You have been engaged as a MIS consultant for the following organization.
“Vets R Us” are a nation-wide network of veterinary practices, spanning the whole of the
United Kingdom. There are currently over 1,000 branches, with each local practice based in
a town and covering an area of 10-20 miles radius. The head office is in London where the
company board and CEO are based, along with all core business functions.
Around 700 branches are privately-owned franchises under the “Vets R Us” banner, with the
remaining branches being 100% owned by the parent company. The company is aggressive
and always looking to expand and so the franchisee operation is actively promoted at all
times. The company regularly attend franchise conventions, trade fairs and advertise in
specialist publications like ‘The Modern Vet’ – aiming to attract younger vets to set-up their
own business and become part of the ‘Vets R Us’ family.
Each practice – franchise or corporate – has a typical make-up of around five to eight fully
qualified vets supported by ten to twelve veterinary nurses and four to six admin and support
staff. Every practice operates 7 days a week with 24 x 7 emergency callout as backup. All
practices have at least one van at their disposal to collect animals.
Franchised practices are private businesses so they will each have their own owners,
shareholders and directors who take expenses, salaries, bonuses and dividends – that is
their business – but they must pass on 15% of monthly turnover to the parent company as
part of the franchise agreement (in addition to the initial £250,000 joining fee).
In return, the local franchisee gets full IT installation and support, bulk discount opportunities
when buying supplies, access to the in-house accountancy and payroll services to pay their
own local staff and, most importantly, the brand recognition of being part of the largest vet
chain in the world. Some franchisees actually have a chain of franchised practices –
effectively a chain within a much larger chain. This is how all franchises work.
Corporate (non-franchisee) practices run the same in terms of day-to-day operations but they
are simply employees of the parent company and take a salary. There are no shares or
dividends involved here. All profits go direct to the parent company.
Clients tend to be private pet owners – a reliable but modest income stream – but there is a
strong market for public sector, commercial and industrial work. This work is much more
large-scale and thus far more lucrative – something the company are aggressively pursuing.
Typical examples of large contracts would include: canine care for the military and law
enforcement agencies (all those guard and attack dogs need looking after), quarantine work
for the UK government, breeding advice and general healthcare for the wide range of
pedigree dog and cat breeding organizations, animal welfare in the farming community and
so on.
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Both private clients and commercial/public sector organizations are constantly asking for
easier, faster and cheaper ways of interacting with the company. Traditionally, when an
animal needs to be treated, the owner must take the animal down to the local practice or, in
extreme situations, have the vet visit their home or place or work. This is inconvenient to the
client and vet and demands fixed time slots. It is a major bottleneck to growth and customer
satisfaction.
The company are thus very keen to adopt new technology to support online booking, ‘virtual
appointments’ (as many face-to-face appointments are simply review/repeat/follow-up
conversations and thus can be done remotely), online drug prescribing, digitization of medical
notes, blood test results, x-rays, scans etc. – so all this data can be freely moved around
between practice, client and specialist external partners – such as blood banks, testing labs,
government agencies, suppliers and even other vet practices.
With over 1,000 different physical locations (and growing), the company are also concerned
about the safety and security of ‘on-premise’ data storage, backup and recovery and business
continuity in the case of a catastrophic data loss at one of the practices. This is a major
concern at board level. Even with centralized IT support, it is a major risk.
Another area of interest is in using data more strategically to plan the future growth of the
business. For example, the board would like to know which vet practices are least/most
profitable? Which types of treatment are most common and which are most/least profitable?
Are there any patterns or trends hidden in the vast amount of data they store?
Lastly, with the new GDPR data protection legislation coming into effect, the company are
very sensitive to data leaks and reputational damage.
In summary, in order to grow the business, they need help on scalability, security, efficiency,
strategic data analysis and staying within the law. As an MIS consultant, they are looking to
you for sound, practical advice.
Final Point
The above is simply an outline of the company and you will need to make your own
assumptions and interpret or even extend the scenario as you go. Use your imagination as
you see fit, but you must clearly document all assumptions and extensions.
The specific tasks you need to satisfy are listed below
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This assessment is worth 100% of the total marks for the module.
Task 1
For the specified case study, use the information provided, plus your own research into
similar organizations, to list and describe the various functional business units that you deem
necessary for it to carry out its business. Take care to describe not only the primary purpose
and function of each unit, but also the in-going and out-going types of data to that functional
unit. To what end is that data used within each business unit?
It is recommended that you support your discussion with a fully annotated structure chart and
one or more data flow diagrams to represent how these various business units relate to each
other and how data flows in, out and around the organization.
(750 words)
(25 marks)
(LO1)
Task 2
For the specified case study, explain to the company board, in your role as an MIS
consultant, the key concepts and differences between:
• Operational data
• Tactical data
• Strategic data
You should clarify how these three levels relate to the hierarchy of business units you
described in Task 1 and identify and compare information systems within different functional
areas of this organisation. It is recommended, for ease of comparison, that you present this
analysis as a table or matrix. Well-annotated diagrams are also a good idea.
(750 words)
(25 marks)
(LO2)
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Task 3
.
For the specified case study, by conducting suitable, fully referenced research, advise the
board, in your role as MIS consultant, on suitable technological solutions to implement the
following ideas:
• Operational database and CRM technologies and products
• Data warehousing, data mining and data analytics (‘big data’) options
• Cloud-based and out-sourced data management platforms & services
• Web-based and mobile (24 x 7) access to all these platforms
For each category, describe the key concepts, applications and business benefits before
looking in detail at least one specific real-world example from each category. Be sure to
include a website image and the full web address of each product.
Whereabouts in this case study organization will each of these technologies be best used?
Who will use them and for what purpose?

Sample Solution