Mrs.

Fields Cookies Case Study

1.a
Store manager;
There day begins in the back room, they enter work day characteristics
(week,day,weather,holiday,ect) into the computer system. They then answer a series of questions
into the system for it to compute a specific mathematical schedule for that day. They are advised
how many cookies to make per hour and what the specific hourly sales should be. They also are
in charge of entering into the system how many cookies are to be made that day and the system
tells them how many batches to mix up. They need to enter store sales throughout the day if the
cash register doesn’t automatically do it already. They have to actively make changes throughout
the day if the hourly sales aren’t adding up. They are also in charge of managing inventory and
make hiring decisions.

District store manager;

They are in charge of managing six stores, the managers of each store are reporting to them.
They receive 50 pages of reports a day to read. They are in charge of setting quotas that for the
amount of bonuses a store manager can receive by looking at data for each separate store. They
look at past trends, future projections, and how the store can grow. Hey are involved in making
local marketing decisions
Regional director of operations;
They manage six district managers and also manage a store themselves. They are in charge of
printing out 300 pages of reports each day. They also work with a controller to discuss any
accounting differences. They are involved in the local marketing decisions along with the district
managers.

b.
For a store controller;

They are responsible for store management and report to Debbie through a vice president of
operations. They each manage between 35-75 stores. They review daily computer reports and
summarize sales overall by product type. They keep track and monitor unusually conditions,
trends, cash underages and overages. They have to contact field managers with explanations
when need be.

c.
For Debbi and Randi Fields.
Randy is mostly in charge of business strategies. This includes real estate growth, information
systems and technology. He takes care of the finance of the business such as when he decided
that future growth would be funded by cash flow and debt. He is the main one in charge of future
growth and expansion opportunities. Debbie has created the business and over sees a lot. She is
in charge of all operations such as store operations, product development, HR, and public
relations. She stays in constant contact with managers of each individual store by email or over
the phone. She sees the controller’s reports within 24 hours at an aggregate level.
2. Would you describe Mrs. Fields’ Cookies as more of a functional hierarchy structured
along traditional functional lines or more of an IT-enabled network consisting of tailored
business processes?
I don’t believe that Mrs. Fields’ cookies is a functional hierarchy structure along with a
traditional functional lines. I would described the organization as a IT-enables network
consisting of tailored business processes this is obvious to see throughout the reading. According
to the text book a Networked organization structure is defined where the organization form or
structure in which rigid hierarchies are replaced by formal and informal communication
networks that connect all parts of the company; known for its flexibility and adaptiveness (306).
The case study discuss how in the fields structure computers don’t just speed up the process of
administration but also alter it. Management becomes less administration and more inspirational.
The management of hierarchy to them feels “flat”. They wanted the focus on managing people
instead of business processes. Mrs. Fields believed that a functional hierarchy would work its
way to a dominant position and it would be a downfall. The main thing that proved that they had
an organization with a network function is when they stated that they believe the less hierarchy,
the better. This causes managers to turn to managing people and less to managing the key
business processes. So their employees had titles and responsibilities but there was no official
organization chart. Communication took place between any employees at any level when needed.
Mr. Fields put a lot of decision making into the store PC to free up the manager for more
important tasks. They used IT for many things such as development, support, and operations for
the sore PC and financial and sales system. Also managing the firm’s telecommunication
equipment and they used a voicemail system. Randy saw information systems as a way to
accommodate growth without expanding staff. He constantly was encouraging the people to
work with technology and to think of new creative application.

3. What role does IT play in the Mrs. Fields’ organizational structure?

At Mr. Fields cookies they strongly believe in the use of IT/MIS for their organizational
structure. Mr. fields used his standard personalized computer (Tandy 1000) to communicate with
the data center out of Utah. They have all significant corporate data residing in one database and
in order for this to happen they use IT to centralize the information. It is used with many
applications such as form main, day planners, labor scheduler, skills tests, interviews and hiring
decisions and as a time clock. Corporate used IT systems to review daily computer reports
summarizing sales overall and important data such as cash overages, underage’s and arising
issues. Randy claimed their goal of MIS as “to put as much decision making and intelligence into
the store level PC as is necessary to free the manager to do those things that uniquely people do.”
He believed that os was demeaning to have his workers do what machines could do. He wants
his managers to do better things than paperwork. It’s obvious how much data this business
collects through IT when the director of MIS stated that when someone wants a new report he
always has the data collected already. Randy used information systems as a way to accommodate
growth without having to expand staff.

4. What challenges does Mrs. Fields Cookies face in the next five years? How well
positioned is the company to meet these challenges?
According to the textbook there are five major forces that shape the competitive environment of
an industry. They are potential threats of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of
substitute, and bargaining power of buyers (38). I believe a big challenge they may face is a
potential threat to new entrants. Mrs. Fields is described as in the sweet snack industry and I
believe this is an industry that over time has many new companies constantly coming into. This
could be a threat to Mrs. Fields Company especially if a company enters with the mind set of
franchising this could lower their percent of shares for this specific market. I also think the
business needs to worry about threats of substitute products. The potential of a substitute product
in the marketplace depends on the buyers' willingness to substitute, the relative price-to-
performance ratio of the substitute, and the level of switching costs a buyer faces (39). I think
substitutes are an issue because when you go to the mall ( where most of Mrs. Fields stores are
locared) now a days there are many different sweet snack businesses such as aunt Annie’s,
cinnabon, kernals, and many more. I do not think this company has to worry to much about
bargaining threat of suppliers as they are very loyal to their suppliers. They have bought the
same chocolate from the same supplier for the last 10 years. Clearly they have a very good
relationship with this specific supplier. I believe that this company is relatively positioned well to
meet these challenges or any challenges that arise. Why I would say this is because of how well
they are using IT systems to keep track of data and review it. They will be prepared if a new
company comes into the market or if supplies prices rise. They have constant communication
between store managers, controllers, MIS directors, and Mrs. Fields.

5. What advice would you have given Debbi and Randy Fields in 1988?
Remember less is more. Stay in cookie business.
Looking at the appendix you can see that in 1988 financial information you can see that Mrs.
Fields had a net loss retained by the company. I believe this was due to too much expansion. I
would have gave the fields the advice to stick with their specialty the cookies business. In 1988
they moved to brownies, muffins, candies and ice cream. Before all this expansion they never
had a net loss. In 1988 they had a write off of 19.9 million on revenues and 133.1 million for
store and plant closing which left them with there 18.5 million loss for tht year (5). I believe the
Fields lost their focus and forgot why they started the store and were too focused on expanding.
References
Pearlson, K. E., Saunders, C. S., & Galletta, D. F. (2016). Managing and using information systems: a
strategic approach. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.