Coke Freestyle

Now here is a win-win for both the consumer and the company. The Coca Cola company will make a huge innovation in soft drink dispensers which benefits both the consumer and the company. No longer will you have to hope that your drink of choice will be one of the 8 to10 flavors chosen, the new machine will dispense up to 130 different flavors. This extra capacity comes from the use of some super concentrated syrups used in the various flavors allowing more syrups to be contained in the dispenser machine.

This is accomplished by mixing flavors from 30 different on the spot per the consumers selection. According to the article in Information Week, this is the first time that Coke’s engineering and information technology teams have worked together. Kind of odd for an organization that has been around well over 100 years.

The new dispensers are called Freestyle and are equipped with a huge amount of technology and communications which quickly send sales information back to the corporate intelligence center. The machines include an RFID reader, a wireless Verizon card, SAP point of sale management, middle-ware from Tibco, as well as other various CRM and SAP systems. Put all this together and you have a huge data being fed back to the corporate servers.

The data from this new machine will give instant feedback to the marketers and advertising execs about what works and what doesn’t, what is a hit, and what is a miss. This will save a ton of money in taste tests, advertising, and focus groups.

I don’t’ know the specifics, but assume that the machines can be programmed from the central office with new mixtures. Imagine you run an advertisement in a limited area, instantly offering the drink in the vending machines in that area. You send the new programmed drink to the vending machines in that area and see if the advertisement had the effect as desired or if the new flavor is not what the public wants. This type of targeted advertisement and marketing is very valuable. Additionally, with these elements built into the dispenser, I can see an easy integration of local advertising through the Verizon network, discounts, new product rollouts all on the smartphones which will soon be the norm.

What a great time to be alive!!

References:

Bob Evans. (June 16, 2009). Global CIO: Six Lessons CIOs Must Learn From Coke's Dazzling Innovation. Retrieved June 20, 2009, from http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=0DO3SMRGYEYUSQSNDLOSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=217801282

RFID Weblog. (June 9, 2009). Coke Redefines Business Intelligence with RFID based Freestyle Drink Dispenser. Retrieved June 20, 2009, from http://www.rfid-weblog.com/50226711/coke_redefines_business_intelligence_with_rfid_based_freestyle_drink_dispenser.php

Nestle and the All-For-One

2. What type of business and systems strategy did Nestle adopt? Was this strategy appropriate for Nestle business model?

Nestle adopted a multinational business strategy and model. This is the correct business model for this corporation. Nestle is a world brand and is the largest food and beverage company in the world. This is the kind of company that this a multinational strategy is designed around. They have operate across government and cultural lines requiring an understanding of local traditions and cultures in order to operate efficiently. The multinational strategy allows for the sales and marketing to be customized however it centralizes the internal business and reporting practices to ensure consistency to allow fair comparisons across business units.

3. What management, organization, and technology challenges did Nestle have to deal with to standardize it’s business processes and systems?

Nestle had to deal with many of the usual problems when trying to make a massive change. Senior management often doesn’t see the benefit and are not willing promoters of the change which the employees can sense. Often senior management is reluctant to change because they don’t see the benefit because the inertia that has to be overcome in making change. Nestle had to deal with identifying undocumented practices, the antiquated software and records over multiple systems as well as that data that was being kept. These are all massive things to overcome. Nestle also ran into the typical problem of not enough budget to try make all these changes in the timeframe estimated.

4. What strategies did Nestle management use to deal with these challenges? How successful were these strategies? Explain your answer.

Nestle management set these goals and as critical to their future success as they saw their large customers such as walmart demanding certain IT requirements from their supply chain. Because of that they focused on it in the boardroom and hired the right consultants to make it work. The book notes that the goals were consistently readjusted downward because of budget concerns but identified successes and continuing efforts towards further centralization of the IT resources.

Mr. & Mrs Chrysler Announce

Mr. & Mrs Chrysler Announce . . .

the marriage of their daughter Mable Chrysler to Mr. Sergio Fiat.

Talk about the large project to manage, how about the upcoming absorption of Chrysler by Fiat. The sheer complexity of the merger. The article in the April 20th issue of Business Week talks about the apparent bailout of Chrysler by the Fiat group. There are a lot of issues that will need to be addressed in this proposal. The management of this merger project has many facets that need to be watched and integrated.

The interesting part of this article is the statement that Fiat was laying groundwork to make another attempt at entering the US market. They have been absent from the US dealerships for 25 years, however they were looking to some of the other foreign car manufacturers to partner with them to produce the smaller Fiat models here in the US.

This project would have to manage mergers in different countries, with different laws, and different employee agreements. Besides this will come retooling of some factories, new and integrated IT systems, and different corporate cultures.

From only an information systems integration, this is a significant project management challenge. If I was to be the lead on this, I would start by identifying what the two current ERP systems have in common. After that, I compare the remaining parts however, I would most likely retain the Fiat model since that one has proven more successful over time. Chrysler I’m sure does not have a mature model yet having been recently divorced by Diamler Benz after a disastrous marriage. There may be some parts of the Chrysler IT infrastructure that might be beneficial. Since Fiat has no footprint in the US market, there may be aspects of the Chrysler infrastructure that could benefit.

Bottom line, no matter how many times I read chapter 14 I wouldn’t know how to start or manage a large IT project such as this. I’m looking forward to see how the merger of these two companies work out.

What do you think the main obstacles will be in making this merger work?

Chapter 14 Case Study

2. Evaluate the risks of the Medicaid claims processing system project and key risk factors.

The medical claims processing project in Maine had a high level of risk in all three of the major risk catagories.
Project size- This project was huge in the scope and dimension and programming effort. The many records processed each day and the volume of traffic is huge, thus a perfect system is required.
Project structure- This project will have significant structure associated with it. There must be multiple reports and formats with a huge number of transactions to process and document accurately as well as a logic process that is consistent with the current system.
Experience with Technology – Designing a system such as this is a huge undertaking. Not only does the programmer need to understand the database, he also needs to understand the Medicaid payment system inside and out in order to design a system from the ground up. Any less knowledge will only increase the risk of errors in the final product.

4. Describe the steps you would have taken to control the risk in the IT modernization project.

Personally, I would have made the transition in two phases. In phase one I would have followed the lead of other states and built a front end onto the existing database system. This would minimize any clerical errors in the behind the scenes processing and allow time for full development and testing of the new system. Obviously this will typically require a larger budget, however, the new system would not have to be funded all at one time nor would it have had the rushed timeframe to make it all perfect on such a short deadline.

5. If you were in charge of managing this project, what else would you have done differently to increase chances for success?

For me this is simple. I would have hired a firm with experience in writing for this type of process. I would have required more testing prior to implementation, both in a controlled trial environment and then on a limited basis with a select few providers in order to assure to the maximum extent possible, a trouble free system was deployed. I would have offered significant training to the office staffs on the changes and how to best work with the new system and then on a temporary basis hired additional staffing to man the trouble desk to deal with the changeover.