VT Teddy Bear

Problems

1. Should he oversee the selection of new enterprise software to replace the

accounting systems responsible for order-entry, sales, and inventory
management?
a. High cost
2. Focus on building or buying new supply-chain software to enhance operational
capabilities, enabling raw materials and finished goods to be more efficiently
procured from vendors around the world?
a. supply chain management could improve; we’ve had stuff arrive late or be
poor quality
b.
3. Should the company acquire or build a Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) package that would help them serve customers well across multiple
product lines (bears, pajamas, flowers, other gifts) and channels (stores, mail-
order, web, telephone)?
a. we know who we want to talk to and what we want to say.
b. We’ve been advertising the wrong message for a long time, and it’s taking
a toll on our peak occasion sales.

Bob & the IT organization

- Organizations depend heavily on IT for strategically important operations need a

disciplined change control process to ensure orderly procedures for requesting system
modifications, developing and testing those in a separate environment, certifying them
and introducing them to the production environment (‘hardening’).
- The core transaction processing infrastructure was ‘pretty strong for meeting the
operational needs of a company this size; pretty forward thinking,’
- good practices in password management and recovery mechanisms (if a network
element failed, built-in - -redundancy allowed the sales order systems to continue
running so that orders did not get lost, for example).
- hosting their ecommerce applications at collocation facilities outside Vermont, they
were able to get a more advantageous position on the national Internet backbone.
- best of breed approach: the company packages had purchased separate that offered
closer to optimal functionality; these connected to each other via middleware.
- authorized his team to make small adjustments aimed at keeping the systems
functional and the processes they supported operational

John Gilbert returns from Toy Fair

- better data integration and improved analytic tools to coordinate marketing, forecasting
and production across the product lines to implement a family focused ‘comfort’ strategy
(‘pajama sets for the whole family’).
1. How well does Vermont Teddy Bear’s information architecture align with its
operations and strategic direction?

Vermont Teddy Bear’s information architecture does not align efficiently with its
operations and strategic direction. For instance, IT employees spent a great deal of time
troubleshooting and neglected more important tasks such as developing new
applications. The IT architecture document was also incomplete because the
organization lacked resources. Applications were also not standardized because some
were connected to the middleware while some ran independently. One of the main
problems is that different brands and channels were supported by different software,
creating difficulties for a functional IT architecture. However, there were still some
positive aspects that contributed to the organization’s information architecture such as
the core transaction processing infrastructure was somewhat strong for meeting
operational needs. Other than that, there were also good practices in password
management, recovery mechanisms, and having their ecommerce applications at
collocation facilities outside Vermont.

2. What recommendations would you make to increase the effectiveness of the IT

organization and architecture in meeting Vermont Teddy Bear’s objectives?

A recommendation that I would make to increase the effectiveness of the IT

organization and architecture in meeting Vermont Teddy Bear’s objectives in the long
run is that the management should develop an organized working approach to the
employees. In this way, employees will be able to prioritize tasks and support calls. The
management team should also identify the problems faced by the company and make
sure that the employees are well aware of the company’s objectives so that they know
what they are working towards for. A good reporting system should also be developed
so that different teams can communicate efficiently. The company can also hire IT
experts outside of the company to provide IT solutions or develop new applications.
Even though a single ERP package is expensive, but it would provide a more
standardized IT system in the company, so that the IT architecture is uniform across the
company and that information is easily accessed by everyone. Vermont Teddy Bear
should capitalize on its current brands, with better marketing and promotion strategies
for the upcoming season. To do this, the company should acquire a CRM software.
Even though Stetzel doesn’t think it would be a great recommendation, but a CRM
software is useful for managing all interactions with customers and potential customers.
It is able to streamline processes and improve profitability, especially across multiple
channels. It can better analyze customer interactions to provide a more personalized
message to its target segments for the upcoming season.