Off-the-Shelf vs Custom Software – Making the Right Choice
Built and developed a strategy to convince 7-Eleven Inc. to covert the 40-year-old legacy system to an off-the-shelf application suite.
Situation
When I arrived at 7-Eleven Inc in 2015, the Company had already signed up with an external technology vendor to convert the existing 40-year-old legacy system and replace it with a custom-made developed financial system supporting 8800 stores in US and CAN. The project was expected to take five years and would be financed through a financial-lease over ten years after implementation. At the end of this period the company is expected to extend the lease or pursue an alternative route.
Action Plan
- Build and develop an initial strategy to convince 7-Eleven Inc to covert the 40-year-old legacy system to an off-the-shelf application suite, by purchasing Oracle Merchandise Operations Management system (MOM), leveraging cutting-edge technology currently used by a large number of US and International Retailers and take advantage of the following benefits;
- Built-in Best Operating Practices – Merchandising, Planning and Sales Analysis and Financial Cost and Margin control.
- Item-by-Item cost and selling transaction tracking and monitoring (the custom-made developed financial system was at a store level and not at an item-by-item level)
- Automatic software upgrades for future developments,
- Additional cutting-edge retail practice features, multiple costing, mark-up/down, discounts and promotional activities not currently adopted by 7-Eleven to improve customer service and efficiencies,
- Reduction of implementation risk, and,
- Reduced conversion/installation time.
- Recruit a professional project team including PMO, OCM to strengthen analytics and change management capacity
- Co-lead RFI / RFP process with IT and strategic sourcing to select vendor partners and manage the project to deliver expected capabilities and benefits on-time and on budget.
- Develop final proposal with funding scenarios and capital and expense budget – submitted proposal to Executive Committee for approval.
Results
- EC approves proposal to lead company’s largest financial systems transformation improvement project; converting 40-year-old legacy systems to Oracle Merchandise Operations Management (MOM), Master Data and Franchise application suites in HQ and 8800 US and CAN stores – a multi-million-dollar project with over 300-team members.
- Commenced roll-out to 8800 US and CAN stores in 2018 – 12 months earlier than custom-made development.
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