Department Store Increases Sales With New Database System - Essay Sample

Introduction

A local department store has opened five new stores resulting in an increase in transactions and sales. The store has also launched several marketing campaigns to advertise their current and new stores to increase sales, retain their existing customers, expand their customer base, and get more customers. Their current database system cannot hold an increase in transactions. A new enterprise-wide database system is required to record new sales and store more inventory data for the company. The new database system should support the marketing strategies of the company and be aligned with the sales initiatives launched by the company. The current paper will propose a new database system for the departmental store. Nowadays, it is very important for companies to establish efficient management of the available information. A well-managed and established database offers a company centralized control of its data can become a tool that makes a competitive difference between different companies.

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Store Transactions and Potential Sales That Can Be Stored Within the Database

Information stored in the current database of the departmental store includes information regarding retail sales and all the sales transactions. When a customer selects a product(s) that he/she wants to buy and takes it to the store register, that is when the sale process starts. The items are scanned by sales associates using a barcode reader. There are several assumptions that have to be put into consideration before designing the database system. Some of these assumptions include; vendors are responsible for distributing items and products to the store, every sale transaction is stored in the company's database, there is no limit to the number of orders that a store can receive, there is no limit to the number of orders that a customer can make, there is no limit to the number of products that a single order can have, sales associates are responsible for selling the items in the store, there is one store in each of the five locations, and all the products received from any vendor have to be stored in the database (Manomayo, 2016). The new database system should be able to contain information about the customers, the order, the item/product, and the location of the store.

The first step is coming up with an entity table that comprises all the information about the transactions that should be included in the new database.

Table 1. The entity's table showing the information that should be contained in the database

A Database Solution That Will Take Into Consideration All the Sales Transactions

There are several rules that will be followed in developing the new database system. These rules will provide the limits and constraints that will guide, influence, and control what the business does. Some of these business rules include (Shuen, 2018):

Control of inventory. It is important for all the retail stores to ensure that they manage their inventory effectively and efficiently. The inventory is the investment of the business and if not managed properly, the store will run into losses.

Understanding customers. Customers are the backbone to the success of any business. It is important to take into consideration the needs of the customers and work on any feedback provided by them.

Understanding the market. Without understanding the needs of the market, a retailer will not be able to comprehend customer shopping. It is, therefore, crucial to access the market basket data and use the information to drive the business towards profitability and success.

Maintaining the financial records of the company. The financial records show the direction that the company is taking. They show whether the company is making profits or losses and whether the projections of the company are being met.

Maintaining customer loyalty. Retaining and maintaining the loyalty of customers is affected by several factors including being satisfied with the product, an enjoyable shopping experience, great customer service, good prices, a welcoming atmosphere, and where a customer is served swiftly and promptly. A fair return policy also influences the decision to buy items from a particular store. All of these factors help in maintaining customer loyalty.

Better prices. Prices are one of the main determinants that influence the purchasing decision of a customer. Customer-friendly prices will attract and retain consumers.

Analysis and Evaluation of the Relationships of Each Entity in the Database by Applying the Crow’s Foot Notation

In the analysis of the relationships within the entity, a diagram will be used and data elements, relationships, entities, and requirements for the new database will be included.

Figure 1. The entity-relationship diagram for the departmental store

Ways Through Which Databases Help Retail Stores Increase Their Sales and Retain Customers

How Sales and Inventory Forecast is Done by Using Big Data Tools

Competition in the retail industry has increased so much and to have a competitive edge over their competitors, retailers are exploring and several business strategies and tools. One such tool is the big data tool that is used to increase customer satisfaction and organize finances better. The scheme of data flow in a retail company is hugely influenced by analytics (Wang, Kung, & Byrd, 2018). A single retailer can generate numerous data points (to the tune of thousands) by using a POS machine. However, it is not easy for a retailer to use all the raw data to make decisions that will drive the organization to success and profitability (Iqbal & Soomro, 2015). It is the responsibility of the store IT department to turn the raw data into useful data that can be used in: identification of business trends, managing inventory, sales forecasting and reporting, the segmentation and clustering of consumers, analysis of the market basket, identifying high and low seasons, identifying product affinity, and analyzing hidden market patterns. All these factors ensure that a business is successful and there are few or no losses.

There are several analyses that can be used by retailers. Some of these include demand and sales forecasting, inventory management, prediction analysis, reporting, and sales analysis, and brand and category analysis among others. The inventory management analysis ensures that the organization does not finish its stock completely without replenishing it (Oussous, Benjelloun, Lahcen, & Belfkih, 2018). Analysts use statistical methods and mathematical formulas and techniques to predict the demand of products in the future taking into consideration seasonality changes, holiday effects, and trend changes. Customer insights are analyzed using statistical software, mathematical formulas, and supercomputers.

Predictive analysis is important to an organization since it improves the decision-making process regarding the future using analytical rigidity. It enables organizations to predict any changes in customer behavior and thus plan on how to have a competitive edge over other companies. Some of the software tools that are used include Minitab, SPSS, and Excel among others (Iqbal & Soomro, 2015). Business analytics help businesses to get more information from the structured data, for example, trend analysis, segmentation, and clustering of the customers, managing inventory, and making market and sale forecasts. Data analysis ensures that an organization enhances its operational efficiency, create flexible and effective working models, enhance data security, cut down on expenses, and make better decisions (Oussous et al., 2018). Data analysis is also crucial when it comes to cleansing of data, data processing, as well as data reporting. Employee productivity and efficiency are also boosted through the implementation of big data. Big data provides the organization with a clear picture of where the organization is headed against key performance indicators (KPIs).

SQL Stored Procedures That Could Be Used to Perform Predictive and Explanatory Analytics

The management needs to know which departmental store is making the highest sales and as such, there is need to come up with a SQL stored procedure that will make it easier for them to do that. Such a procedure is presented below. A CURSOR will be used to retrieve records from the store and orders entity. The Store_NM procedure will be responsible for sorting these orders. However, if there will not be any records, the Store_NM procedure will show the following output TOPSTORE%NOT FOUND before exiting through a loop.

The procedure for establishing which store has the highest stores will be as follows:

Figure 2. Creation and successful compilation of the SQL stored procedure

Figure 3. Successful completion of the SQL procedure

Figure 3 above shows the SQL procedure developed can successfully enable the organization to know which store is outselling the others among the five departmental stores.

The management also needs to know which product is being sold the most. Below is the SQL procedure that will enable the organization to know the top-selling product.

Figure 4 below shows that the TOP_Products SQL procedure has been successfully created.

The management will thus be able to know the top-selling product in the five departmental stores. The management can, therefore, be able to plan its inventory and ensure there is no shortage resulting in more sales and higher revenue.

Comparison Between TOP_Store Procedure and the TOP_Products Procedure

The TOP_Products procedure and the TOP_Store procedure are both very essential for the company. By using the TOP_Store procedure, the management will know which store is performing better than the rest and using this information, they will improve the other stores in all aspects. By using the TOP_Products procedure, the management will know which product is most preferred by the customers. They will, therefore, ensure that there is no shortage of the product and thus increases sales which will generate from revenue from the respective stores.

Vendors That Offer Cloud Computing Services

Estimation of the costs and expenses incurred during the implementation of a cloud-hosted database.

Ninefold cloud computing company provides services such as virtual services, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and cloud storage among others. Their prices are as follows:

M5 Cloud Hosting is also another company that has specialized in providing dedicated servers and IaaS cloud hosting services amongst others. Their prices are as presented below:

Security and Pricing Considerations of the Selected Cloud Implementation Services

Cloud computing has many advantages. However, they also have many shortcomings that need to be considered before the implementation process. Some of these considerations include the effect caused by outages, connectivity to the cloud, the functionality and criticality of the business, the company's disaster recovery plan, and whether the cloud company will ensure access to the cloud (Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2017). Other factors that need to be considered include the disaster and business continuity of the vendor, scalability features, data availability and integrity, restoration of data, and cloud service level agreement (SLA) compensation.

Analysis of Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Because of its ease of saving, accessing and sharing information on the Internet, the cloud has become a great tool for companies. There are so many benefits for companies that adopt cloud computing services. Some of these benefits include improved productivity and cutting down on costs and expenses...