Role of Information system:

In order to achieve success in its business, one business challenges in front of Applebee is to understand its core guest; it should let its guests to have a voice in saying what they prefer on its menu. In order to achieve its objective of gaining an integrated view of its guests and its business, Applebee's needs an efficient method to gather and analyze all of its data. Information system might help Applebee in obtaining data about customers preference and making informed decisions quickly about its business so that the management reacts to its customers' needs. The Information system provides data warehouse facility, along with analytical applications for customer relationship management, operations/financial management, business performance management and e-business.

Required Data:
Applebee needs an integrated data from all of its company-owned franchises. It needs to gather information regarding: Sales at each store Revenues Cost of menu development and Customer Satisfaction with: Faster meal delivery times, Better food quality Server attentiveness They need a franchisee operations rating system to provide visibility to its franchisees concerning their performance in relation to guest experience, food safety and training.

Kinds of Reports:
Applebee needs following kinds of reports that would be useful to help management make decisions to improve menus and profitability. Financial performance like return on investment, net profitability, market share etc. Inventory Reports Menu Details Reports Management Reports Food Cost Variances Reports Labor Productivity Reports

There is a need to develop a decision support system (DSS) for the management of the Indian Railways that would allow it to evaluate decisions that affect railway capacity in a comprehensive, system-wide, multi-modal context and to evaluate potentially profitable markets for railway service. The DSS might help Indian railway in: Forecasting traffic flows in total and by major category for freight traffic. Eliminating bottlenecks by taking cost-effective measures to improve utilization of existing track and rolling stock assets Evolving a least-cost operating strategy for movement of traffic between pairs of points served by more than one route Determine priorities among already-sanctioned transport capacity augmentation projects Selecting new, high priority investments for increasing total system throughput within prevailing budget constraints Achieving a revenue maximization strategy within broad policies of transportation on Indian Railways
http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/DineEquity,_Inc._(DIN)/Applebees_Key_Strategies http://dssresources.com/cases/applebees.html