Case study: The Greenwich University Book Stores

During the process of restructuring and improving their services 3 years ago, Greenwich University decided to open and maintain their own book stores. Three book stores are currently spread across the Universitys three campuses, Avery Hill, Medway and Greenwich, committed to provide high-quality service to their students and staff. The book stores are at the moment controlled by the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and have an efficient warehouse/distribution operation. The Central Committee of the School are now thinking to expand the book stores service by allowing their students and staff to buy books online as well as offer support to those who browse their online catalogue but prefer to place orders in person or by the telephone. The three shops will also attempt to provide a new service, which will allow their users to loan a book and return it within a week, something similar to the library loan system. Being part of the university, the book stores also provide study packs with copies of journal articles relevant to specific courses, which students can buy at a discount price.

You are consultants called in to assist the Universitys book stores with this restructuring of their marketing and sales business model from an Information Systems perspective. They have a tight deadline of 8 months for the online system to go live and the analysis, design and development and promotion of the new system should be within the budget of 20.000 pounds decided by the Board of Directors of the University.

In outline the Central Committee of the School has sketched the system they need as follows:

Students, staff and potential customers (lets call them CUSTOMERS for a matter of simplicity) can browse and search the online catalogues for books of interest

CUSTOMERS can order books online using conventional electronic "shopping basket" and "check out" functionality. They can choose from several different shipping methods and rates based on a formula related to the urgency and the weight of an order.

CUSTOMERS should be able to read descriptions or reviews of books. The central committee of the School would welcome your advice on achieving this.

CUSTOMERS may also phone in or email with their book orders and requests. Their orders may be very precise (a particular book), but they may also be vague. They may just say that they want the book on Economics and Statistics that was reviewed on page 12 of last Mondays Economist. Such queries might be based on a structured form filling approach.

Sales staff of the book shops take the phone calls or read the emails and interact with the customers. They also handle any online orders that are flagged with problems during the otherwise automatic online ordering and shipping request process. Among the actions that they might take are: confirming a book's details, making book suggestions, taking an order (perhaps for many books). They will also have to deal with enquiries about previous orders, log returns, etc.

All payments will be by credit card. The checking of credit card details will be done by the companys bank, through a link to a system known as VISACheck. The VISACheck system acts as an interface between the book Stores and their bank's credit check services.

For a number of new books or very old books, the book stores direct their orders to their central warehouse where they can be checked (e.g. if the books are in stock etc). In the case a book is not available, then a further check is made online with their principal wholesalers (WALTERSBOOKS). If WALTERSBOOKS have the books in stock, then they usually need 5 days in order to deliver them. If they dont have the books, then they can further pass the request to their organisation office, where staff can perform book searches and track down where they can find those titles.

Refer to the Case Study: The University of Greenwich Book Stores attached in Appendix A on last page.

1. Explain what is the existing problem that makes University of Greenwich proposed to develop a new system for the bookstore. Provide THREE (3) points.

(6 marks)

2. Identify and explain THREE (3) functional requirements of the proposed system stated in the case study.

(6 marks)