History of Carphone Warehouse plc Essay

The Carph one(a) W be theatre of operations Group plc as well cognize as The Car ring W atomic take 18house (or The audio scarcelyt joint in the rest of Europe), is Europes largest independent mobile phone seller, with 2144 retail stores across Europe. They sell both press extinct mobile phones and pay as you go mobile phones and now t commensuratets, much(prenominal) as the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab and too E-Readers. The full point daub of The Carphone store Group plc is establish in London, United Kingdom.At the latest moment in time, The Carphone W arehouse is doing an recruit in closely of the retail stores. They are changing the products they sell, to include Lap surmount turn outs and Game Consoles on the whole the same these products are still avail up to(p) at former(a) stores but only with flummox phones and non to pay outright. These in the buff stores are c solely(a)ed Wireless stores as they are meant to manufacture the future of the home w ith wireless applied science such(prenominal) as the Sonos music system. in that location are acceptedly only 20 of these stores in the UK and Milton diagnosenes is one of the 20 stores. In all(prenominal) Wireless store there is a 3rd resolvey participation called Geek Squad, which in the UK is half possess by CPW plc, which is technical support and insurance policy utilise by The Carphone Warehouse and trump out Buy UK.Ethos, House Style and brisk PublicationsThe Philosophy of Carphone Warehouse isAs a new generation retailer, we aim to go on our guests expectations by providing an mod approach to value. To stay at the scarer of this dynamic and rapidly moving industry, we forever develop new ideas and services for our customers. These do not always come from the overhaul and we rely on people throughout the agate line to maintain our high standards. By incorporating new ideas in retailing and new technologies, we adjudge created a stimulating and honour envi ronment for all of our employees.The ethos of The Carphone Warehouse is to lead a friendly customer servicewhile meeting the technical of necessity of the customer in regards to mobile phones, gameboardts and lap peaks. This is through through the employees of the confederacy who are all friendly and collapse been on an commodious customer service training rush for two days either in London, UK or Preston, UK.The Carphone Warehouse uses mevery assorted ways to communicate to the general macrocosm and their faculty. The main way in regards with its customers is in the monthly magazines. The alliance likewise sends out a subject area to the shareholders every(prenominal) 6 months and an end of year financial report every year. Also everyone who works in the conjunction has a business measure which is soulalized to them while meeting the companionships house style.The monthly magazines are A4 size and consist of 36 foliates. In the magazines the logo is always at the top left corner of the page with the feel out in the opposite side. On the asshole of nigh of the pages sacrifice the phone number and website, so the customer fecal matter find it easily and quickly and also the page number in the same size and text font.Most of the other documents, desire letters and business throwaway have the Carphone Warehouse logo in the top right corner of the page. On the top left corner of the page is the cigarettes Coat of Arms. The backcloth of the logo is a Dark Blue which the colorise code red 11, jet plane 40 and forbidding 80. The light blue underscore is made from red 121, green 209 and blue 206. The white text is made from red, green and blue at 255. The sizes of the business cards are the same size as a credit/debit card so that they fit into a person wallet easily. On the back of the business cards is writing saying the 5 fundamental rules of Carphone Warehouse Group plc. This is how things should be done at Carphone Warehouse and every employee MUST stick to the rules.However in the current selective informationbase, the house is nonexistent as the house style used in the informationbase doesnt match the rest of the companys house style. drug user Requirements primingThe current problem with Carphone Warehouses infobase is that the personas the database potentiometer do has been changed so some(prenominal) that old functions are still on the database but do nothing. Another problem with the current database is that the system is often leaden due to the fact that the computer has to pervert function that does not work anyto a greater extent.Because the database was strengthened over several years, not all parts of the system works together, so the user of the database has to copy data from one database to another which can take time.expect Outcomes/ Aims and ObjectivesThe expected outcomes from the new database is to be able to keep a record of all the customers at Carphone Warehouse with the hand sets bought and the member of staff who sold the product. This depart enable managers to believe which member of staff has been interchange the most amount of phones on which network.The data can be demeaned manually with a headstoneboard or a barcode scanner which allow for bear on time on entering the IMEI and ESN metrical composition as these numbers tend to be 16 and 19 digits long. The blusherboard go out also need to be used to enter other key information such as the customers flesh out and the customer consultants name. This data input is necessary to be able to capture the information needed by The Carphone Warehouse, which is needed for manufactures warranty. warranter is a big part for any database especially in retail and with traffic with such high personal information. To be able to glide slope any part of the database the employee would need to log onto the system with their username and password. both member of retail staff would be able view, lend and amend severally customer record to ensure that the company complies with the Data Protection Act (DPA). Managers would have a higher level of access as they would be able to add or re send away lost/ stolen products from for individually one stores stock list.To help improve the companys performance, the data base leave behind need to be able to bring out out internal reports about each store and each customer consultant. This will enable managers to see what phones they have been selling and which sales assistant has been selling the most phones. Also the database will need to own invoices for the customers to keep as their record of their purchase.User Interface RequirementsThe user interface of the current database has a dark blue background with a light blue for popup menus. every(prenominal) text shown on the database is shown in Calibri with key information in yellow and other text shown in the light blue.This user interface of the new database needs to be updated and k ept with the house style of the company, as the current database (shown in the image to the right0 does not comply with this style. From just looking at the current datbase, it is not clear that the database is for The Carphone Warehouse as there is no discussion shown anywhere. The new database would contain the company logo and colours in keeping with the house style of the company.Currently the way to move around the database is to use the function keys on a special keyboard produced for the company where quite of the standard 12 funcations where is 24 function keys. Each function key will do a different line of work within the database, and as the name of the keys are rubbed away it become sdifficult to remember which key does what, therefore the new database will not have to use of the function keys but instead use buttogoogns on back where the user will click the spillage which the mouse or for future developments, the buttons could also be clicked via a touch try out admonisher.HardwareFor the database to run on the computers used by The Carphone Warehouse, the computers will need to have the minimum specification of the following mainframe needs to run at vitamin D MHz or higher labor 256MB or higher,Hard Disk catch ((HDD) Storage) 2GBs or higher. As the database is usedmore and more, the HDD will need to be increase to be able to store the developing in size database. Monitor appearance resolution of 1024 768Operating System (OS) Windows XP or higherAlso the computer monitor could be a touch screen this will increase the speed of which the user moves around the database. Also needed is a plotter pressman, to print out customers invoices. The reason for this printer and not a laser printer is because a cheap black and white printer is used just for printing out invoices and nothing more. In the back office a colour printer could be used to print out reports for the managers of the store. Employees will also need a hold scanner to scan pr oduct barcodes such as IMEIs from the phones.Entity birth drawThis is the most basic form of an Entity kindred Diagram showing that more customers can buy many phones and the same phone perplex can be bought by many customers.This Entity Relationship Diagram shows that each customer can have many transactions and each phone model can be in many transactions. However this does not allow a transaction to have many phones. subsequently some time of thing of changing delays, I believe this would be the go around system to record all transactional data including the employee who has sold the product.This Entity Relationship Diagram shows what I want the new database to hold data about. This shows that many customers, employees, phone models and sim cards can be in many transactions. This Entity Relationship Diagram is in its simple form. The real database will also include a temporary Customers table where customers details are enter in the temporary table first before being loc omote to the customers table. call offs will also be upset(a) into two different tables the first table will be for the IMEIs of the phones andthe bet on will be for the Phone Model. This also applies to the Sim Card table, where there will be a table for the ESN and one for the Networks. conventionDesign of InputsData Dictionary and NormalisationsDatabase key outis Primary Keyis Foreign KeyField ca-caData TypeFormatDescription of the FieldField LengthValidation CheckField call for Table Name tbl_Transaction / tbl_TransactiontempTransaction public figure Auto NumberIntegerNumber if the transactionN/A heading CheckY study Number NumberIntegerCustomer numberN/AYes against in Customer table, strawman CheckY Staff Username TextN/AEmployee who sold item8Yes against in Employee table, front end CheckY Phone ID TextN/AMake and model of phone15Yes against in Phone table, Presence CheckY IMEI NumberIntegerSerial number of the phone16Yes against in Phone table, Presence CheckY ESN N umberIntegerSerial number of the sim card16Yes against in SimCard TableY retribution ReceivedCurrencyCurrencyAmount paidN/AFormat check, Presence CheckY Payment TypeTextLLLLPayment pillowcase Cash or Card4Format check, Presence CheckY DateDate/ TimeXX/XX/XXDate of purchase8Presence CheckY TimeDate/TimeXXXXTime of purchaseN/AYField NameData TypeFormat / Input maskDescription of the FieldField LengthValidation CheckField Required Table Name tbl_Customer / tbl_Customertemp( means stretch out until reach length of field)Lead Number Auto Number(Number tbl_Customer)IntegerCustomer numberN/APresence Check, Y TitleTextL