Question

Case study 1: PETRIE’S ELECTRONICS
Jim Watanabe looked around his new office. He couldn’t believe that he was the assistant director of information technology at Petrie’s Electronics, his favorite consumer electronics retail store. He always bought his new DVDs and video games for his Xbox 360 at Petrie’s. And now he worked there too.
The company had made some smart moves and had done well, Jim knew, but he also knew that competition was fierce. Petrie’s competitors included big electronics retail chains like Best Buy. In California, Fry’s was a ferocious competitor. Other major players in the arena included the electronics departments of huge chains like Wal-Mart and Target and online vendors like Amazon.com. Jim knew that part of his job in IT was to help the company grow and prosper and beat the competition—or at least survive.
Just then, as Jim was trying to decide if he needed a bigger TV, Ella Whinston, the chief operations officer at Petrie’s, walked into his office. “How’s it going, Jim? Joe keeping you busy?” Joe was Joe Swanson, Jim’s boss, the director of IT. Joe was away for the week, at a meeting in Pullman, Washington. Jim quickly pulled his feet off his desk. “Hi, Ella. Oh, yeah, Joe keeps me busy. I’ve got to get through the entire corporate strategic IT plan before he gets back—he’s going to quiz me—and then there’s the new help-desk training we are going to start next week.” “I didn’t know we had a strategic IT plan,” Ella teased. “Anyway, what I came in here for is to give you some good news. I have decided to make you the project manager for a project that is crucial to our corporate survival.”
“Me?” Jim said. “But I just got here.” “Who better than you? You have a different perspective, new ideas. You aren’t chained down by the past and by the Petrie’s way of doing things, like the rest of us. Not that it matters, since you don’t have a choice. Joe and I both agree that you are the best person for the job.” “So,” Jim asked, “what’s the project about?” “Well,” Ella began, “the executive team has decided that the number one priority we have right now is to not only survive but to thrive and to prosper, and the way to do that is to develop closer relationships with our customers. The other person on the executive team, who is even more excited about this than me, is John [John Smith, the head of marketing]. We want to attract new customers, like all of our competitors.
But also like our competitors, we want to keep our customers for life, kind of like a frequent flier program, but better. Better for us and for our loyal customers. And we want to reward most, the customers who spend the most. We are calling the project ‘No Customer Escapes.’” “I hope that’s only an internal name,” Jim joked.
“Seriously, I can see how something like this would be good for Petrie’s, and I can see how IT would play an important, no, crucial role in making something like this happen. OK, then, let’s get started.”

Questions:
1. Why would Jim be a good choice to lead an important systems development effort?
2. Help Jim to formulate the main steps and tools required to develop a new Information System.

Answer 1

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