Mrs. Fields Cookies

Mrs. Fields Cookies is a small company selling freshly baked goods through privately owned specialty stores (each store sells only Mrs. Fields products). The company has about 8,000 employees worldwide and less than 150 information systems people for a unique leverage of MIS resources. The company uses information systems extensively in its processing, communications, and other management functions, including operations of the stores and hiring sales employees. 1. Would you describe Mrs. Fields’ Cookies as more of a functional hierarchy structured along traditional functional lines or more of an IT-enabled network consisting of tailored business processes? I would describe Mrs. Field's Cookies as more of an IT-enabled network consisting of tailored business processes because they have structured all their operations based on IT, that not only automated the routine elements of the activity, but also learned how to respond to exceptions. 2. What role does IT play in the Mrs. Fields’ organizational structure? The information collected is based on two roles: Control and Decision Making. With control the lots of data generated every moment are not lost, which leads to a better, fast and easily decision making process. 3. What challenges does Mrs. Fields Cookies face in the next five years? How well positioned is the company to meet these challenges? Applying the IT in the new bakery segment and find a way to use all the information they have available. They are good positioned considering that they already have a well-designed system, but they still have to collect more data about the new segment before working with it. 4. What advice would you have given Debbi and Randy Fields in 1988? First, they should collected data of the new bakery segment and then develop the company's system to work with the new segment. Then, the company should have improved their system to process all the information they have available and use that to enhance the control and the decision