Question

Case: Geekdom Games

Bob Phillips, the owner of Geekdom Games contacted your consulting company last week to discuss the expansion of his business and the role of information systems in that expansion. Geekdom Games is a small game design business located in St. Louis, Missouri. Geekdom has been in business for five years and has three full-time employees in addition to Mr. Phillips. Geekdom Games produces interactive, fantasy based board games and role playing games similar to Dungeons and Dragons. Geekdom produces approximately five titles a year and mainly distributes their games online through resellers such as Amazon and Ebay.

In the fall, a phenomenal thing happened to Geekdom Games and their business has grown beyond their ability to meet demand for their games. One of their titles, Orc Sports, was featured on a hit TV series about nerds living and working together. The next day, orders for Orc Sports and other games multiplied exponentially. Now Geekdom has a backorder on most of its inventory and is spending too much time filling outstanding orders such that they are not creating new games as scheduled. As a result, Mr. Phillips has procured a loan to expand his business to meet demand as well as to expand the market for his games based on this unexpected exposure.

After meeting with Mr. Phillips, you have gathered the following information about how the business works and what are some of Mr. Phillips’ immediate concerns with the business.

Currently, Mr. Phillips employs three full-time workers in his office.

He has an office manager that oversees day to day operations of the business as well as manages orders inventory. The office manager works with shipping and logistics people to manage on hand inventory as well as provide inventory to game shops in the Midwest. The office manager also helps fulfill online orders through Amazon and Ebay.

His game production manager oversees the physical production of the games as well as coordinates teams that are contracted to design new games. New game ideas are generated in house as well as purchased from designers submitting their ideas. The manager hires and manages the work of team members, who are mostly working from remote locations across the US. The manager is responsible for the intellectual content of the games as well as working with multiple suppliers to manufacture game pieces, game boards, and game boxes.

The graphic designer works with the production manager to produce graphics needed for all of the projects, as well as create and produce instruction manuals for all games. The graphic designer has a high end graphic workstation loaded with professional graphic design software and a high end printer used for production of manuals.

Mr. Phillips does all different kinds of work in the company from creative work with the production manager to managing the business aspects of the company. He has outsourced his accounting and human resources functions to allow him to spend more time with the main goals of the company.

The office currently houses the four employees but has room for expansion to add an additional ten staff members. Mr. Phillips predicts that this may be necessary over the next six months if business continues at the current pace. The office has standard PCs for all employees with access to the internet.

Because production has been limited to this point, Mr. Phillips had not really solidified production schedules and manufacturing deadlines. He worked with his suppliers on an as needed basis. Since demand has increased exponentially, it is no longer feasible to operate this way. It is impossible for the office manager to handle the shipping and inventory situation and the game production manager is unable to keep up with the various suppliers in the United States and in China that have been creating the game components for their product.

Finally, Mr. Phillips wants to capitalize on his new found fame in the game industry and keep momentum building beyond the current fad. He is interested in expanding distribution beyond online resellers to game stores across the United States. He is not sure how he could handle the logistics of this and would like you to consider it in the recommendations as well. In addition to the logistics, he would also welcome any recommendations on how information systems could help him contact and market his games to game stores as well as individuals interested in these types of games.

In addition to his immediate concerns, Mr. Phillips would also be interested in long term recommendations on how to manage projects better and how to effectively manage teams that are distributed across the United States. He believes that efficiencies in these areas may allow his company to produce an additional title or two a year. However, he cautions, the game industry is highly competitive and protection of intellectual property must be a priority throughout the process.

For the following five questions comprising Part II, the term “information system” refers to a set of “interrelated components working together to collect, process, store, and disseminate information to support decision making, coordination, control, analysis, and visualization in an organization” (Laudon & Laudon, 2014, p. G6).

During your initial conversation with Bob Phillips, he asked about whether he should hire an IT staff or use contractors to manage the information systems that will need to be used by Geekdom Games. Also, he asked about whether all or parts of these information systems should be physically located at their St. Louis facility or deployed in the “cloud”.

In addition to the information provided in the case, what additional information systems-related “reasonable” assumptions are you making related to Geekdom Games? Note: “Reasonable” assumptions do not include that the organization has unlimited amounts of resources (e.g., money or personnel). To which specific question or questions (2 through 5 below) does each assumption pertain? Why are you making these assumptions? (20 points)

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What are the most critical information systems-related management issues facing Geekdom Games? Why? (20 points)

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What are the most critical information systems-related organizational issues facing Geekdom Games? Why? (20 points)

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What are the most critical information systems-related technology issues facing Geekdom Games? Why? (20 points)

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Based on the issues outlined in items 2, 3, and 4, what specific recommendations do you have for Bob Phillips to address the most critical information systems related issues? Note: Be sure to support your recommendations with appropriate rationale and references to “credible” electronic resources. (20 points)

Answer 1