You have recently inherited your grandfather’s coffee shop, The Broadway Cafe, which is conveniently located in downtown (your city). The cafe offers many different kinds of specialized coffees, teas, a full service bakery, and homemade sandwiches, soups, and salads. Your grandfather first opened The Broadway Cafe in 1952 and it was a local hotspot for many years.
Unfortunately, business has been steadily declining over the last five years. Although your grandfather was an expert at running the coffee shop, it is outdated. There are no computers in the store and all ordering takes place manually. Your grandfather had a terrific memory and knew all of his customers by name, but unfortunately, none of this information is located anywhere in the store. The family recipes for the baked goods and soups are also stored in your grandfather’s memory. Inventory is tracked in a note pad, along with employee payroll, and marketing coupons. The Cafe does not have a Web site, uses very little marketing except word-of-mouth, and essentially still operates the same as it did in 1952.
Throughout this course you will own and operate The Broadway Cafe taking advantage of business practices discussed in this text to increase profits, keep the business running, and bring the cafe into the 21st century. Upon completion of the case students will have performed a vast array of activities including:
- Use technology to gain a competitive advantage
- Build an e-business strategy
- Create an online community for collaboration
- Deploy a wireless network for customers
- Use CRM to implement marketing campaigns and sales strategies
- Deal with different ethical and information security dilemmas
- Use Excel to perform business intelligence projects
- Project management activities for implementing solutions
- Understand how technology is used throughout a business by all of the different functional areas
