Over the past decade, The RETAIL Cooperative (TRC) successfully acquired a number of smaller retailers. These strategic acquisitions enabled TRC to grow significantly. In fact, TRC is now one of the largest retailers in Europe and employs 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, human resources, and others.

In early 2007, 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 succeed in future expansions and (2) focus on optimizing 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 (vice-presidents) 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, 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. On the basis of 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 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 to access 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 information asymmetriesthat is, information not being readily available to mid level managers working with customers. At this point, Robin just knows that there exist software packages 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. However, some of the possible ideas that she has is that the people in the organization might be unwilling to cooperate however they should be motivated by saying that the pros such as improved outcomes and efficiency might be an issue. 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:

(For each question below, explain your answers in detail with supporting examples from the text)

A.Which one of the below would you suggest that would be more appropriate for this company? Please explain your answer in detail with supporting examples from the text. (2o points)

Software Type	Business Characteristics	Cost
Entry Level	Smaller businesses with less than 10 active users	Free-$1000
Small-medium business	Less than 100 active users	$5000-$100.000
Small-medium basic enterprise system	Over 100 active users	$20.000-$500.000
High-end enterprise system	Over 100 users and capable of handling the volume of Fortune 1000 firms	$500.000-million dollars
Custom built	Any size	$5.000-hundred of millions dollars

B.Which advantages this ERP might provide to this company considering the features of this company? Please explain your answer in detail with supporting examples from the text. (20 points)

C. Do you think the company is ready for the system transformation? Considering what you know and is necessary regarding the life-cycle of BPR, which steps did the TRC follow? Please explain your answer in detail with supporting examples from the text. (20 points)

D. What could be the possible pros and cons of this digital transformation that can be inferred from the case above? Please explain your answer in detail with supporting examples from the text. (20 points)