MGMT342 Week 3 Chapters 5 and 6 Petrie’s

Electronics Case Questions Grading Rubric

Petrie’s Electronics Case Questions Solutions—Chapter 5 (15

points)
5.28. What do you think are the sources of the information Jim and his team
collected? How do you think they collected all of that information? (5
points)

It says in the case that Jim and the team collected information through interviews.
These interviews would have been with key stakeholders in the company. It also
says they collected information from loyal customers identified by the marketing
department. Finally, Jim and his team collected information about existing systems.

5.30. If you were looking for alternative approaches for Petrie’s customer loyalty
program, where would you look for information? Where would you start?
How would you know when you were done? (5 points)

They could have gotten that information from several sources, including vendor
brochures, sales information, industry trade publications, and company websites, as
well as from current customers of such systems. Students would probably start with
a Google search. They would know when they were done when they couldn’t come
up with any new information about loyalty systems.

5.32. Why shouldn’t Petrie’s staff build their own unique system in-house?
(5 points)

They could build their own system from scratch, but the cost would be high, and it
would take a long time to design, build, and implement the system. About the only
reason such an approach would make sense would be if the company planned on
licensing their system to other companies, helping to recoup the costs of building a
system from scratch.

Petrie’s Electronics Case Questions Solutions—Chapter 6 (10

points)
6.37. Are the DFDs in Figures 6-1 and 6-2 balanced? Show that they are, or
are not. If they are not balanced, how can they be fixed? (5 points)

They are balanced. On both the context diagram and the Level-0, there are two
inflows to the system from the source customer (purchases and coupons) and three
outflows (reports, tailored promotions, and coupons) from the system to the sink
customer.
MGMT342 Week 3 Chapters 5 and 6 Petrie’s
Electronics Case Questions Grading Rubric

6.41. Why is it important for the team to create DFDs if they are not going to
write the actual system code themselves? (5 points)

Creating DFDs forces analysts (and students) to think about the core processes in a
system, the data they use, the sources of that data, the information the processes
generate, and where the information goes. All of this information is essential in
design and building of a system, even if all of its components are purchased off-the-
shelf.