Samsonite Research

SAMSONITE CORPORATION

SURGERY1

Company History:
Samsonite Group is one of the world's largest and most recognized designers and distributors in the luggage industry.
The Samsonite Corporation makes luggage with its products ranging from large suitcases to small toiletries bags and briefcases.
Samsonite is the leading manufacturer of luggage in the world and the top seller of luggage in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Samsonite offers a full line of luggage, including soft side and hard side suitcases, garment bags, casual bags, business cases, and other travel bags and accessories
Samsonite owes its start to Colorado native Jesse Shwayder.It was started in Denver, CO, in 1910 by Jesse Shwayder, as the Shwayder Trunk Manufacturing Company. Shwayder named one of his initial cases "Samson," after the Biblical strongman, and began using the trademark Samsonite in 1941. The company changed its name to Samsonite in 1966. For many years, a subsidiary, Samsonite Furniture Co., made folding chairs and card tables in Murfreesboro, TN. Then Samsonite began producing luggage for turn-of-the-century travellers – a small and affluent group who appreciated the Company's unique, durable and finely crafted products. As travel evolved into a mainstream activity, Samsonite's product mix evolved with it, growing to encompass a diverse range of items for a host of travel needs. Along the way, Samsonite continued to anticipate and fulfil the changing requirements of travellers by introducing a string of "firsts", including the first matching luggage sets, the first lightweight luggage and the first wheeled suitcases, to name just a few. Samsonite made Legos under contract for the U.S. market in the 1950s. The Shwayder family sold the company to Beatrice Foods in 1973. Samsonite emerged from bankruptcy in 1993. The Denver factory, which employed 4000 at its peak, closed in May 2001. Samsonite headquarters moved from Denver to Mansfield, MA, after a change of ownership in May 2005. CVC Capital Partners Ltd. in July 2007 became Samsonite's fifth owner in 21 years.

Samsonite has successfully positioned itself in the luxury market and has built brand equity across on a global scale. Samsonite focuses on meeting the industry standards enshrined in its own social compliance guidelines. It is committed to working with its vendors to help them take greater ownership of labour, health and safety standards in their own facilities, so that they can better comply with best practice guidelines and continue to improve both their policies and practices in a sustainable way.
Today, the global travel industry continues to grow, and Samsonite continues to lead through the continuous introduction of innovative technologies, materials and design concepts, which we market through some of the most recognized brand names in the world. And while each of our brands is specifically focused on its own clearly defined customer group, every product we create continues to embody the same values on which Samsonite was founded – high quality, fine craftsmanship, exceptional reliability and enduring style.

Products and Services:-
Samsonite provides various products and services by manufacturing a wide range of hard-sided luggage, beauty cases, and attaché cases to soft-sided suitcases and luggage-related products like suitcases, garment bags, business cases and portfolios, computer cases, sports bags, and casual bags. Its line of luxury luggage, casual bags, shoes, and accessories is marketed under the Hummer, Hedgren and Samsonite Black Label brand names. In addition to its own line of manufactured products, it licenses its brand names for use on such products as travel accessories, leather goods, clothing, furniture, and handbags.
Departments
research and development centre, Design centre
Marketing ,Human Resource
Accounting,Finance,Sales,Purchasing

System Components:-

INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT

FEEDBACK
1. Inputs: Raw material like polypropylene, Carbon, plastic, leather, etc. Labour, Machinery, Capital.
2. Process: It includes designing, research, development, cancelling, modification.
3. Output: It includes the final product like hard-sided luggage, beauty cases, and attaché cases, soft-sided suitcases, casual bags etc. Market Share, Goodwill, Sales, Profit, etc.
4. Feedback: This involves customer satisfaction and customer response in the form of questionnaires, online forms, query forms, Grievance forms etc.

Surgery 2
Flow of information in Samsonite Corporation
Samsonite Corporation has number of internal departments which are though functioning independently but are also interdependent on each other like Accounting, Human Resource, Marketing, Sales, Purchase, Manufacturing, Research and Development centre, Designing centre, etc. These departments are placed in a horizontal manner. These departments use different types of information systems on the basis of information required by each department. For e.g.:- Accounting department uses various accounting software like Tally, SAP, etc.
Samsonite Corporation also follows vertical division in its organisation. In this Samsonite Corporation has a 3 broad level of organisational decision making. From top to bottom these are:-
1. Strategic (Executive) Level
2. Management Level
3. Operational Level

Each organisational level has different information requirements characteristics in terms of decision time frame, certainty, risk, responsiveness, information structure and application of technology. These levels are highly significant in terms of system thinking, so as to produce information for decision making.

1. Operational Level

The operational level managers are at the lowest level of the organization and they use information systems which are responsive and deterministic in nature as the inputs and outputs are known with certainty. These information systems are mechanical and algorithmic in the decision making process.

2. Management Level
The management level managers are placed at the middle level of the organization and use management information systems (MIS). They are used for short term budgeting and forecasting functions.

3. Strategic (Executive) Level
Strategic (Executive) Level managers are at the top most level in the organization. They use information systems which are heuristic or random in nature and the information available is unstructured in nature. The decision making activity at this level is uncertain and user specific in nature.

Information System Development
Samsonite follows information system cycle to meet its goal. There are 2 ways of meeting out goal of the organisation. They are:-

1. Traditional approach
2. Modern approach

Samsonite follows the traditional approach to Information system development. The traditional approach includes 4 stages which are analysis, design, implementation and evaluation.

1. Analysis stage
Under analysis stage firstly the scope and objectives are stated by the company. Then a feasibility study is done in which the information is collected, the project costs are assessed, the constraints are considered and the alternatives are assessed. Then lastly, the business and system requirements are described in detail and are also integrated.

2. Design stage
Under design stage 2 designs are taken into account i.e. Logical design and Physical design.

3. Implementation stage
In implementation stage the program code is constructed and written and the hardware and software applications are integrated. In this stage the business and technical system are implemented and conversion of old system to new one is also done.

4. Evaluation stage The fourth and last stage of traditional approach is the evaluation stage. In this stage technical systems, business systems and system integration is evaluated along with cost audits. Thus in this stage the software is provided to the customer according to the specification given in the analysis stage.

Compared with traditional methods, JAD allows key users to participate effectively in the requirements modelling process. When users participate in the systems development process, they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership in the results, and support for the new system and it result in a more accurate statement of system requirements, a better understanding of common goals, and a stronger commitment to the success of the new system. Thus this model is characterized by brain storming as it is guided by the person who acts as a facilitator and enables the decision making ability of the participants. Whereas in the traditional approach there is no such interaction with the customer and there is no such process called brain storming.

Surgery 3
Types of network used by Samsonite Corporation
Samsonite Corporation uses various computer networks to share information among different departments and users. In order to know about the Samsonite’s Corporation network system the meaning of “Computer Network” in technical terms should be known.
Definition of Computer Network: - “When 2 or more computers are connected together with the help of data communication channel to share information or resources, it is called computer network”.
There are usually 3 types of network:-
1. LAN
2. MAN
3. WAN
1. Local area network
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport. 2. Metropolitan area network
A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a network that connects two or more local area networks together but does not extend beyond the boundaries of the immediate town/city.
3. Wide area network
A Wide Area Network (WAN) is a computer network used to exchange information over a wide geographical area (i.e. one city to another and one country to another country).

The type of network which Samsonite Corporation is using can be either LAN(Local Area Network) or WAN(Wide area network) to share information among various departments , branches and subsidiaries all over the world. But most of the times organisations uses LAN network as it connects computer networks together in a single building or an office within a building. The defining characteristics of LAN is through ring, star, bus and hierarchical topology. The various advantages of LAN network are

• higher data-transfer rates
• Files can be stored on a central computer (the file server) allowing data to be shared throughout an organisation.
• Files can be backed up more easily when they are all on a central fileserver rather than when they are scattered across a number of independent workstations.

Topologies:
There are various types of topologies which are :-
1. Ring topology
2. Star topology
3. Bus topology
4. Tree topology
5. Collapsed topology
6. Multi-drop topology
7. Hybrid topology

The type of topology Samsonite Corporation is using is Star Topology which connects number of small computers and other peripheral devices such as printers. It is the central host computer that controls and co-ordinates the message through the networks. All communications have to be relayed on the host computer.

Advantages of star topology is:-

• Star topology leads to better performance and this topology is easy to understand, establish, and navigate.
• It provides a very good performance

• Disadvantages of star topology:-
The disadvantages of this type of topology is the failure of the host computer as there is high dependence on the host computer.