Hefty Hardware Case Study

Hefty Hardware Case Study

Issues in Case Study

· Vision not properly communicated: As per the retail marketing VP Cheryl O’Shea the focus of the savvy store program is about improving the customer experience, but she feels that the IT people are not focused and are more concerned about the internal issues like the infrastructure and bandwidth. The Focus of both the marketing team and IT team is different, therefore the vision is not clear. Vision should be properly communicated and understood by every person working in the organization.

· IT people lacking knowledge of Business Functions: Even though the IT account manager Jenny Henderson sits is every strategy meeting, by the time project is started Glen Vogel the COO staff are all complaining that the IT team lack even the minimum knowledge of the business functions. The amount of efforts to deliver the technology to the field is huge and this is not noticed by the IT staff and when some issues occur they just put it for fix in the next release.

· IT and Business not working together: In the Hefty Hardware the IT has been working independently till now, which is the reason for them not to understand the business very well and not focusing on the vision. The importance of IT has increased immensely in the business to sustain the competition. Therefore, they have to find a way to work together.

· IT staff not keeping up with the requirement: The role of IT has become more important and IT team has only managed to do the minimum work like keeping the system functioning and protecting from viruses but are not contributing towards the business strategies. Technology is growing fast and changes are to be implemented quickly in order to gain advantage over the competitors.

· IT team not available for location visit: Glen had an idea of taking few core IT staff to the hefty store to give them a hands on experience on how things work on the field, but the IT staff is very business with the current work load and they cannot take time for the location visit.

· Lack of understanding between the R&D and Marketing team: The R&D team has proposed a mobile approach, but due to the lack of understanding the marketing team didn’t understand the importance of it and decided to not fund for the infrastructure. This may affect the business when all other competitors are into mobile applications. After few years the marketing team keeps complaining that IT team is not providing them with the necessary technology.

· The failure of CIM project: The CIM project was supposed to produce a single customer database for all the hefty division like the hardware, clothing, sporting goods and credit. A lot of ROI was expected from this project, but due to misunderstanding between the client divisions has ruined the project.

· IT not sure of what business needs are: During the CIM the business has gone through a major reform and change. The IT team was never given instruction of what is needed for the business. So it is important to inform the IT about the expectation of the business and the marketing team.

Discussion questions

How effective is the partnership between IT and the business at Hefty Hardware? Identify the shortcomings of both IT and the business

The communication between the IT and the business needs a lot of improvement, the business claims that the fault is on the IT side but when analyzed deeply the fault is on the business. This gap between the IT and the business is to be cleared and they should start working together in order to achieve their goals. A well-structured communication strategy is to be implemented in order to increase the understanding between the IT and Business.

Due to the communication problem the business is being effected as they are not provided with proper technology at proper time in order to boost the business. Due to this organizational vision is compromised. In IT due to the lack of understanding in the R&D meeting the business does not understand the importance of the infrastructure to cope with the technologies and IT team cannot provide the business with the technology needed.

This is a deadlock situation, the fault is in both the departments and a proper communication can only solve this issue. The IT account manager Jenny Henderson should play a vital role in keeping the business and team focus on the organization vision. He should work as a bridge between the two departments and help them work together and achieve the business goals.

Create a written plan for how IT and the business can work collaboratively to deliver the Savvy Store program successfully

In order to successfully implement a project the initial stages of the project management are very crucial. The members of the IT staff are also to be involved in the initial meeting and requirements analysis in order to get a better understanding of the business need. A project charter, scope, vision and mission statement, are to be created and communicated to the business and all members involved in the project and make sure they understand.

By identifying the key members of the IT staff and the business staff, they can collaborate with each other and have meeting on a weekly basis and get input from each other’s and keep themselves updated with the business requirements and changes. IT team should provide a strong reason and supporting information in order to get the infrastructure and Business should analyze the request with the future perspective and provide IT with the latest infrastructure.

In order to understand the business need well it is important to know how the business functions as sending the core IT staff to the store is not possible, I would suggest sending Jenny and the new Intern to the store and prepare a proper documentation and present it to the rest of the team so that they can understand what is going on in the store and relate the logical structure with the business structure and develop a system that focuses on enhancing the customer experience.