Background
Vermont Teddy Bear was developed in 1981 as Vermont streets. However, it was bankrupted in 1990, but was recovered by introducing “Bear-Gram service” by CEO of the company. The company has three product lines which includes Teddy bear, Pajamas and Calyx flowers. Moreover, the company sale its products through different channels which includes web, mail order, telephone and retail selling through different gift shops and company owned retail stores.Company’s sales has been on seasonal basis and the peak seasons for company’s sales are Valentine’s day in February, Mother’s day in May and Christmas which held in December every year.Company had been survived from many financial crises. The timeline for company’s development has been discussed in exhibit.
Problem Statement
In 2010, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Vermont Teddy Bear planned to replace or modernize company’s existing IT infrastructure as well as implementing some new software. As the CIO had worked before in many IT organizations, therefore, he had much experience. In addition, the employees’ team with CIO was also very intelligent. As they have survived in many economic downturns and fight many costly missteps taken by the company.
The CEO was looking for opportunities in order to increase revenue and company’s growth. On the other hand, CIO was looking for better investment opportunity. There were two options available for CIO, either to implement entire ERP software to the company or to take other steps in order to generate quick results.Moreover, any of the decision taken by the company’s management, the CEO would have to be convinced by making rational reasons for making investment and changing IT infrastructure.
Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear Harvard Case Solution & Analysis
Analysis
Vermont Teddy Bear (VTB) has been facing pertinent IT system problems with the annexation of sales instability. The sales reached to the highest peak on occasions like Mother’s Day, Valentine Day, and Christmas, etc., while the graphs decline in other seasons. The instability of sales and the fluctuation of the sales graph conjectures a negative impact on the revenues and profits of the company(Gogan, 2011). The company has multiple processing infrastructures to connect with customers throughdifferent channels in order to meet its operational needs.VTB is facing high operational costs, which is creating hindrance in matching the cost of the toys in the market.
In addition, the company has expanded its functions and operations especially the IT system, whichalready needs to be revamped in meeting the customer demand and creating an exceptional customer experience. Also, the prime focus is to modify the IT system which is necessary to gather information and attract a largercustomer base through mass customization, offered through integrated softwares that will ultimately enable the company to retain and also expand in the market.(Pena, 2008).
The major issue with the IT system is the integration of standalone projects which are difficult and complex to integrate into the middleware and hence the customer data can not be aligned and managed in one place. Furthermore, a new software system can not pass the implementation phasecurrentlybecause of its high-cost and the risk of losing potential customer data, saved in the organization in the form of Silos.......
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