Online Tutors, Inc. provides Online tutoring. Currently, families subscribe. A subscription allows them to download worksheets, watch educational videos, and receive 1 hour of tutoring per month. They can contract for additional tutoring. All tutoring is scheduled and takes place Online. They would like to expand to offer on-demand tutoring services also.

Mary Montgomery, a president, heads the management team. Three managers report to her at the firms headquarters: Jay Murphy, manager, finance; Natasha Rivers, manager, sales, and marketing; and Ryan Lewis, manager, Online services. There are managers for several high-demand subject areas: mathematics, science, computer science, foreign languages, and music.

Online Tutors currently has several systems in place: HR recruits, hires, and trains tutors; an Online portal system facilitates registration of subscribers and scheduling of tutoring sessions. There is a system in place that bills customers for tutoring services and pays tutors. They use MyBookkeeper, a popular accounting package, to manage its receivables, payables, and general ledger. Their Online database maintains subscriber lists, tutor lists, tutoring sessions, and scheduling. Routine office tasks are handled with Microsoft Office products.

Mary believes the new on-demand services will require additional data management capability, and she decided to hire Julie Martin, an experienced consultant, to work with the Online Tutors team. Julie has asked you, an intern, to assist. Julie's first task was to learn more about business operations, so she requested a meeting with Ryan. After some small talk, the discussion went like this:

Julie: Tell me about your plans for the new services. I'm especially interested in what kind of information management you'll need.

Ryan: Mary thinks that we'll need more information support because of the anticipated size and complexity of the new service. To tell the truth, I'm not so sure. We've had no problems with the systems we have in place now and I don't really want to do anything to adversely affect the current operations.

Julie: Maybe we should start by looking at the similarities and the differences between the new services and the existing ones.

Ryan: Okay, let's do that. First of all, parents currently schedule ongoing tutoring sessions, such as French lessons, and computer science. They make the schedule in advance, and the tutoring sessions are scheduled for one or more days per week, for several weeks. Usually, a full semester is booked in advance. Now, we want parents to be able to log in and find a tutor to help a child with homework on the spot. We would need to have a way for tutors to indicate when they are available. Then parents would be able to find a tutor who is available either immediately or very soon, in the subject area. We would need to track the amount of time the tutor spent with the student so that the parents could be billed and the tutor paid.

Julie: So, how can we help?

Ryan: I realize that this would be a great revenue source, but I dont want to do anything that would affect the current operations, but I don't know where to start.

Julie: Ryan, that's why I'm here. I'll work with you and the rest of the team to come up with a solution that supports your business.

Ryan: Sounds good to me. When can we start?

Julie: Let's meet first thing tomorrow. Send me an organization chart and your thoughts and concerns about the new services. We'll try to build a model of the new service so we can identify the business functions. When we know what the functions are, we'll know what kind of information is needed or generated by each function. That will be our starting point.

Julie has given you your first assignment:

Use the information given in the initial letter and your own experience and Internet research to complete the following tasks. These are essential first steps in understanding the business.

Tasks

Create a professional-looking document to address the issues noted below. Be sure that you have corrected all spelling and grammar errors and that all sections of the report are clearly labeled. 5 points

1. In your own words describe the system the client has requested. 2 points
2. In as few words as possible, give a name to the system. 2 points
3. Who are the users of the system? 2 points
4. Using the terminology from the text, what type of systems these? 2 points
5. What are some of the processes you think the system will require? 2 points
6. Does the system support any of these categories: ERP (Enterprise resource planning), transaction processing, business support, knowledge management, or user productivity? Why or why not? 3 points
7. Create a business profile for the company. Be sure to indicate areas where more information will be needed. 7 points.

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