4/3/2014
Business Case #71 (50 Points)
Save-A-Dollar
Current Business scenario:
You are the RIM Manager for the chain store Save-A-Dollar (SAD). SAD was incorporated in 1956 with its roots in the traditional general store concept. Six decades later SAD has 2,000 retail locations in 20 states, five state-of-the-art distribution centers and a corporate office with 1,200 employees.
SAD continues to experience rapid growth during “down economies”. In the past five years the company has opened 800 new stores and one additional distribution center. SAD’s retail outlets lack automation – no fax machines or PC’s only telephones and point-of-sale cash register terminals.
Based on the lack of corporate automation and the resulting challenges and inefficiencies, you decide to draft a proposal for senior management that focuses on how software and automation can effectively address the issues.
After discussing the proposal with the Vice President of Compliance, she advises you to analyze the current environment of business processes, determine optimal recommendations and develop a basic ROI if you determine that a software solution is appropriate. The proposal is due in one month.
issues identified:
In collaboration with the IT, Legal and Risk Management departments you determine that the lack of retail store, distribution center and corporate office automation is creating organizational risks. This impedes the organization’s ability to expedite communications to their outlets on matters involving corporate policies, product recalls and discovery.
Although the corporate office uses a vendor for offsite records management and storage services, the stores and distribution centers manage their records onsite. The organization relies upon each location to appropriately retain and dispose of their records.
As the RIM Manager you have developed a retail store records management policy and record retention schedule. However, the significant management and employee turnover rate has created challenges in the manner in which store records are handled and maintained.
You have also learned over the past year several SAD retail outlets have been cited for failure to pull recalled merchandise off the shelf in a timely manner and for improper disposal of customer and employee personal and confidential information. In addition, the organization has been forced to settle a significant number of labor-related complaints due to an inability to produce retail store employee scheduling and time and attendance records.
In lieu of store automation, each store receives a weekly mail packet from an outsource mail vendor company, at a significant cost, which provides hardcopy promotional, sales report, product recall, organizational policy changes and employee payroll information. However, depending on the geographical location of the store, some packets are not received in a timely manner. The stores are required to submit a weekly mail packet back to the corporate office via expedited shipping. The packet includes payroll adjustments, coupons and supply orders
The stores point-of-sale application is integrated with the distribution center’s stock replenishment software to ensure product is shipped to each store on a timely basis. However, the stores and distribution center’s generate paper and electronic records that are not visible or captured by the corporate office.
The distribution centers have PC’s – most electronic records are saved to local hard drives or on the employee’s personal network drive. The lack of visibility and accessibility to store and distribution records has resulted in eDiscovery/discovery challenges, increased corporate risks and has slow business decision-making.
Most unstructured electronic corporate records are stored on local or network drives, which continuously run out of space and regularly require additional electronic storage The Legal and Internal Audit departments have voiced concerns related to their inability to find vendor contracts and other types of agreements. In addition, information is hard to locate and several recent lawsuits have had to be settled based on the organization’s lack of supporting information.
ACTION:
This business case has been designed to assess your proficiency in outlining problems and potential solutions for a large retail organization with inadequate technology that continues to experience RIM and risk issues. Write a clear, well-organized narrative business case that can be presented to the Vice President of Compliance. Your business case should address problems resulting from inadequate technology.
Your business case will consist of two parts: an Executive Summary and an Analysis. The Analysis section consists of several questions that will require a discussion of the problems and your proposed solutions.
I. Executive Summary 10 points maximum
Explain, in no more than 2-3 paragraphs, the basic overall problem(s) that you have identified, the key issues or factors that must be resolved, and a high level description of your recommended outcome that would be used to brief an organization’s executive. The Executive Summary should not be a detailed description of the problems and recommendations, but rather a shorter description of your analysis to be detailed below.
II. Analysis: 40 points maximum
This section should deal with the specific problems and issues discovered during the study of the corporate information resources. Your analysis may contain lists, so long as
the section includes a paragraph explaining why the actions are appropriate. Your business case may not consist only of lists. Your business case should address the following topics:
A. Identification of the Problems 10 points total
Identify problems that you see in this organization. Discuss why a RIM manager would perceive those issues as concerns or risks.
B. Recommendations 15 points total
Explain how the issues you identified above can be addressed from the point of view of a RIM Manager. Discuss why the steps are necessary.
C. Return on Investment 15 points total
Develop a basic ROI that discusses the acquisition and implementation of automation to address SAD’s RIM and risk issues. You should explain the objective of an ROI, how an ROI can help build a justification for an initiative, and list the elements of an ROI specific to this business case. You are required to explain any assumptions you make.
Part 6 2