Case Study Virginia Bikes

IFSM 300 Final Exam Answers

Case Study Virginia Bikes

In 1985 Bill Thomas took $6,000 of his savings, borrowed another $4,000 from his best friend, and opened a bike rental business in Vienna, VA. The rental shop is adjacent to the Washington & Old Dominion Trail (W&OD) that goes from Purcellville to Old Town Alexandria (45 miles), connects to the Mt Vernon Trail (18 miles) and ends at George Washington’s Mt Vernon Estate. Bill, bought 10 bikes for his first store. The location has parking, and is near the historic Vienna Inn and a number of food and drink establishments. He has since opened stores in Old Town Alexandria and Reston, VA, where he sells, rents and repairs bicycles.

The Vienna store is now Bill’s anchor store, and at 5,000 square feet, it is three to five times larger than his other stores. Bill estimates he sells around 3,000 new bikes a year. Because of the high use of the W&OD trail, especially on weekends, he also provides tune up and maintenance services at all of his stores for the many riders from up and down the trail.

In 2012, Bill leased a store in the heart of D.C., near the Smithsonian Museums and other tourist attractions. He uses this store to rent bikes to tourists and residents of the city, and does some repairs to his rental bicycle inventory in the back of the shop.

Although he has always made money, or he would not be in business, Bill has seen a decline in bikes sales of about 20 percent since 2008. He attributes this to the downturn in the economy and the growth in Internet sales. However, his rental, tune up and repair business has increased dramatically. Over the past few years, he realized that he must be more aware of expenses and decrease them wherever practical in order to preserve profits.

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Questions

Analyze the Virginia Bikes business using Porter’s Five Forces Analysis to complete the table below.

Identify which of Porter’s Generic Strategies is most appropriate to Virginia Bikes and explain why you selected it in light of your Five Forces Analysis.

Bill uses the three business processes listed below, and each of them could be improved using technology. Explain in general how an information technology system solution could improve each one of the processes without naming a specific solution.

Using the three business processes listed in question #3, list one input and one output that would be part of that process. (These are for the entire process, and are not limited to any particular step in the process.)

Bill has decided to use technology to improve one of business processes identified in question #4 above. Select one of the processes and analyze the IT requirements as they apply to that process using the table below.

List and briefly explain three specific quantifiable (measurable) business benefits that Virginia Bikes would get from using a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution. Your explanations should include references to the Virginia Bikes business in the case study.

Bill has decided to implement a cloud-based SaaS solution to improve the bike repair process for his business. Identify one important activity that Bill would need to do during each of the following phases of the system development life cycle to implement his solution (an example answer is provided for the Programming phase):

Bill would like to increase repair work and rentals as they are the highest profit aspects of his business. He wants to analyze the data he will be collecting in his new information system to help him do this. Identify three questions that Bill …

Bill would like to increase repair work and rentals as they are the highest profit aspects of his business. He wants to analyze the data he will be collecting in his new information system to help him do this. Identify three questions that Bill w

What is the most popular repair done in the store?

How many of the rental customers are repeat customers?

How many customers who have purchased a bicycle come back for repairs, tune ups or accessories?

E-Commerce category #1 and how it would be used: Business to Consumer

E-Commerce category #2 and how it would be used: Business to Business

Explain how each of the following could benefit Bill’s Virginia Bikes business. Use 2-3 sentences for each and be sure your explanations mention Virginia Bikes and show that you understand each of the types of systems.