This local supermarket is located in an urban neighborhood and provides customers with a wide
array of products to choose from. Over time, the inventory has grown exponentially, but the
current information system is not equipped to handle the increase in purchase demand. The
company that owns the store opted to go with the “light” versions of the Purchasing and Point of
Sale (POS) modules used to manage inventory and request products from vendors. The owner of
the organization (Joe Russo) has emphasized that there are critical things on his “wish list” that
he believes will move the supermarket into “the new tech age,” but he is not sure where to start.
Here is some information he wants the IT consultant to know, but there is more likely additional
information he is unaware of:
• Other processes that are part of the enterprise resource planning system are becoming
slower, and some of the staff noticed errors in some of the product data coming into the
system.
• A centralized database supports the entire system but has not been reviewed or upgraded.
• The time spent on customer transactions is too long! Anyone in management should be
able to monitor transactions in real-time, but the point of sale system sends the data “over
the wire” to the database slower each day. Some days there is a 2-hour lag in the system
catching up on transactions!
Assignment
You will explore the relevance of systems theory to the business organization environment.
Using Ludvig von Bertalanffy’s approach and related resources, apply these ideas to the
systems and subsystems of the environment scenario for the selected business case study
organization.

1. Describe the business organization using the two major systems theory concepts
   of interconnectedness and holism. Discuss the arrangement of elements as separate
   parts (including interrelationships), and interdependencies between relevant entities,
   and how each relates to the whole organization system.
2. Describe the current “locus of the firm” using the specific goal-orientation of the
   business and the structure of components, flow, and feedback used to accomplish those
   goals.
3. Evaluate the extent to which this business organization’s information system is
   resilient, complex, and adaptive (RCA) by describing the following characteristics of
   the information system:
   • Goal
   • Boundaries
   • Feedback loop
   • Structure
   • Elemental functions
   • Homeostasis
   • Adaptation