaches, docks, boat ramps, tennis courts, shuffleboard and playground. In total the property of LLP had 29 rooms that included 6 main lodges, 18 lakeside cabins, 3 hillside cabins and 2 economy cabins. LLP had clients were regular travellers, coming from different nations and most of their clients were very loyal. The bookings were made well in advance by its customers to enjoy their preferred rooms and travel seasons. Situational analysis INTERNAL ANALYSIS There were some business specific issues that were bothering Martin and these included: The guests were charged only for the number of adult bookings and thus, in case of kids joining them, the resort would get paid only for adults while they had to serve kids for free. This presented a big financial challenge for the company especially when number of kids increased as they had to provide services as well as facilities The hotel was not given any star rating by the magazines it was putting ads in. However, if the company had to install the facilities to get better rating, it would have added a cost of $20,000 for only getting one rating. But as the company was still getting sufficient customers, they would not spend the amount for improving rating. The day-to-day operations were manually recorded in a reservation book with details taken on room numbers, cottage numbers, dates, guest names, and counts. Every morning the total bill for every guest staying would be calculated including room charge, deposits, bar bills, motorboat rent, etc. As everything was done manually, often mistakes would happen when the staff would forget to include an item such as a drink ordered in the ledger. For a small amount, Martin would take the cost on himself but there were more mistakes and the company saw huge losses during an year.(Manual, 2012) The company had realized a need for using a reservation system that would minimize mistakes that happened with manual entries and this reservation system could then be used for allowing online reservation for its customers which was not available. Thus, Martin approached a company called Northwind that had good customers list and was offering a complete package called Maestro which included functions for the front office (check in/check out), sales and catering, accounts receivable, voice and text messaging, Club/Spa management, work order maintenance, golf/tee times, yield` management and real-time online Web reservations. Martin brought the software with a cost of $8,000 that included hardware upgrade costs, software, installation, training at the vendor's facility in Markham for three staff, and some other expenses were also added for onsite training ($2,900) and one year of technical support ($1,000). even after training, finding it too complex and went back to use their old meth ods. Thus, Martin decided to do away with the system and acquire new one. (Hawthorn, 2005) Before a solution can be designed for the company, it would be worthwhile to explore the internal value chain of the company which would help consultant understand the working of the resort and its core value generating activities. It would also help consultant understand based. (Gupta, 2005)of the company that could be cost advantage, differentiation, or technology Porter's generic value chain model may be used here to explore these activities and core competencies to understand how the company generated value for its customers(Internet Center for Management and Business Administration, Inc., 2010) (Mind Tools Ltd, 2015) EXTERNAL ANALYSIS The resort was a preferred resort by its customers but while competing with other resorts, it lacked in certain things. The resort had five full time staff and 20 more hired for housekeeping and maintenance. The core staff did not stay in the resort and thus, were not available full time.(Newell, 2006) The resort was build keeping in mind to provide a facility away from home and disturbance. Thus, amenities like television and in-room phones were not considered very important but when considering the ratings given to resorts by reviewers, these facilities were given most importance to get a star rating. As per this rating system, the resort would not get any star rating. (Vuthipongse, 2001) Another thing in which the report lacked compared to its competition was that the company did not have a booking facility on their website but the customers had to send email requests for booking. An yearly newsletter would be sent to regular customers to update them about next year happenings in the resort. Moreover To understand how the company performed externally a management tool called porters five forces model may be used here which would help us understand how environmental factors customers, suppliers, competitors, new entrants and substitutes can affect the business considering the situation.(PORTER, 2007) Bargaining Power of Buyers: Who? Travellers, Tourists Power? High as they have many options Bargaining power of Suppliers: Who? Food services, Travel agents Power? Less as LLP has its own resorts and a loyal customer base Competitive Rivalry: Bowron Lake Lodge (no bedding, basic camping) Becker's Lodge Bowron Lake Adventures Resort(online booking) Bowron Lake Provincial Park (Nature walk) Low competition as there are few of them and very few have online booking systems Bargaining Power of Suppliers: As the property have their owned resorts and a good set of regular customer base, the suppliers have to supply things like food, and adventure equipments like boats to the report owner. Moreover, there are few resorts of similar capabilities which limits the customer base of suppliers and thus, the bargaining power of suppliers is low. Bargaining power of customers: Customers have ample options to both travel to different places and to take different resorts, hotels or even camping trips, their bargaining power is very high. Thus, they have to be attracted through marketing and have to be retained by supplying them with good services. Moreover, chances of getting repeat customers depends on the services and enjoyment of these customers which makes their bargaining power even higher. Competitive Rivalry: There are very few resort chains that provide similar facilities and services that are competing with LLP in the area. Also, those present in the locality also do not have online booking facilities or other amenities. Some of the resorts do not even supply bed to its travellers. However, there are some companies that have full services as well as provide online booking. If LLP installs the software for online booking and reservations, it would easily beat even these companies considering the loyal base of their customers. Threat from New Entrants: The resort is a capital intensive business and even deployment of amenities is a costly affair. Just as Martin says that to make television available in all rooms, the cost would spike up to $20,000. Thus it is not easy for new entrants to take charge which leaves them a very low bargaining power. Threat from Substitutes: Substitutes to resorts include motels, hotels and camping or trekking organizers. Travellers who want luxury can go with star hotels while those looking for adventures can easily choose cost effective camping services and thus, the threat from substitutes can be considered significant. Proposed Solution Information systems in any organization deal with processes, products or services, quality, social structures and bring automation to the organization. As thus, to understand how and IS would help LLP, these characteristics of the system could be explored(Yu Singh, 2004). Processes: Information systems can store large amounts of data that may be useful both for the organization and for its customers that are travellers in this case. By using information system, company can store a lot of information that a customer may be seeking while taking a decision for travel such as geographic characteristics of areas, accommodation availability, public transport facilities, demographic, socio-economic characteristics of the place to travel, tourist activities available, and services offered by the resort. All this information can be stored and can be made available to the customer or a prospects through the website which would make it easier for the site visitor to take a decision. Moreover, display of this information would build an image of the field expert for the company which would have a positive impact on the travellers mind. This would simply the process as the customer would otherwise have to call the resort to get details but with IS, the information would be readily available(Duran, Zeker, Shrestha, 2004). Further, an online reservation system would allow customers to make bookings and the details given by customers would get saved in IS such that there is not scope of error. In the current process, this is done with interruption from the staff who have to respond to emails from consumers or answer calls and manually write down booking details. The errors that are made in the facilities used by customer when they come to resort would also be minimized as the users would be able to directly enter the details against the consumer booking(Bodmer, Seidel, Aerts, 2000). Services: The services of the resort chain include reservation, booking, dining, food, water sports, etc. These services would improve as customers would be able to get the information on availability online, make bookings online which would be a convenience for them. Also, as the systems would be used to record customer data, the time taken for booking process would reduce thereby reducing the guest waiting time. Moreover, as the resort has repeat customers, the data can be stored on systems and special marketing can be done using this data for existing customer such as giving them loyalty discounts or special offers(Oracle Corporation , 2005). Quality: Quality in case of a resort service can be defined by changes such as lowered costs, faster booking and fewer delays. As the time taken for booking would reduce, manual entry errors would also reduce, the service quality would be improved as the staff would get more time to attend customers as the manual work would be minimized(Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS), 2003). Social Structures: Social structure involves the manner in which people in the business environment interact with each other at work. With adoption of IS, this interaction would change as new reporting structures would emerge for employees who would be reporting to the management over the system. Moreover, with systems storing details of customers, staff would know more about a customer while interacting and this would delight the customer who would feel that the company cares for him or her(Sawyer, 2011). Automation: The calculation of invoice would become automatic as the details of customers and the services used would be stored at the time of ordering and when the customer would be checking out, an invoice can be generated totalling the amount. Email promotions can also be made automatic such that every month, promotional email can go to the existing customers of the resort(Yang, Flynn, Anderson, 2001). Design, Acquisition Implementation There can be several methodologies that can be used in developing an information system for an organization such as waterfall model, prototyping, incremental, spiral, RAD, and Agile. As the company has already used one software in the past for managing their systems that did not work for it, it would be an appropriate thing to ensure that the same mistake is avoided this time and thus, a prototype may be installed first which can used by the employees of the company such that only after these employees are comfortable and familiar with the model, the full development would be carried out. This method would leave the scope of improvement if the model does not work in the first stage as the users would be able to give feedback on the shortcomings that could be corrected in the full installation. The development would be carried out using a generic sequence both for the prototype and for the full development of the software for the company. This would begin with preliminary investigation in which feasibility of the proposed system would be determined for alternative solutions that would be suggested by the consultant such that the best solution could be chosen for actual implementation. Based on the chosen solution, the requirements of the system would be collected including functionalities required, users and deliverables(ICA, 2014). Major functionalities that the software solution would provide to LLP would include: Storing of customer information such as past stays, services taken, etc. at the time of booking in the database. Storage of data on the pricing of each room as well as each service that is provided by the chosen resort in the database. Retrieval of availability information from the database that is updated in the real time and displaying it on website for visitors to check anytime. Booking of rooms using the website which would contain details of rooms, availability as well as would have a payment gateway installed allowing customers to make payments online. Automatic generation of confirmation mail and invoice online after booking. Automatic notification to booking manager about the new booking that happens through the portal Retrieval of customer details from the company database and ability to enter details of added services taken during stay in this database. Automatic addition of figures into the guest's account based on the added service such that employees can generate invoice at the time of checkout of the resort guests. Automatic generation of newsletter based on the offers and updates entered by employees in the system every month as well as automatic emailing of the same to a list of customers . Once the functionalities are decided, the system would be developed accordingly and then the same would be tested by real users of the system that is being installed to check if there are any discrepancies, complexities and bugs in the system. After a successful testing, the actual IT system would be installed replacing the legacy system whose data would be taken into the new system(Salazar, 2005). Conclusions Recommendations This case study discussed how information technology solutions like online booking and reservation systems can help a company manage its operations, its employees and customers using the case of LLP which was a holiday resort chain that was using manual processes for managing their business. It was found that installation of information system would be able to improve their services significantly by bringing convenience to both customers of the firm and its staff as well as would reduce the time required for the booking and reservation for the customer. It was also found that there were huge mistakes that were happening in manual entries carried out by the employees while making bookings or updating service requests in the company and these errors could be completely eliminated with this new system. Thus, it was proven to be more reliable. Considering this case where the company already spent a significant on a software which it was unable to use later, the consultant would recommend to first do a prototype and test it with users before the actual implementation so that such blunders could be avoided as they could lead to loss for the company. References Manual. (2012). UCLA Store Employee Manual. UCLA Store. Hawthorn, D. (2005). TRAINING WHEELS FOR OLDER USERS. Auckland, New Zealand: UNITEC Institute of Technology. Gupta, P. R. (2005). Core Competencies. Jodhpur: Director, Sobhagya Consultancy Marketing Services-India. Internet Center for Management and Business Administration, Inc. (2010). The Value Chain. 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