Caterpillar is the world’s leading maker of earth- moving machinery and supplier of agricultural equipment. The software for its dealer business system (DBS), which it licenses to its dealers to help them run their businesses, is becoming outdated. Senior management wants its dealers to use a hosted version of the software supported by Accenture consultants so caterpillar can concentrate on its core business. The system had become a defector standard for doing business with the company. The majority of the 50 cat dealers in North America use some version of DBS, as does about half of the 200 or so cat dealers in the rest of the world.

Before caterpillar turns the product over to Accenture, what factors, and issues, should it consider? What questions should it ask? What questions should its dealers ask?

Make a recommendation to senior management about preventing possible barriers for full implementation and acceptance of the new system.

Strategic business plan rationale requires managers to evaluate the current situation and business organization against changing environments.

Using current systems, caterpillar executives, Accenture consultants, and a select number of dealers can determine the major systems for supporting business functions and processes and current infrastructure capabilities of dealers, it also requires them to evaluate anticipated future demands.

New developments, allows Accenture and the dealers to understand the business rationale and the applications’ role in strategy for the continued use of the system by dealers. They would also have to evaluate new infrastructure capabilities dealers would require, especially with software updates.

Management strategy, and Implementation plan, requires Accenture, dealers, and caterpillar executives to understand and develop plans for migrating the system away from corporate use to the dealers.