CaseStudy

 Business  Intelligence  Strategy  At  Canadian  Tire_ISYS8240  -­‐    

Information  Technology  for  Management  
 Cinta  Nastasya  -­‐  2001881042  
 
BUSINESS  INTELLIGENCE  STRATEGY  AT  CANADIAN  TIRE  

Canadian  Tire  Corp.  was  a  major  enterprise  consisting  of  5  main  business  groups:  First  is  a  large  
retails  chain  what  provides  automotive  parts,  sports  and  leisure  and  home  products,  second  is  a  
financial  service  division,  third  is  a  petroleum  division,  fourth  specialized  automotive  parts  division  
and  last  one  would  be  a  retail  casual  and  office  wear  clothing.  

The  company  in  2003  decided  to  focus  its  strategy  on  quality  performance  in  the  above-­‐mentioned  
sectors  with  emphasis  on  total  return  to  shareholders.  It  hoped  to  achieve  the  strategy  through  
development  of  a  business  intelligence  infrastructure  to  enhance  the  overall  business  capabilities.  In  
simultaneously,  the  company  intended  to  develop  and  carry  out  an  Information  Technology  strategy,  
which  would  list  programs  according  to  their  level  of  priority  for  example  the  business  intelligence  
infrastructure,  would  be  high  on  the  priority  list.  

Some  of  the  major  challenges  which  the  company  was  facing  while  implementation  of  the  strategy  
were,  first  it  is  highly  complex  architecture  with  multitude  of  hardware,  software,  services,  tools  and  
application,  second  the  focus  on  the  long  terms  gains  while  not  neglecting  short-­‐term  profits,  which  
would  be  a  hindrance  to  the  proposed  BI  infrastructure,  third  the  fragmented  BI  efforts  of  various  
groups  within  the  company  thus  leading  to  lack  of  standardization  of  data  definitions  and  queries,  
and  hence  inaccuracies  in  the  data  which  being  analyzed.  Fourth,  the  change  in  strategy  from  a  
retailer  to  wholesaler,  thus  increase  in  data  requirements  and  sources.  And  last  would  be  developing  
necessary  skill  set  for  the  employees.    

In  addition  to  the  above-­‐mentioned  challenges,  a  lot  of  cultural  problems  were  also  arising.  As  for  an  
example  every  department  has  different  outlook  towards  the  proposed  implementation.  IT  
managers  mentioned  data  quality  and  cultural  changes  as  their  biggest  hurdles  while  business  
managers  placed  education  and  training  on  their  priority  list.  

The  consultants  from  Cap  Gemini  established  guiding  principles  like  value  addition,  making  technical  
changes  according  to  the  plan,  keeping  the  learning  in-­‐house  and  to  sustain  the  proposed  changes.  It  
was  also  decided  to  have  standardized  data  across  all  areas  of  the  business  and  to  develop  specific  
data  marts  for  specific  data  functions.  E.g.  Financial  data  marts  would  provides  consistent  and  
standardized  financial  data  across  all  enterprise.  

It  was  also  decided  that  BI  specialists  would  assist  in  organizing  data  marts,  retail  analytic  specialists  
can  get  access  to  the  BI  tools  and  the  data  warehouse  and  end  users  would  have  real-­‐time  
information  to  make  specific  business  decisions.    

In  order  to  support  this  plan,  I  propose  the  following  initiatives:  

First,  in  order  to  counter  huge  organizational  resources  being  consumed  by  the  organization,  it  
would  be  beneficial  for  the  company  to  re-­‐evaluate  the  scope  the  project  in  different  phases  and  to  
assess  the  performance  at  every  level,  as  for  an  example  would  be  having  a  project  review  sessions  
and  conducted  at  pre-­‐defined  check  points  of  the  project.    
Second  the  infrastructure  should  focus  not  only  in  a  cross-­‐organizational  implementation,  but  the  
integration  of  knowledge  about  customers,  competition,  market  conditions,  vendors,  partners,  
products  and  employees  at  all  levels.  

And  as  proposed  by  the  consulting  group,  the  implementation  should  be  business  driven  and  not  
technology  driven.  It  is  very  important  that  stakeholders  from  areas  like  Marketing,  Operations  
managers,  Business,  Sales  and  Customer  support  should  have  a  say  in  all  proposed  implementation  
areas.  Due  to  It  is  very  important  to  show  the  shadow  IT  groups  and  make  them  part  of  the  technical  
expertise  team  of  the  BI  team  as  they  already  know  the  needs  of  their  business  areas.  Then,  for  
people  with  non-­‐technical  backgrounds,  it  is  important  that  metadata  be  created  so  that  all  BI  
applications  create  and  manage  the  meaning  of  each  data  element  thus  dividing  an  organization  in  
terms  of  its  business  activities  and  the  business  objects  on  which  they’re  performed.  This  will  help  in  
free  flow  of  information  to  each  level.  And  lastly,  it  is  important  that  the  proposed  implementation  
should  be  communicated  effectively  to  the  end  customers  so  that  they  understand  the  true  value  
the  infrastructure  brings  to  them  in  terms  of  quality  and  reliable  service.