Interdisciplinary Team ProjectBIS 301 – Foundations of Interdisciplinary Studies

Dr. Jessica Hirshorn

B.I.S. Greeting Cards(Blue Team)

•Stacy Buza-Majka

•Ryan Eveloff

•Betty Lopez-Mori

•Daniel Mullholand

•Debra Murata

•Timothy Ryan

Table of Contents• Introduction• Mission Statement and Objective• Vision Statement• Organizational Structure• Duties and Responsibilities• Card Designs

– Birthday– Romance– Inspirational – Special Occasions

• Spring Break• Everyday

– Graduation– Holiday– Invitations

• Organizational Behavior and Leadership Issues• Acknowledgements

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

B.I.S. (Building Interdisciplinary Skills) Greeting Cards is a small company that was created in 2008 by a group of six college friends at Arizona State University. The six friends met while attending the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies (BIS) program at ASU. As students, the friends were frustrated by the lack of selection in greeting cards to celebrate the joys and commiserate the frustrations of attending college. The major greeting card companies only offered graduation cards during the months of May and June.

The friends did some market research and were convinced that there was a niche for greeting cards that specifically dealt with the types of events students encountered while enrolled in college. They also believed that faculty, staff, and administrators were looking for greeting cards that acknowledged the unique events and aspects of working for a university. The friends knew that life on campus offered dozens of opportunities to send a card. One of the distinct aspects of B.I.S. Greeting Cards is that their cards are sold only in bookstores and there are no free-standing stores in shopping malls. B.I.S. Greeting Cards does not sell gifts and accessories, it only sells cards.

Introduction

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

The mission of B.I.S. Greeting Cards is to create innovative, quality, custom greeting cards to meet our customers’ needs. We strive to provide a unique and inexpensive product geared to the events, interactions, and experiences that occur in the lives of college students. Founded on the concept of teamwork, at B.I.S. Greeting Cards we put our faith in each other, working together to provide excellent, creative products.

B.I.S. Greeting Cards is committed to our customers. Our staff is dedicated to responsive customer service, ensuring that their needs and expectations are met. We pride ourselves on going the extra mile with regard to our products, policies, and responsibilities. At B.I.S Greeting Cards we always looks forward to new challenges and better products, and we trust that our customers believe in our mission.

Mission Statement and Objective

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Vision Statement

B.I.S. Greeting Cards was formed to create greeting cards that inspire humanity. The main goal of B.I.S. Greeting Cards is to capture sentiments through innovative, inspiring and heartfelt greeting cards. We will strive to do this by continually developing products to meet our customers’ needs. Our company also creates environmentally friendly cards that are made with post consumer packaging, biodegradable inks and adhesives, and are completely recyclable. Our vision is to have our company’s cards in campus bookstore by May 2008. Furthermore, we would like to have our cards in 50% of Arizona card stores by 2011 and 75% by 2013, while developing a web presence to support online sales during the same time period.

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Organizational Structure

President & CEO

Operations Marketing Sales Product

Our company is in its infancy stages and we have a limited amount of employees to do all of the necessary work to grow this company in order to maximize profits. Our current layout represents the broad departments of our corporate structure.

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Organizational Structure Continued

Our four main departments represent the core of our business. Each department is required to operate within their own budget and to meet all necessary deadlines. During these early stages of B.I.S. Greeting Cards, it is very important to operate in an interdisciplinary environment. Each department is crucial to the overall success of the business, so each team is represented during decision making discussions. This interdisciplinary team approach allows for feedback and interaction from each department prior to making any significant decisions.

For example, the Sales Department relies upon the Product teams to communicate and educate the sales force in order to ensure that the Sales Department sells goods that the Product team can build, create and maintain. In addition, the Marketing Department promotes the products that the Product team creates and the goods the Sales Department sells to customers. Finally, the Operations Department produces the product that is marketable and that can generate enough demand from our customers in order for the Sales Department to finalize.

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Organizational Structure Continued

As you can see from this diagram, each of our departments relies upon the other departments in order to operate effectively. Should one area fall behind or delay the process, the other areas suffer due to their lack of productivity. This reliance is crucial in the early stages of B.I.S. Greeting Card’s development. Each department operates individually to meet customer deadlines and corporate objectives, but collectively we depend on each other. Having an interdisciplinary team represents people with training and expertise in different areas joining together to accomplish common goals. B.I.S Greeting Cards’ future success will depend on the teamwork of the members of these core departments.

Sales Department

Marketing Department

Operations Department

Product Department

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Duties and ResponsibilitiesPresident•        Leader and face of the company.•        Final decision-maker on issues that involve the staff and the product.•        Negotiates terms and conditions of product distribution.

Operations•        Controls the creation of the mass product.•        Maintenance of the mass product and the staff.•        Provides direct access of the product to the consumer.

Marketing•        Promotes product and product location.•        Promotes brand and company awareness.•        Develops new product campaigns.

Sales•        Maintains and creates relationships with vendors.•        Networks with clients to build social contacts.•        Conducts financial review of product and competitor’s product.

Product•        Creation of individual product.•        Maintenance of the individual product.•        Maintenance of appropriate graphic design artists and materials.

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Card Designs – BirthdayB.I.S. Greeting Cards

B.I. S offers Birthday cards that are designed with the college atmosphere in mind. You can pick up a card for your friend, co-worker, administrator or your favorite teacher.

B.I.S. Romance cards are designed for couples who want to express their love any day of the year or for special occasions such as Valentines Day, anniversaries, or just to say I love you.

Card Designs - Romance

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Card Designs - InspirationalB.I.S. Greeting Cards

B.I.S. offers Inspirational cards which are designed for those occasions when you want to cheer someone up or just to offer words of encouragement through tough times.

Card Designs – Special OccasionSpring Break

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

B.I.S. Special Occasion cards are designed for fun occasions such as Spring Break for those students wishing to send greetings to friends taking a well-deserved vacation from school.

Card Designs – Everyday

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

B.I.S. Everyday cards are designed for those occasions when you just want to say Hi or to keep in touch with friends or family members, whether nearby or faraway.

Card Designs – Graduation

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

B.I.S. offers a wide selection of Graduation cards, which are very popular on the college campus. We offer religious, humorous, or contemporary cards. You’ll find that we have just the right card for that special graduate.

Card Designs – Holiday

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

B.I.S. offers Holiday cards for every occasion. You’ll find a wide selection of religious, humorous, contemporary, and romantic holiday cards.

B.I.S. offers a wide selection of invitations for all occasions. We offer invitations for occasions such as graduation, birthdays, spring break, fraternity, sorority, or homecoming. We also offer invitations for all holiday celebrations.

Card Designs – Invitations

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Organizational Behavior & Leadership Issues Encountered

Our team did a terrific job communicating at the early stages of the project and throughout the completion of the project. Everyone posted early and contributed to ideas, agreed on who would lead us, and she assigned the roles to the group in a timely and efficient manner. Other members contributed ideas and since this organization did not meet in person, we were all quite impressed by the effectiveness, leadership, and teamwork that the entire team contributed.

We openly discussed various strengths and weaknesses regarding the project and the leader helped to coordinate the roles of each member in order to best meet each person’s strengths. In addition, the early and effective leadership in assigning the roles of the team, the responses and communication was very open and agreeable. There were no problems in deciding what we were going to focus on and the process that it would take to get us there.

B.I.S. Greeting Cards

Acknowledgements

Interdisciplinary / Cross Functional Team Members and Contributions

• Stacy Buza-Majka – Duties and Responsibilities of Departments Summary

• Ryan Eveloff – Organizational Behavior and Leadership Summary

• Betty Lopez-Mori – PowerPoint Presentation and Editing

• Daniel Mulholland – Organizational Structure and Cross Functional Team Summary

• Debra Murata – Team Leader and Card Design

• Timothy Ryan – Mission & Vision Statements and Objective Summary

B.I.S. Greeting Cards