Alex Schuster began Pine Valley Furniture (PVF)as a hobby. Initially, Alex would build custom furniture in his garage for friends and family. As wordspread about his quality crafts man ship, he began taking orders. The hobby has since evolved into amedium-sized business, employing more than fiftyworkers. Over the years, increased demand has forcedAlex to relocate several times, increase his salesforce, expand his product line, and renovate PineValley Furniture’s information systems. As thecompany began to grow, Alex organized the company into functional areas—manufacturing, sales, orders, accounting, and purchasing. Originally, manual information systems were used; however, as the business began to expand rapidly, a minicomputer was installed to automate applications. In the beginning, a process-oriented approachwas utilized. Each separate application had its owndata files. The applications automated the manualsystems on which they were modeled. In an effortto improve its information systems, PVF recentlyrenovated its information systems, resulting in acompany-wide database and applications thatwork with this database. Pine Valley Furniture’scomputer-based applications are primarily in theaccounting and financial areas. All applications have been built in-house, and when necessary, new information systems staff is hired to support PineValley Furniture’s expanding information systems. a. How did PVF go about developing its information systems? Why do you think the companychose this option? What other options wereavailable?
b. One option available to PVF was an enterprisewide system. What features does an enterprise-wide system, such as SAP, provide? Whatis the primary advantage of an enterprise-widesystem?
c. PVF will be hiring two systems analysts nextmonth. Your task is to develop a job advertisement for these positions. Locate several Websites or newspapers that have job advertisements for systems analysts. What skills arerequired?
d. What types of information systems are currently utilized at PVF? Provide an example of each.