Over the past decade, The Retail Cooperative (TRC) successfully acquired a number of smaller retailers, enabling it to grow significantly. As a result, TRC is now one of the largest retailers in Europe, employing over 230,000 people in 25 countries. The company has three primary business units: department stores, hardware stores, and food stores. TRC has many cross-division service companies in both Europe and Asia to support the three primary business units. These support companies provide a variety of services, such as purchasing, information technology, advertising, and human resources.

In early 2014, the CEO scheduled a full-day strategy session with the vice presidents of the business units. By the end of the day, these senior managers decided on a set of specific strategic objectives to continue the growth of the company. In particular, the CEO and vice presidents of TRC determined that the company needed to: (1) attract well-educated, skilled managers to lead future expansions and (2) optimize distribution channels so that managers at all levels of the organization would have immediate access to information for decision-making. The goal was to link TRCs management expertise with the geographic area of operation so that the company would continue to be dynamic and responsive to customers 24/7. Essentially, the senior managers wanted TRC mid-level managers in each of the business units to have the ability to Coordinate GloballyAct Locally.

The consensus was that the Human Resources support company would develop and implement appropriate procedures to find the quality of managers that TRC requires. However, the VPs of the business units wanted to be directly involved in the distribution channel optimization. As a result of TRCs rapid growth, the VPs of the business units were encountering a number of recurring problemssuch as lapses in customer service, an inability to respond to customer queries, and coordination problems with product availability and delivery dates. In addition, the manager for the travel department of the company noticed a significant increase in travel expenses for each of the business units and sent each of the VPs a memo. Based on these concerns, the VPs decide to meet with the Controller and Chief Information Officer (CIO) to discuss these problems and to identify possible options to resolve these issues.

To prepare for the meeting, Robin Frost (the CIO) talked with several top-level managers to collect their ideas and suggestions of the features that might be required of any new technology solution the firm might purchase. Each of the managers agreed that TRC would need an e-business application(s) that would give its managers a detailed online view of the status of the purchasing process that is shared among TRCs employees, suppliers, and customers. For example, each purchasing agent would like access to all the purchase prices, inventories, and selling prices that are in place in any store, no matter where it is located. He/she should also be able to see TRCs manufacturing prices for its own brands, the bids made by TRCs suppliers, and the comments or complaints made by TRCs customers.

In addition, the new technology would have to link TRCs suppliers, distributors, and resellers with the companys Logistic, Production, and Distribution Departments. The Accounting and Finance Departments would need access to information so they could track the status of TRCs sales, inventory, shipping, and invoicing in any TRC store worldwide. And finally, the Marketing and Sales Departments would also need access to manage and update the companys product catalogs, price lists, and promotional information for any TRC outlet, regardless of its geographic location.

At the meeting with the VPs, Robin made a 10-minute presentation on Internet portals. Her research on this new technology leads her to believe this might help the VPs solve the problem of accessing information that has not been readily available to mid-level managers working with customers. At this point, Robin just knows that software packages exist that can make information available to company employees. Shes not able to articulate all the pros and cons of the technology and has not yet called any outside consultants for advice. Robin believes that the primary challenge for this new technology will be to create a real-time retail connectivity that will allow vendor collaboration, multichannel integration, and public and private trading exchanges across the globe.

Requirements Note: Research is required to properly respond to the following case questions, which could include journal articles on enterprise portals, and Internet research that could include online journal articles as well as vendor websites for product information.

Assume that you are a consultant with one of the application platform vendors (e.g., IBM, Oracle, SAP, Microsoft) and Robin called you for information regarding Enterprise Portals. Prepare a one-page summary of the advantages TRC might enjoy if it used an Enterprise Portal for each of the business units (and for TRC-wide operations). Prepare a 10-minute PowerPoint presentation on Enterprise Portals, focusing on the advantages for TRC of implementing this technology. (Hint: As a minimum, be sure to address such issues as scalability of the portal, reliability, performance, and fault tolerance.) What sort of implementation schedule would you recommend for TRC, that is, what steps are important in an orderly implementation of this technology? Explain. Based on your research, which system do you recommend for TRC? Prepare a matrix that compares the different features of the different Enterprise Portal solutions that you considered.