Wompom Pizza Case Study Wompom Pizza, located in Whitehall, Montana (population 1,104), makes and sells over $574,000 of specialty pizzas per year for customers in the surrounding community. Some of their more popular menu items include the Pemican Pleaser, Salted Salmon, and Meat Lovers pizza featuring a combination of venison, duck, and rabbit.Despite the remote location, patrons from as far away as Butte, Helena and Bozeman have been known to drive to Whitehall to enjoy Wompoms food. Wompom Pizza was established in 1978 by David Fisher, a member of the Northern Cheyenne American Indian tribe and a Vietnam War veteran. Davids grandson, Mark Fisher, assumed responsibility for all operations of the family owned restaurant in April of 2004. Despite its steady popularity, Wompom Pizza has not experienced any significant growth for over a decade. Eager to increase revenue, Mark decided to expand operations by hiring two more delivery drivers and modernizing the companys traditional, paper-based ordering system by going online. Not having any information technology experience himself, Mark decided to hire a small consulting firm called The Larsen Group based out of Helena. Paul Larsen, owner and lead software architect for the Larsen Group, headed up the project team. Julie Hollister, a programmer, and Linda BoatCallie, the companys secretary, made up the other members. In truth, this was only The Larsen Groups second engagement with a customer. The companys first contract was a static website for an antiques store. Eager to win the Wompom Pizza account, Paul had submitted a significantly low-cost proposal. He reasoned that establishing the reputation of the firm was more important than making a large profit at this stage of the business. Moreover, he felt he understood the food service industry, having worked as a bus-boy for an Italian restaurant during his college years. Julie and Linda were not convinced but went along with it; some money was better than no money. After the kickoff meeting with Mark Fisher, Paul decided to interview the remaining Wompom employees to gain a better understanding of the companys needs. On the outside, Wompom Pizza appeared like any other restaurant. However, Paul soon discovered a culture and vocabulary that was all their own. With Lindas and Julies help he managed to create a basic description of the current Wompom Pizza order fulfillment process. At the heart of the process is the Pommer. The Pommer is a Wompom employee on duty from 2:00pm until 10:00pm, who takes pizza orders from walk-in and phone customers. The Pommer records the order by hand on a cook sheet and then reads it back to the customer before taking payment. The cook sheet contains the following information: an order number, customers first name, Pommers first name, and pizza information (names, quantities, prices, subtotal, tax, and overall total). All calculations are performed with a hand-held calculator at the counter. If the order is taken over the phone, the Pommer also writes the customers address and phone number on the cook sheet. The cook sheets are written on standard restaurant carbon-copy forms. The completed cook sheets are then sent to the Wommer, or a cook, with a call of nh'en, or cook quickly! After assembling the ingredients and cooking them, the Wommer boxes the pizza and places the cook sheet on top, calling out, hestmvo, or, their food, in Cheyenne. These signals are an important part of the Wompom Pizza culture. As Mark explained, customers expect a distinctly Native American experience when they come to the restaurant. If the order is a walk-in, the Pommer collects it and calls out the customers name for pickup. If the order is a phone-in, a Dommer, or delivery driver, collects it and drives to the customer address indicated on the cook sheet. Customers must pay for the pizza when it is delivered. After the Dommer receives the cash from the customer, the customer signs the cook sheet. One copy is left with the customer as a cash receipt, while the other copy is retained by the Dommer as a record of the customers payment. When the Dommer returns to the restaurant he or she files the retained copy of the customer receipt in the main office and puts the monies received in the cash register. At the end of the day, the Pommer tallies the receipts from the walk-in and phone orders and verifies the amount of money in the register. The receipts and cash are then bundled and locked in the companys safe in Marks office. At the end of the week, Mark creates a pizza sales report to determine the companys performance. All of the cash is then deposited in the bank. Unfortunately, Wompom Pizzas business account is held with Wells Fargo, the nearest branch being in Butte. All in all, Mark spends the whole day tallying figures and driving to the city. Understanding what Wompom Pizza needed in the new system was an entirely different matter. Subsequent interviews with Mark only resulted in vague descriptions of a Wompom Pizza web site with menu, order and payment pages. He was also interested in streamlining internal communications between Wommers and Dommers but didnt have any idea how to do it. Pizzas would often sit under the heat lamps for several minutes before they were noticed and picked for delivery. Lastly, Mark was interested in reducing the time spent creating reports by hand. During one conversation in particular, Paul noted that Mark felt constrained in making changes to the restaurant menu. Though Mark knew that some pizzas were more popular than others he did not feel confident adding or removing items for fear of eroding current profit levels. Ultimately, retaining the Native American character of Wompom Pizza trumped all other concerns anyway. Without any data to indicate otherwise, expensive toppings like pemican and venison had to stay on the menu. To top it all off, David Fisher, Marks grandfather and the original founder of Wompom Pizza, decided to sit in on one of the project teams meetings. Though he had been patient with Marks new ideas for the company he was very concerned about upholding Wompom traditions. Pommers, Wommers and Dommers were integral parts of the company. In particular, the interplay between Pommers and Wommers was well known and expected by customers. It was clear that if Mark made any drastic changes to these roles that David would withdraw his familial and financial support. Julie Hollister was growing frustrated. Though Paul continued to interview Mark and other Wompom Pizza employees he had yet to deliver any concrete system specifications. Without any information to go by she would be forced to design the entire system herself.