Henry’s Hardware is a small family business in Sacramento, California.

The owners must use every square foot of store space as profitably as possible.

They have never kept detailed inventory or sales records. As soon as a shipment of goods arrives, the items are immediately placed on store shelves.

Invoices from suppliers are only kept for tax purposes. When an item is sold, the item number and price are rung up at the cash register. The owners use their own judgment in identifying items that need to be reordered. What is the business impact of this situation? How could information systems help the owners run their business? What data should these systems capture? What decisions could the systems improve?