Personal Trainer, Inc. owns and operates fitness centers in a dozen midwestern cities. The centers have done
Question:
Personal Trainer, Inc. owns and operates fitness centers in a dozen midwestern cities. The centers have done well, and the company is planning an international expansion by opening a new “supercenter” in the Toronto area.
Background
Cassia Umi, president, heads Personal Trainer’s management team. Three managers report to her at the firm’s Chicago headquarters: Janet McDonald, manager, finance; Tai Tranh, manager, sales and marketing; and Reed Cotter, manager, operations. The managers who run the 12 existing centers all report to Reed.
Cassia wants the new supercenter to emphasize a wide variety of personal services and special programs for members. If the supercenter approach is successful, it will become the model for Personal Trainer’s future growth. Cassia personally selected Gray Lewis, a manager with three years of fitness center experience, to run the new facility.
The new supercenter will feature a large exercise area with state-of-the-art equipment, a swimming pool, a sporting goods shop, a health food store, and a snack bar. In addition, the center will offer child care with special programs for various ages, a teen center, and a computer café. Cassia also wants members to have online access to customized training programs and progress reports.
Personal Trainer currently uses BumbleBee, a popular accounting package, to manage its receivables, payables, and general ledger. Membership lists and word processing are handled with Microsoft Office products.
Cassia believes the new supercenter will require additional data management capability, and she decided to hire Patterson and Wilder, an IT consulting firm, to help Personal Trainer develop an information system for the new operation. The firm assigned Susan Park, an experienced consultant, to work with the Personal Trainer team.
Susan’s first task was to learn more about business operations at the new center, so she requested a meeting with Gray. After some small talk, the discussion went like this:
Assignments
1. Develop a business profile for Personal Trainer, based on the facts provided. List at least three of Personal Trainer’s business processes.
2. Create an organization chart for Personal Trainer using Microsoft Word or a similar program, or you can draw it by hand. In Word 2003, click Insert Diagram or Organization Chart on the Drawing toolbar; in Word 2007, on the Insert tab click SmartArt then Organization Chart.
3. Review the conversation between Susan and Gray. In your opinion, is Gray totally supportive of the new system? Why or why not? Do you agree with the way that Susan responds to Gray’s comments? Why or why not?
4. Should Personal Trainer consider any of the following systems: enterprise computing, transaction processing, business support, knowledge management, or user productivity? Why or why not? What opportunities might Personal Trainer have for Web-based B2C transactions in the future? What about B2B?