Assignment Taken

An IT plan to support international expansion of Ramalingam Foods.

Case Understanding

Ramalingam Foods is a successful fast food restaurant, established by Mr. Ramalingam Venkatesh in south Bombay in year 1965, The establishment was famous for their authentic south Indian freshly cooked food and filter coffee. The business grew to become a Pan India Business selling varied products having below products in their portfolio: Instant Dosa Mix, Instant Idli Mix, Instant Gulab Jamun Mix, Instant Laddu Mix, instant coffee powder Instant Dhokla mix. Currently most products are available in 200 Gms, 500 Gms & 1 Kg Packaging. For international expansion, especially in the era of digital innovations and disruptions across the industry, there is a need of extremely sophisticated, latest, very effective IT plan. The objectives of IT strategies and key decision areas are: • A website tailormade for Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore • Extent of automation required in the manufacturing center at Malaysia • Application of Data analytics for accurate demand forecasting • Adoption of enterprise resource planning software for streamlining organization wise processes • Inquiring possibility of application of Blockchain in Trade finance related to export and import • Maintaining data security and privacy • Facilitating successful transition from domestic operation only to global operations.

BCS Solution Summary

Global Business Consultancy (GBC) was asked for advice regarding international expansion by Indian Company Ramalingam Foods (Tagline: Making Homemade Chefs Since 1965) which has a ready to cook product portfolio, predominantly South Indian food mix including dosa-idli instant mix powder, dhokla ,gulab jamoon mix and filter coffee. GBC has decided the company to expand in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia of South-East Asia where there is huge south Indian population. The company would make greenfield expansion in Malaysia followed by export to Singapore (by road) and Indonesia (by waterways) from there. GBC has advised Ramalingam Foods to launch with current products at these three countries in this year with planned product portfolio enhancement over next two years. Ramalingam Foods will focus on R&D for product innovation (both authentic Indian and Indian themed foreign dish), marketing for extending reach cum brand building, world-class IT infrastructure for coping up with digital disruption, employee friendly productive HR policy. To provide the Ramalingam Foods a reliable and sustainable technical services and innovative solutions that brings value to the organization and its constituentsand enhances business processes and effectiveness for all departments. A high-level overview of the IT department that covers its mission, core values, objectives and approaches to accomplishing its goals.  Own Website of Ramalingam Foods  Use of SAP Enterprise Resource Planning for streamline interrelated process  Automation using distributed control system for manufacturing plant in Malaysia  Use of Domo -Business Cloud cum Data Analytic Tool for coping up with growing data analytics  Investment in two start-ups focusing in Blockchain Technology and Virtual & Augmented Reality for future innovations  Use the cloud for global sharing.  Choose flexible collaboration tools  Stay in control ofdata.  Get basic and fundamental necessities like mobile, computers  Use of Skype for online meetings with customer overseas and own employees overseas  Simplify scheduling &Localized Checkout Process

Solution

 Creating own Website

A business website will be Ramalingam Food’s online company address. It’s where potential customers, clients, and associates can find and contact you. A company with its domain makes an e-mail more credible and trustworthy rather than generic google addresses. Websites give businesses their own unique online identity. A survey by the Better Business Bureau shows that 84% of consumers will trust a company based on its online reviews, which will only be possible if they see a business website.

A well-maintained website can help one to gain a competitive advantage in any industry and improve his business image. Developing our own website offers many benefits including getting more leads and prospects, increase sales, enhance our professional brand, and improve our customer service.

About the website (Ramalingamfoods.my for Malaysia):-

• Contain content transcreation – It is a concept used in the field of translation studies to describe the process of adapting a message from one language to another, while maintaining its intent, style, tone, and context.
• It will include the option of online sales.
• It will have “ChatBot” buttons on all pages, through which customer can ask their queries (if any) directly.
• The site will have customer reviews and feedback system in which customer can give their reviews.

Along with this our site will have some key features too:-

• Online advertisement through which we can generate revenue
• Educate our customer - Have blogs on fit & healthy life fromexperienced person along with recipe book related to cooking with ourproducts.
• Two-Way Communication - Customers can quickly and easily contact us, give feedback on our products or ask about product
• Help to build a brand image.

 

 Use the cloud for global sharing. 

When a company is setting up an office overseas, working with customers in other countries, or outsourcing to far-flung contractors, collaborating with people in different locations and time zones, it faces manydifficulties.

To overcome upon this difficulty a company can use a simplify matters with a cloud storage solution like Microsoft OneDrive or Office 365

Now how it will work for Ramalingam Foods?

Ramalingam Foods can storehis files and data online which can be easily organize and share amongst all the employees who are working overseas. For being updated for everyone, youshould have the most current version of files—but you can restore previous versions if needed. You can even access your data offline for times when you don’t have an Internet connection.

 

 Using Data-analysis:

In today’s world, data is the new oil- data if collected and analyzed correctly can give business insights that might give the user competitive advantage. GBC advises Ramalingam Foods to buy sophisticated software for gaining such insights. Domo is one such software.

Domo is the Business Cloud®, empowering organizations of all sizes with BI leverage at cloud scale in record time. With Domo, BI-critical processes that took weeks, months or more can now be done on the fly, in minutes or seconds, at unbelievable scale, helping teams and organizations go fast, go big and go bold.Domo, Inc is a cloud-based platform designed to provide direct, simplified, real-time access to business data for decision makers across the company with minimal IT involvement. It is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) venture.Domo integrates with multiple data sources, including spreadsheets, databases, social media and other cloud-based or on-premise software programs.

 

 Strategic Investments:

In today’s world, foreseeing is one of the most important driving factors behind success of any company. GBC advises Ramalingam Foods to invest in some technologies for future benefits. Since it is hard for Ramalingam Foods to develop that expertise in short span, it would be prudent to invest in start-ups those are potential and work on some topics which are in line with Ramalingam Food’s work.

One such area is Blockchain. Blockchain technology is continuing to dominate headlines across the globe. An almost never-ending list of projects and pilots have been vying for our attention as the digital transformation gathers pace.

Blockchain can reduce processing time, eliminate the use of paper and save money while ensuring transparency, security, and trust. These are the key benefits of blockchain in trade finance. Removing bad actors and forcing everyone to play fair in a new transparent way of doing business will virtually eliminate the risk of manipulation by participants in the chain.

Another area is Virtual and Augmented Reality. Ramalingam Foods want to leverage the concepts to AR and VR to enhance customer experiences via visualization. It believes that AR/VR would be very very useful in coming days of operations.

Ramalingam Food is advised to invest INR 50 lac each in two startups., namely WoToken in Blockchain domain and RevoAR in Virtual and Augmented reality.

 

 SAP- ERP Adoption:

For integration among the systems and processes, streamlining many processes like order taking, financial book keeping, daily progress reports etc., Ramalingam Foods will subscribe to SAP module.

The benefits of SAP ERP are as follows:

•  Higher productivity:Streamline and automate core business processes to help everyone in organization do more with fewer resources.
•  Better insights:Eliminate information silos, gain a single source of truth, and get fast answers to mission-critical business questions.
•  Accelerated reporting:Fast-track business and financial reporting and easily share results. Act on insights and improve performance in real time.
•  Lower risk: Maximize business visibility and control, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements – and predict and prevent risk.
•  Simpler IT: By using integrated ERP applications that share a database, you can simplify IT and give everyone an easier way to work.
•  Improved agility:With efficient operations and ready access to real-time data, you can quickly identify and react to new opportunities.

 

 Stay in control of your data. 

There are so many scams around these days, who can stole the companies personal information, selling information or any other data which we are sharing online. As Ramalingam Foods is sharing business information with distant teams and brand-new global partners it can feel a little risky. Choosing a solution like Office 365 that lets you control what happens to your information can get through this problem. Through this one can restrict access and control, who sees and/or edits each document, etc. Also, under this software company can create a project-specific team site that has to be shared only with those who need to know.

Also, Ramalingam foods will have subscriptions of Antivirus to protect its computer from any external attack.

 

 Choose flexible collaboration tools

The world is full of different types of people in which some people like to communicate by email or phone, while others prefer face-to-face meetings or online chat. Since Ramalingam Foods is expanding his business internationally, he is going to meet all kinds in his global expansion. So to overcome this we can look for collaboration tools like Office 365 that offer a range of options, from chat with Skype for Business to full-on HD videoconferencing. That way, you’ll be prepared no matter whom you’re working with.

This will be especially useful for companies which has foreign clients/customer or employees posted overseas for daily briefing, discussions, meetings etc.

 

 Fundamental Tech requirements:

Ramalingam Foods will subscribe to some fundamental hardware and software packages and technologies to facilitate daily operations without any hassle. These are computers, mobile and landline phones, printers etc. for its employees. Also, Microsoft Package, Office 365, Antivirus, Skype etc. will be required for daily needs.

 

 Simplify scheduling.

As Ramalingam Foods is expanding its business internationally they will face problem in time management due to different time zones. To emerge from this problem  one can use the simplicity of Office 365’s calendaring system under which you have to create shared calendars among teams so that everyone can inform when they are free and you will also know when everyone is free, which makes scheduling a breeze.AlsoOffice 365’s Outlook integration makes it easy to set up meetings and videoconferences, too.

 

 Localized Checkout Process

Apart from all other important factors, the important part is providing international shopping convenience through your cart which leads to better online sales. So to make our website user friendly Ramalingam Foods should:

• Inform the buyer beforehand if the product is available for shipping to his local address or not.
• Give your buyer the option to convert payment in his currency too to make your global website user friendly.
• Allow the user to check the delivery charges and taxes prior to starting the checkout process to avoid abandoned carts.
• Provide multiple payment options. As people from different locations are comfortable with different payment methods.

 

11. Manage your contacts

To make the productivity effective Ramalingam Foods should keep a track of all his new global connections like customers, vendors, and suppliers, etc. So to maintain all this data company can use Office 365 which syncs everyone’s emails, calendars, and contact information across all of your devices of those whom a company meet or talk in real time.Through this Ramalingam Foods will always have current information about the people with whom they are working.

• A Table for Projected Expenses

Project/Item	Approx. Expense(INR)
Automation of the plant in Malaysia using distributed control system (DCS)	50 lac
DCS Maintenance	5 lac (Yearly)
SAP Module (10 users)	22 lac (Yearly)
Computers (12 pieces)	7 lac
Mobiles and landline phones (20 pieces)	5 lac
Domo -Business Cloud cum Data Analytic Tool- 2 users	1.7 lac (Yearly)
Website	5 lac
Website Maintenance	0.5 lac (Yearly)
Microsoft 365 Business Premium	3 lac(Yearly)
Investment in Blockchain Technology(in Start-up)	50lac
Investment in a start-up focused in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality	50 lac
Business Antivirus Subscription Fees	1.2 lac ((Yearly)
Skype Subscription Fees	1 lac (Yearly)
Specialized Technology Training	5 lac (Yearly)

Conclusion

It is proven that information technology(IT) will brings the competitive advantage which is important to global business to ensure that they will sustain in the international market in long term. Information technology is important to global business because it can make the businesses able to have a clear communication within the companies in different countries, better supply chain management and marketing of the product will be effective.

Attached File Details