Mrs. Fields Cookies: Standardizing Routine Decisions

Mrs. Fields Cookies was founded in 1977 as a single cookie store and grew to 600 stores within a decade. The company appealed to customers through warm cookies, friendly service, and reasonable prices. As it grew, the Mrs. Fields Cookies faced the problem of training and motivating relatively inexperienced store managers to use the standards and procedures Mrs. Debbi Fields developed when she operated her first store in California. Furthermore, as part of its business strategy it needed to make sure store personnel spent more time pleasing customers, and less time doing paperwork.

Mrs. Fields Cookies used information systems as part of its approach to these issues. Years of experimentation and development work created a unique information system that minimizes paperwork and permits headquarters to monitor and control day-to-day operations at each store. Each store manager starts the day using a computer program called a "Day Planner" which uses the store's history for similar days to suggest how many batches of what type of cookies to bake at what times during the day. At the end of each hour the cash register automatically transmits to the central computer the details of every sale that has occurred. A computer program uses this information to revise earlier projections. If sales are unexpectedly slow, the system might suggest that someone stand outside the store and give away samples. When common problems occur such as cash registers jamming, a program in the system provides guidance by asking typical troubleshooting questions.

While this part of the system makes data collection and repetitive decision making as routine and automatic as possible, another part provides a more human touch. It permits Debbi Fields to send voice or text messages to store managers to discuss problems or pass on news. It also permits store managers to request help from headquarters. They know the computerized part of the system will help with repetitive decisions and paperwork and that even Debbi Fields herself is readily available for issues requiring personal help.

After many years of gradual evolution, the software in the system has been generalized and is being sold under the name Paperless Management to other businesses that need to manage numerous retail outlets. The system's 25 mix-and-match modules cover diverse areas such as messaging, sales forecasting, time and attendance, executive information, and auditing. Disney Stores uses it to distribute customized personnel and reporting forms, as well as electronic mail. The major benefits are in clarity and consistency since everyone receives similar information in similar formats. Randy Fields, who founded a separate software company to sell this software, explains in a promotional video that in any group of store managers, some will simply be better at tasks such as employee scheduling. Therefore it makes sense for all store managers to use the methods these individuals would use.

Unfortunately the strategy of maintaining consistency across the stores was not sufficient to maintain the company's rapid growth in the face of a recession in the late 1980s. In March 1993 Mrs. Fields Cookies was forced to exchange 80% of the company's stock for a write-off of 80% of its $94 million debt. Debbi Fields relinquished her posts as CEO and president and took a $150,000 salary cut. Industry experts attributed the company's problems to a range of factors including customers' unwillingness to pay nearly a dollar for a cookie, the limited product line, the excessive growth that was attempted, and the fact that Debbi Fields tried to maintain too much control over the local stores and probably should have started selling franchises earlier.

Despite the company's overexpansion problems, the Mrs. Fields Cookies case illustrates how information systems can be integrated into a company's approach for performing and controlling its internal operations. Although its product is low technology item you can make at home, information systems play a key role in running the stores efficiently. The company's strategy of using standardized methods for repetitive operational decisions allows employees to focus on customers. This exemplifies the point that data processing related to repetitive decisions often absorbs energy best applied elsewhere.

Questions:

1. Explain why you agree or disagree that using information systems to automate management decisions is appropriate only if managers are not competent to make decisions themselves.

2. Use this case as an example while explaining why you agree or disagree with the following statement: "The purpose of an information system should be to provide information that maximizes a decision maker's freedom and flexibility.

Sources: Schember, Jack. "Mrs. Fields' Secret Weapon." Personnel Journal, Sept. 1991, pp. 56-58.
Gillin, Paul. "Mrs. Fields spin-off cooks up paperless retail product line." Computerworld, 1993.
Pogrebin, Robin. "What Went Wrong with Mrs. Fields?" Working Woman. July 1993, p. 9.

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