Structure and Organization
Vermont Teddy Bear (VTB) is an iconic American company known for producing high-quality teddy bears. The last-drafted information regarding the composition of VTB, after its formation in 1981, stated that two hundred employees would be retained (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). The company thrives on a unique organizational structure that promotes innovation, creativity, and customer-centricity. Hence, many employees do well in the organization in a conducive environment that fosters productivity. Vermont Teddy Bear employs a flat hierarchical structure that encourages collaboration among company members and fosters open communication across all departments.
The company’s decision-making process has a unique structure that enhances the organization’s working conditions. Vermont Teddy Bear uses a team-based approach and a hierarchical structure to ensure the highest level of workforce cohesion. Major decisions concerning the organization’s work require consideration of collaborative input from cross-functional teams. Enhanced communication levels within the company result from the adoption of advanced technology, which facilitates internal and external messaging through cloud-based platforms and enterprise resource planning systems, helping VBT remain a top-tier industry.
Customer Profile
Sales of teddy bears depend on seasonal factors, with higher sales during certain times of the year. The customer profile thus depends heavily on the seasons and the occasion being celebrated during these periods. Vermont Teddy Bear ensures it caters to a diverse customer base across age groups and demographics.
However, the primary focus on the targeted customer represents an individual seeking a personalized gift, which emphasizes the direct-to-consumer model (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). The company has also adapted to the satisfaction of various customers, including corporate clients and individual consumers. A significant aspect for corporate companies is the need for customized teddy bears for various promotional events and, sometimes, for special occasions.
IT Values
Vermont Teddy Bear places great emphasis on intellectual property rights, ensuring its products, featuring unique designs and innovations, are protected. The company also has a privacy policy that securely handles customer data, in line with industry regulations and standards. Using the high technology policy by the IT department gives the company a cutting edge in the market by encouraging ethical use of resources while promoting digital responsibility (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). These steps exhibit the essence of data accuracy occurring through a series of robust quality control processes.
Internal Standards
As an IT manager, it is appropriate to maintain an excellent working environment for all the workers to promote the marketing of teddy bears. Hence, the organization maintains adequate internal rules for the governance of the IT department (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). Some internal standards involve cybersecurity to prevent breaches, data management, and proper service maintenance. Ways to maintain these policies and bars include adopting regular audits to ensure that IT practices align with evolving technological practices.
IT Visions and Missions
IT Vision
Vermont Teddy Bear should adopt an ideal vision that positions it as a driving force in enhanced digital innovation, seamlessly integrating all aspects of technology. The vision statement must incorporate the company’s horizontal structure and future goals. The IT department sees itself as a strategic partner, helping to improve operational efficiency, stimulate innovation, and provide excellent client experiences (Gogan & Lewis, 2011).
IT Mission
The mission statement must align with the organization’s values and its impact, creating more business opportunities. For the department, the mission must also align with the company’s overall goals and its main tools for achieving them. Vermont Teddy Bear’s IT mission is to leverage cutting-edge technology to deliver a seamless, personalized customer experience, promote operational excellence, and advance its strategic goals.
IT Department SWOT Analysis
The case of Vermont Teddy Bear (VTB) demonstrates a company with a long history that struggles to optimize its processes for the changing market. Founded in 1981, the business has evolved slowly, offering a range of products and pursuing new ventures with varying levels of success. Now, VTB faces problems across many areas, including technology. The following SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis examines the factors that impact VTB’s information technology (IT) processes.
Strengths
The company has several strengths that build a foundation for further change. The IT department at VTB is small but has employees with significant experience and knowledge about internal processes (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). At the time of the case study, there were 9 staff members, 2 of whom were new hires. The existing team is proficient in their tasks and will likely accept and want new IT projects. Another strength is the company’s adherence to good practices in the past. According to Gogan and Lewis (2011), VTB has reliable “password management and recovery mechanisms,” which increase system safety (p. 66). Therefore, the business has a sturdy foundation to implement other initiatives.
Weaknesses
Second, despite some strong points, IT performance at VTB also has many weaknesses. A pressing problem within the company is the abundance of middleware that the department does not adequately research, resulting in a “black box” for all employees (Gogan & Lewis, 2011, p. 67). Moreover, the current complex system is built from disconnected programs that require maintenance and troubleshooting, creating a burden for staff. Another weakness is the lack of documentation of the existing structure, which means that if even one employee with vital knowledge leaves, the business may lose tools for addressing software problems.
Opportunities
The opportunities at VTB depend on the leadership’s decisions regarding the IT department’s development. For instance, Stetzel considers implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that would consolidate many of the services provided by different programs (Abdulraheem et al., 2020). This investment could streamline business processes and give IT workers more time to innovate and optimize services rather than spend time maintaining performance.
ERPs offer a great degree of automation and provide tools for in-depth data analysis, which could help the firm visualize its performance challenges (Abdulraheem et al., 2020). Another opportunity is introducing a Customer Relationship Management package, which could improve customer service and marketing capabilities (Naim & Alqahtani, 2021). The company may also focus on improving the supply chain software, although VTB cannot start these projects simultaneously.
Threats
High competition remains one of the most substantial threats to VTB. If the company is unable to implement new solutions successfully, it is likely to suffer significant financial losses and lose its market position. Furthermore, a possible threat is the increased challenge of managing a large-scale ERP, as this system requires workers to be prepared for complex implementation and training (ElFarmawi, 2019). Finally, the integration of new technologies may yield financial benefits gradually, and VTB may need to temporarily reduce expenses to support the company during the transitional period.
SWOT Summary
To summarize, VTB has several strengths that enable it to navigate the technological changes necessary for its growth. Nonetheless, the IT staff’s performance is limited by the amount of unoptimized software. The main opportunities for VTB are to introduce more effective program packages that automate processes and enable the department to focus on innovation. The threats are that the company is unprepared for such changes or fails to introduce them quickly, losing its revenue and customers to the competition.
Strategic Initiatives
The company’s previous successes and Vermont Teddy Bear’s (VTB) long history create a solid foundation for continued growth, but changing times present new threats and opportunities. The information technology (IT) department at VTB faces several issues that limit its ability to advance the company. Based on previous analyses of the resources currently used by IT professionals and the created mission, several strategic IT initiatives can be outlined to help VTB excel.
The highest-priority strategic outcome for the VTB IT department is a streamlined planning experience enabled by new software. As noted in the SWOT analysis, IT professionals at the firm currently struggle with a large volume of middleware, which complicates data collection, use, and storage (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). This weakness exposes the department to potential cyberattacks, data loss, and slow customer service.
Thus, a primary goal for the company is to take this opportunity to upgrade its tools and introduce an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. ERPs can help companies consolidate all data and simplify information retrieval (Abdulraheem et al., 2020). This strategic goal aligns with VTB’s existing strengths, as its IT department has passionate, experienced experts who want to see positive change. Furthermore, new software enhances data security and improves the customer experience – both of which are part of the department’s mission.
The following strategic outcomes complement the first one and build upon its changes within the company. Thus, the second initiative is to improve documentation and internal training for the IT department’s employees. While VTB employs professionals with many years of experience, the business does not maintain records of its programs, processes, and issues. As a result, all knowledge necessary to run the company’s digital operations is shared verbally and informally among workers (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). The lack of documentation affects the firm’s future, as it implies that data and expertise may be lost easily if one of the professionals leaves VTB. During and after implementation of the new ERP system, the IT department should create a database of standard practices and issues for employees to use.
The next strategic IT outcome is improved customer data safety, also supported by new software. The IT department at VTB is responsible for handling customer information, such as names, accounts, and addresses (Gogan & Lewis, 2011). The company’s privacy policy emphasizes the importance of protecting this knowledge and its role in establishing good customer relationships. This initiative aligns with a significant strength of VTB and IT governance requirements, as its IT professionals already employ robust password management and data protection practices.
Finally, the last potential outcome is improved company competitiveness and the potential for further automation. The vision of VTB’s IT department is to aid the firm by stimulating innovation. By implementing new software, training employees, and addressing current threats and weaknesses, IT specialists can improve VTB’s current position (Fischer et al., 2020). Moreover, the department can create a framework for future growth and investigate ways of enhancing the new system when new resources become available.
To conclude, the IT department at VTB has many opportunities and positive characteristics that allow it to follow its vision for company improvement. The primary strategic outcome is a streamlined data management process, and additional initiatives include improved training, better data safety, and a blueprint for further innovation. VTB can follow these guidelines to support its vision and mission because it already has a robust foundation, experienced professionals, and a unique market position.
Action Plan
Plan
The investigation into VTB’s current state and future goals demonstrates the potential value of upgrading the IT department’s tools. While many potential strategic initiatives exist for the business, the analysis highlights introducing an ERP system as the top priority. The development of such systems follows seven steps, the first of which is business research. At this stage, the IT department must collaborate with management and company experts to define the requirements and scope of the future ERP (Kenge & Khan, 2020). Then, based on VTB’s specific needs, the department should install new software aligned with the goals established in the research phase.
Once the equipment is ready, employees may begin the data migration process. All client, product, and operations-related information must be input into the ERP and mapped to connect it. The following two steps involve testing the system and training employees – it is vital to prepare both the ERP and the people who will work with it so the company can handle new data inputs and potential scenarios.
Finally, the system should be deployed and supported continuously to introduce further improvements or solutions. The overall timeline for this initiative is expected to be approximately 3 to 6 months, depending on whether the company’s needs require software customization (Kenge & Khan, 2020). As noted above, the prominent individuals involved are IT department professionals, major department heads and experts, and human resources responsible for training.
The second chosen strategic initiative can be considered an extension of the first, as it supports the long-term maintenance of the new system. VTB should task its IT department with creating a unified documentation database that includes standard and policy-compliant practices for employee duties. The step of researching ERP’s scope can integrate this initiative, as the primary data processes, employee responsibilities, and the department’s internal operations will be examined and restructured. Here, the steps will include collecting and outlining the major processes and entering this information into the chosen knowledge system software. The timeline for this project may be around two weeks to one month, and it will involve the leading experts as well as the department manager.
Regulations and Standards
The chosen strategic initiatives align with the company’s standards, comply with data privacy regulations, and support VTB’s values of protecting customer information. The ERP system enables data standardization and secure storage, in compliance with local, national, and international data protection regulations (Kenge & Khan, 2020). At the same time, creating a knowledge database ensures that new hires have the instruments to support the system.
In contrast, long-term employees have a transparent source of information to use in unprecedented scenarios. The current system, which uses many types of middleware, is challenging to navigate, increasing the risk of data mishandling. The new ERP is expected to simplify the processes, thus reducing the risk of non-compliance.
Values Assessment
The rationale for choosing the two discussed initiatives can be linked to the department’s vision and mission, as well as its SWOT analysis. First, IT professionals aim to improve the efficiency of their work and deliver better results for VTB. Therefore, they are interested in designing a system that enables easier data manipulation and storage.
An ERP system combines many of the currently disjointed programs, reducing the need for additional middleware and even hardware (Kenge & Khan, 2020). At the same time, it provides a solution to one of the department’s main weaknesses – unoptimized software. An ERP can provide VTB with opportunities for future growth and better customer experiences.
The reasons for prioritizing the creation of the knowledge base are similar. The company currently relies on a small group of professionals who are knowledgeable about the department’s processes. However, as they may retire, their skills and information must be preserved for future hires.
Furthermore, if VTB wants to expand its IT operations, it will need resources to train workers. A database containing all valuable information about the IT department’s programs and duties supports the introduction of such changes. It protects the company from threats, such as poor staff performance and subsequent financial losses.
Fiscal Management (benefits and costs)
The selected strategic initiatives require substantial financial resources. While the cost of the final system depends on the business and departmental needs, the scope of this project is significant. Potential incurred expenses include software and hardware licenses needed to support it, as well as cloud storage for data (Kenge & Khan, 2020).
Furthermore, the education of the IT department also requires additional resources, as workers will be expected to learn a new system from someone who is well-versed in the subject. Most companies that install and implement ERPs provide consultants to train staff, and their pay may be included in the overall ERP budget. Finally, maintenance of the ERP is a long-term cost that should be considered. Nonetheless, the benefits a new system can bring may outweigh the expenses. As noted previously, greater IT department efficiency can improve customer satisfaction, speed up processes, and reduce errors.
The costs of the new knowledge database are directly connected to the platform where this information is located. If the data is stored in the cloud, the company may combine its expenses with those for the ERP cloud storage. However, local storage is also possible, though it would require significant hardware costs. The benefits of this project are long-term, as the database may simplify and expedite training, lower the risk of errors, and improve communication within the department.
References
Abdulraheem, A. S., Abdulla, A. I., & Mohammed, S. M. (2020). Enterprise resource planning systems and challenges. Technology Reports of Kansai University, 62(4), 1885-1894.
ElFarmawi, W. (2019). Challenges affecting the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system: An analysis. Journal of Systems Integration, 10(3), 35-43.
Fischer, M., Imgrund, F., Janiesch, C., & Winkelmann, A. (2020). Strategy archetypes for digital transformation: Defining meta objectives using business process management. Information & Management, 57(5).
Gogan, J. L., & Lewis, M. O. (2011). Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 1(2), 61–70.
Kenge, R., & Khan, Z. (2020). A research study on the ERP system implementation and current trends in ERP. Shanlax International Journal of Management, 8(2), 34-39.
Naim, A., & Alqahtani, K. (2021). Role of information systems in customer relationship management. International Journal of Intelligent Communication, Computing and Networks, 2(3), 34-45.