Ch. 2 Reflections

In Chapter 2 the authors the strategic use of information services. The part of the chapter that caught my attention was the concepts of CRM (customer relationship management ) and RBV(resource based view). In retail today knowing your customer is huge, CRM is a big part of that knowing what your customer will be looking for, what there wants and needs are. The examples in the text of the Ritz Carlton and Zara prove this and there stake in each industry. RBV is big in retail because obtaining or using resources to attain or create a competitive advantage over your competition is a must. In the article I found online, Modernizing retail grocery business via knowledge management-based systems by Alan D. Smith. Smith uses a case study about Giant Eagle, a retail grocery chain, to show how they use CRM and RBV through the implementation of technology system KnowAsis. What the system did was created a Networked Organizational structure , discussed in chapter 3, from the old hierarchical organizational structure the company had in place. Every store could access data shared from other stores. It also streamlined their customer advantage card so that the information collected from the use of this program could forecast trends and let the managers of the stores know what their customers were buying.