The Casa del Libro case is polarized in two extreme possibilities: maintain and redesign the platform that were acquired vs. develop a new and cheap platform.
Well, does it make sense to keep investing in a costly and hard to deal with platform, complex integrations, adaptations, training the personnel, or, instead, just forget it and start everything from scratch?
To evaluate the alternatives we should consider the following:
(1) Casa de Libro reputation: the store cannot compromise its reputation, earned over all these years in the business, by the use of a poor sales channel.
(2) the time to develop and test the new sales channel. It should consider the time necessary to train personnel.
(3) time frame that the system can be used, i.e., how long the system can be used for without becoming outdated.
In my opinion, it would make more sense to invest in the cheaper system. Specially because within a couple of years the system will be obsolete and, consequently, the company will have to invest in a new type of technology.
Imagine if the company has opted to carry on with the previous system. More financial resources would be spent for something that will be outdated the same way.
In conclusion, before betting entering in the internet book selling market, the company has to make a risk assessment about to where the book sales is going, how to face competition from other companies that have been on line already. Once the decision to sell books on line is taken, the company should perceive a system less coslty, easier to implement, easy to deal with, easy to up date, even if this means to incurre losses from past investments made on the past.
Tuesday 22 June 2010
Do tesco enjoy IT competitve advantage? Where does ITcome from?
Let’s talk about supermarkets now. Tesco, more specifically. I have never stepped in one, but I have heart great things about the largest UK’s supermarket chain.
In my modest view, Tesco love technology. IT allows this supermaket to process and store data in a very effective way. Therefore, IT has brought Tesco a competitive advantage in logistics. Tesco is dedicated to provide food and other services (telecom, financial among others) for consumers. They have gigantic operations on line (second retailer after Amazon).
They integrated RTI (Sysrepublic Real Time Integrator) with Microsoft BizTalk and SQL servers. This integration has brought real time overview of the sales data from Tesco’s shops. This was rare when it comes to supermaket industry at the time they introduced in the supermaket industry. Tesco values so much IT that it appointed as it new CEO (starting as of March 2011), the head in the IT department, Philip Clarke.
Tesco takes advantage of data from its costumers stored on Clubcard loyalty membership program. So, it can monitorate the buying behavior of its consumers. So they can observe closer the seasonality of its products.
In my modest view, Tesco love technology. IT allows this supermaket to process and store data in a very effective way. Therefore, IT has brought Tesco a competitive advantage in logistics. Tesco is dedicated to provide food and other services (telecom, financial among others) for consumers. They have gigantic operations on line (second retailer after Amazon).
They integrated RTI (Sysrepublic Real Time Integrator) with Microsoft BizTalk and SQL servers. This integration has brought real time overview of the sales data from Tesco’s shops. This was rare when it comes to supermaket industry at the time they introduced in the supermaket industry. Tesco values so much IT that it appointed as it new CEO (starting as of March 2011), the head in the IT department, Philip Clarke.
Tesco takes advantage of data from its costumers stored on Clubcard loyalty membership program. So, it can monitorate the buying behavior of its consumers. So they can observe closer the seasonality of its products.
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Enterprise Resource Planning
Well, honestly, because of my background in law , I have never interacted (or heard about) with ERP. Certainly, the back office of law offices must work with it to organize accounting, finance, human resources, etc.
Working for law firms, I have experience with a software that organizes and systematizes all documents such as agreements, companies’ by-laws, law suits, indentures, etc. The fundamental objective of this kind of software in the law industry is to make it fast and easy for the lawyers to locate documents in the data base. These intra-search storage software must ‘’speak the same language’’ of other systems of these companies. The installation and fine tuning of the new software were not very easy and cheap. The license of the software is about 1 million dollars, and another thousand dollars are necessary to fully integrate the new software to the old stuff there.
I imagine that with ERP would work the same way. So, companies buy the ERP and struggle to implement it in their own business. In fact, it is a good opportunity for IT specialists to make the systems talk to each other and smile with the fat billable hours. Answering the question whether companies should adapt to ERP or it should be the other way around, I believe companies would be better off if ERP were designed to fit each companies, i.e., the designer of the EPR should be in charge of developing this system in a way that make the life of their customer easy. It is not fare to sell a product half ready to be implemented by a entity that is not an specialist on the IT field.
Working for law firms, I have experience with a software that organizes and systematizes all documents such as agreements, companies’ by-laws, law suits, indentures, etc. The fundamental objective of this kind of software in the law industry is to make it fast and easy for the lawyers to locate documents in the data base. These intra-search storage software must ‘’speak the same language’’ of other systems of these companies. The installation and fine tuning of the new software were not very easy and cheap. The license of the software is about 1 million dollars, and another thousand dollars are necessary to fully integrate the new software to the old stuff there.
I imagine that with ERP would work the same way. So, companies buy the ERP and struggle to implement it in their own business. In fact, it is a good opportunity for IT specialists to make the systems talk to each other and smile with the fat billable hours. Answering the question whether companies should adapt to ERP or it should be the other way around, I believe companies would be better off if ERP were designed to fit each companies, i.e., the designer of the EPR should be in charge of developing this system in a way that make the life of their customer easy. It is not fare to sell a product half ready to be implemented by a entity that is not an specialist on the IT field.
Monday 14 June 2010
Dell Hell
The Dell Hell case in few lines is about the American blogger Jeff Jarvism that hads bought a Dell computer with an all-inclusive insurance. Shortly after the purchase, the computer crashed and post-sales service of Dell was very unhelpful and the problem extended to the manufacturing department. The issue for Dell has started when Jeff made public its displeasure in diary. When Jeff published an open letter to Michael Dell, things started to get big and relevant, but Dell continued silent.
If I were Michael Dell, even if Jeff were not a big-shot client back at that time, I would have given more attention to it. I would have tried to make my costumer service more diligent and would have researched more about the case for assessment of the risks of image and odds of a loss in a law suit. Although in 2005 blogs were not as popular as today, I would face this open letter potential lawsuit. In short, apart of resolving the technical problem with the computer, I would have done better due diligence to see the ''caliber'' of the unhappy customer, and act accordingly to change the impression of this customer.
If I were Michael Dell, even if Jeff were not a big-shot client back at that time, I would have given more attention to it. I would have tried to make my costumer service more diligent and would have researched more about the case for assessment of the risks of image and odds of a loss in a law suit. Although in 2005 blogs were not as popular as today, I would face this open letter potential lawsuit. In short, apart of resolving the technical problem with the computer, I would have done better due diligence to see the ''caliber'' of the unhappy customer, and act accordingly to change the impression of this customer.
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