ROI of Implementation

Current Technology in the Company

Currently, the information technology plan of the organization is specific for each store. Even though each of the stores utilizes the technology that increases the sales, performs payroll, report sales, track inventory, and payroll data, among others, each store manager is responsible for the staffing, sales functions, and the inventory. Evach store for the company is independent and manages on its own. The information technologies at each store cannot be accessed directly by the Chief Executive Officer. It implies that the store manager has to report to the CEO concerning the different functions and the activities going on in the organization.

Major Issues with the Technology

Every store carries out activities independently and reports to the manager daily. There are reservations on how data comes together and the ability to be accessed by the CEO. The accumulation of such data together is the major issue that is affecting the organization. The CEO needs the customer data combined so that it enables the company to make timely and better decisions.

Another issue that is facing the organization is the online presence that will make the organization have a better position at the national level. The company needs an online presence, which will enable it to acquire more customers and overcome competitive advantages.

New Technologies to be Implemented

The implementation of different technologies in an organization will help overcome the online presence challenges and the overseeing of the data at various stores. The first technology to be used is the decentralization of the data. In this instance, a single entity does not control the data, and the CEO can see all the activities created on the data (Nasdaq 2017). Meaning all of the customers’ data collected enables the company to make timely, better decisions. The appropriate arrangements are faster by the fact that decision making and planning are distributed, and the CEO makes the final decision.

Another technology to be implemented is an online store. An online store is a website or an application where the goods and services sold over the internet. This technology will highly help in the development of the online presence of the company as well as increasing the competitive position to the national level (Duarte et al., 2018). Through this, most of the products will be available over the internet, which is also a form of advertisement. Also, the customers will be giving their views about specific products, which will help in increasing their competitive position.

How it addresses the current issues

The decentralization of data will help in addressing the current issue by putting all the data together. With this, all the customer data will be able to be accessed by the CEO. Besides, decentralization makes the process of decision making and planning easier and faster hence timely decisions in the business (Liu et al., 2018). On the other hand, the online store will help in creating a highly competitive advantage to the national level as the products will be accessed by a broader geographical region through the internet (Duarte et al., 2018).

Additional advantages or value-added

The technology of data decentralization and an online store will have an added value to the organization as they both help in saving time, accountability, and transparency (Liu et al., 2018). Besides, the online store will also create more awareness of the products hence marketing them to a national level increasing the conveniences (Duarte et al., 2018). Besides, they both increase safety while reducing the input cost.

Approximate time frame to implement the technology

The approximate time will be taken to implement this technology is approximately 7 (28 weeks) months. The following table shows the distribution of the data in every activity.

Any dependencies that the company does not currently have to implement

Other dependencies needed by the company that they presently do not have. They include:

i. A more massive database - this is where all the data is decentralized.

ii. Website personnel - he will be in charge of the online store or website, making sure it is always up to date.

References

Duarte, P., e Silva, S. C., & Ferreira, M. B. (2018). How convenient is it? Delivering online shopping convenience to enhance customer satisfaction and encourage e-WOM. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 44, 161-169.

Liu, J., Li, B., Chen, L., Hou, M., Xiang, F., & Wang, P. (2018, June). A data storage method based on blockchain for decentralization DNS. In 2018 IEEE Third International Conference on Data Science in Cyberspace (DSC) (pp. 189-196). IEEE.

Nasdaq. (2017). What Does Decentralization Actually Mean? Retrieved from: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-does-decentralization-actually-mean-2017-10-16