Business Processes
Structured process- Sales
A structured process that Philly Pretzel Factory does on a daily basis is their sales process. Employees come in every morning between 5 and 11am and start preparing the pretzels. Throughout the day, pretzels are being baked fresh for every order. The employees check their online orders to see what needs to be made that day, and are also prepared for walk-in orders. Cleaning is a main factor in this process as well. Workers clean all surfaces after every order, and a big clean up right before closing. This has become a more thorough process because of Covid. They are constantly sanitizing every two hours to make sure their workspace is clean. This includes wiping down the counters, door handles, and the credit card machine; as well as sweeping and mopping the floors. At the end of the day all of the tupperware is soaked in a bleach solution. Dips are made fresh throughout the day, too. An inventory order arrives every Thursday to replenish items that are out or low, and to guarantee freshness of products.
Dynamic process - Social Media Marketing
Philly Pretzel Factory’s dynamic process is their social media marketing. They promote new products and sales through their Instagram and Facebook accounts, and are able to communicate with customers. This company bases their advertisements off of their Facebook page insights, and their Instagram activity. These two components let Philly Pretzel Factory know what products are doing well, what products aren’t selling, and new products that they should start making. They are also able to promote events that they attend like Bayfest and the Ocean City Block Party on their Facebook and Instagram accounts. Social media is their dynamic process because they are able to change their advertising approach, and are able to promote new products.
Scope - Enterprise
The scope of these two processes, structured and dynamic, would be considered enterprise. All of the company’s departments (sales, customer service, marketing) are connected by their information system. This system is associated with Microsoft, one of the top enterprise resource planning programs.
Silo Problems
While every department works together, there are some internal problems. For example, employees may forget to tell the bakers about orders. This type of incident leads to a silo problem, which results in a customer not getting their order on time or at all. The main vendor that is associated with the Philly Pretzel Factory franchise is PepsiCo. In the Somers Point location, they sell Pepsi’s bottled products and use baking products and dips from Zilka & Co. If any of these companies run out of products or stop one of their promotions and do not inform Philly Pretzel Factory, a silo problem can occur.
Information System - POS RT7
Philly Pretzel Factory uses the processing system POS RT7. As previously mentioned, this system is used to help this company keep a record of sales, employee work times, inventory, and customer loyalty. The POS system keeps everything organized and has all of the necessary data that needs to be accessed. It also gives the store the ability to look back on sales from certain days, the top performing products, and run payroll. POS RT7 gives customers the option to directly order online through Facebook, and promotes monthly discounts. An issues that comes with this system is when the internet goes out, it can’t perform any tasks like running customer credit cards.
Hardware & Software
The hardware for this system is the touchscreen monitor, the credit card terminal, the cash drawer, and the receipt printer. The software is a cloud-based retail management solution. This means that users are able to access software applications that run on shared computing resources via the Internet. The Cloud updates and backups info, such as updating menus and weekly promotions. The feature “Team Viewer” allows corporate to remotely update the system which usually happens during the night. The LAN (local area network) that this company has is a dual band Wi-Fi router through Comcast, and the domain name for the Wi-Fi is “pretzel1”. Since the POS RT7 has a preset of items, which makes it easy to use and navigate, people and procedures work well. Hardware and software are changed by Corporate.
More about POS RT7
Since Philly Pretzel Factory is growing their online presence, they are becoming more aware of SMIS’s. SMIS are social media information systems that support the sharing of content among a network of users. They don’t have any sponsors as of now, but they do have social media application providers such as Facebook and Instagram. Philly Pretzel Factory doesn’t use LinkedIn to hire employees, instead they accept walk-in applicants for their hiring process. If an applicant knows the manager, they are more likely to get the job, This is called social capital. Social capital is the investment in social relations with expectation of future returns in the marketplace (social capital = number of relationships x relationship strength x entity resources). Philly Pretzel Factory also uses social capital to be able to expand their network and cater more events. For example, regularly catering at events and building relationships with customers will lead to them recommending Philly Pretzel Factory’s services to business partners, friends, and family members. Another way to gain more customers is by utilizing Facebook and radio ads, as well as coupon books. Since they do a lot of wholesale marketing, their target market would be considered people who are hosting big events such as parties and sporting events.