Jon is the CEO of a boutique business that sells pet accessories, MyPetDesign. He started the business as a small...

Jon is the CEO of a boutique business that sells pet accessories, MyPetDesign. He started the business as a small operation, but demand quickly grew in a few years.  Jon is a fashion designer by trade, with no financial background and as a result the company now includes teams focusing on design, operations, IT, finance, and accounting, all of which report to Jon.  The company does not have a board of directors, as Jon doesn’t believe it needs one and he is reluctant to lose control. Although reluctant to move away from manufacturing, Jon was convinced by the Director of Operations to source other unique pet products from around the world to increase sales.  The company now sells various types of pet products such as beds, collars and toys from several suppliers.

Currently the company’s only sales and distribution channel is online through the official website.  A customer can make a purchase using a major credit card.  The website was created when the company first started operating, nearly 10 years ago, and hasn’t been updated since and includes no form of digital certificates or public key infrastructure for secure purchasing.  Bill, the Director of IT believes it is in need of a major update as the security is quite out-dated.  He is concerned their systems would not be able to handle a serious virus or malware attack, which is likely to occur and would cause severe consequences.

The MyPetDesign accounting system is computerized. However, the system is homemade, starting with just a few accounting tables built in Microsoft Excel. Through the years, additional tables and computer programs were added as needed. After some general discussion on the state of their current accounting system, Ronald, Director of Accounting, and Bill, again voiced their concerns about the company’s accounting system.  Ronald was particularly concerned about the reliability of the system. Their current system commonly required data to be entered many different times into many different tables, which can lead to data inconsistency and duplication. Furthermore, the entry of the data lacks automated data entry controls.

In recent months, there have been some suppliers complaining about their invoice payments. Payments were not being made on time and one major supplier has stopped supplying to MyPetDesign.  Although the loss of this supplier has created a minor setback in terms of obtaining products, Ronald is concerned that if the payment problem is not fixed, it is possible that more suppliers will withdraw. The company cannot afford to lose any more because finding suppliers that provide quality and unique pet products is not easy and can lead to a major loss of profits.

Jon’s attitude is laid back and goes with the philosophy of “it will be right” and often doesn’t see the issues as real problems. Both Bill and Ronald are frustrated with his attitude and believe that perhaps the company needs to replace its current accounting system with a more effective one as well as undertake a complete update of the business to introduce proper policies and procedures.

After several discussions, Jon agrees to update only the accounting system, not the website.  However, he believes that he knows his company best and without looking at other options, he decides that he wants to hire a developer to develop a system according to his needs.  He asks Bill to manage the process, but wants to keep the development of the system a surprise from staff until the day of the launch. All discussions of system design are to go through him only.