IT solutions to improve management

Ellington Galleries, Inc. is a custom framing business with outlets in Maryland, Georgia and New York. Tammy Ellington, the owner, started the business in Maryland with a small shop in a strip mall. With her creative design solutions, her customer base grew quickly and she opened a larger store nearby. Her frame supplier, Macklin Frames, is in Georgia, and during a visit there she became aware of the opportunity to acquire a medium-sized framing store that also does business with her supplier. Using proceeds from her lucrative business, she acquired her second outlet, retaining the employees who had worked there for several years. Tammy orders the special glass for her framed products from Virginia Glass Co., which specializes in light-reflecting museum glass. Recently Tammy opened a framing shop in New York, which is managed by her sister, giving Ellington Galleries a third outlet. Tammys business has grown so quickly that she can no longer keep track of things. She now has several employees at the three locations, hundreds of customers, and bills and invoices that she can no longer manage manually.
Rather than stock huge amounts of framing materials and glass, Ellington Galleries orders the frame and glass at the time it receives the customers order. So, all of the Galleries need to know what framing styles Macklin Frames has available and at what prices. Since the glass is cut at the manufacturing facility (Virginia Glass), it must be custom ordered and shipped to the appropriate Gallery to be combined with the item to be framed and the frame. Ellington Galleries could reduce its shipping costs on both frames and glass if it combined orders to be shipped to a specific store.
Tammy is sure that she could use information technology solutions to improve management of her business in several ways. She has hired you to lay out some options for her. She has asked for three different areas where IT could be applied and the value that each IT solution would provide her. She has also asked you to suggest which one would be best to start with and why. She has asked for a list of hardware and software that she will need for her office, where she will keep the electronic files for her business. Finally, she wants to know what would need to be done to implement your suggested solution.
1. Identify three areas where IT could be applied to improve management of Ellington Galleries.
a. _________________________
b. _________________________
c. _________________________
2. Explain how a solution to each of the 3 areas above would benefit the Galleries, specifically addressing how it could improve business intelligence (BI) and decision-making and/or overall management of the business .
a. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
b. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
c. ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Identify which of the three solutions you would suggest be implemented first and explain why you chose that solution over the others.
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4. Name five IT best practices and methodologies and briefly explain how they apply to the IT solution named in