Kimberly Clark : Virtual Reality Technology

This article makes up Chapter 1 of the free, open access book titled, Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology, by John Gallaugher. Please ensure that you read the entire Chapter 1 of the book consisting of 3 parts (Part 1 Introduction; Part 2 Don’t Guess, Gather Data; and Part 3 Moving Forward).

Case Study Assignment KL Worldwide Enterprises Inc.: Putting Information Technology to Work Submitted by Mark Lemoine September 14th, 2012

Diana-Aderina, M., & Nela, Ş. (2010). THE IMPORTANCE OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN THE RESTRUCTURING AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION PROCESS OF ORGANIZATIONS. Annals Of The University Of Oradea, Economic Science Series, 19(2), 1202-1207

Like many of its most profitable competitors, Alcan has grown quickly through insightful series of mergers, acquisitions and rapid product development and launch strategies throughout the major markets it sells into. The company has settled on a highly decentralized divisional business model that has to the point of the case study served them well. Their IT systems are showing signs of massive overduplication of expense, with a $500M level of spending on enterprise applications with SAP being the majority. There are further signs of massive waste in their highly diversified organizational structure. There are 400 systems in the company all dedicated to pricing, a massive duplication of costs, time and effort on the part of IT across the five divisions. There are also over 1,000 concurrent enterprise-class IT systems being used throughout the company at any point in time. Conservatively speaking the company is spending 20% of their total enterprise software spend on maintenance costs alone. This is forcing the CIO, Robert Ouelette, to re-evaluate both the organizational structure and IT systems supporting it. The goals of this analysis are to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the existing application or IT management structure. An analysis of the proposal by Robert Ouelette is also provided along with an assessment of it potential effectiveness in solving the challenges is facing today.

From my own experience, the three companies that could learn lessons from this case study are Walmart, Dollar General, and Family Dollar. To me, these three companies could all use a lot of help when it comes to product placement and meeting their customer needs (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011, p. 419-420). This brings me to the lessons to be learned from this case study. The use of the simulation technology of the virtual store environments is a brilliant concept. It is fast becoming a common practice among consumer product manufacturers and retailers (Breen, 2017). It is faster and more cost efficient than the traditional in-store product testing. It also allows a company to get a more accurate feel of the total shopping experience, just as if they were the

O’Brien, J. A., & Marakas, G. M. (2011). Management information systems (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Whitman, M. E., & Mattord, H. J. (2010). Management of information security (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Course Technology.

Scientists at Indiana University are working to develop new technologies for customer interface interactions in retail stores. Right now they are not concerned with the potential cost-effectiveness of the technologies or the marketability of the technologies. These scientists are involved in:

This aim of this document was to provide a summary and definition of the concept of Information Systems and contrast the subject against Information Technology. As part of this I have defined systems and I then have offered some brief commentary on how IS has changed over the last hundred years or so.

The authors consist of Robert Miller, Kristine Parsons and David Lifer. Robert Miller is in charge of Business Information systems at Central Michigan University. While Kristine Parsons and David Lifer are apart of the Accounting/ MIS program at Ashland University.

The three companies that I think can learn a lesson from Kimberly-Clark is Target, Kroger, and Tractor Supply Company. In the case study, it stated that Kimberly-Clark wanted to “better understand consumer behavior, and make the testing new product faster and effective.” (O'Brien & Maracas, 2011). I think if more companies thought this way, they would be more successful. I think the concept of the virtual products in virtual stores gives the marketing team opportunities to see what the consumers are looking for to purchase more of what consumers are looking for. The stores I listed that I thought would benefit from this concept because I know from my experience when I go into these particular stores they are always out of certain items, or

The virtual chain offers a number of distinct advantages over the physical value chain. Some of these advantages lie in forging alliances between customers and manufacturers, advertising products and services selectively with effects of audio, video, and graphics, and saving time and money in efficiently processing customer orders and enquiries. Besides, e-commerce offers flexibility in option pricing and customization of products and service, by reducing the constraints of time and

Limoncell, T. A., Hogan, C. J., & Chalup, S. R. (2007). The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition. Addison-Wesley Professional.

This paper will discuss the processes and pitfalls faced by Information Technology managers in today’s world of business. Today’s IT managers need not only be savvy about existing equipment and upcoming technology; but must also understand the budget issues they face and how to properly address them. The IT manager is asked to look into a crystal ball and predict what products will be beneficial and which requirements can be cut from the budget. They must be able to differentiate between the new shiny fad and products that will be a true asset to the company’s visions and goals. An IT budget can no longer be a static number on the company’s finance sheet; it must be a clear vision of the department’s future spending while falling in line with the goals and expectations of the company.

The researcher focused on managing IT assets only because past and existing manual systems had too many loopholes which resulted in the organization losing valuable IT assets due to theft and or abuse by employees. Unlike other tangible assets of the organization IT assets have a shorter life span and often switch many hands within a short period of time hence difficult in most cases to trace their whereabouts.