IT Strategy for Specialty Retailer Case Study

CLIENT: A multi-billion dollar specialty retailer

The challenge

This specialty retailer hired PwC Canada’s Retail Consulting Services to develop an IT Strategy supporting the business direction for technology over the next 3-5 years. The retailer had completed a number of major strategic and tactical initiatives and made several acquisitions. With the significant amount of growth and other change in recent years, the IT strategy was dated and did not reflect the current business model.

Our approach

PwC Canada’s Retail Consulting Services worked with the retailer to:

• Develop a comprehensive IT strategy in 90 days to support the client’s budget and planning cycle.
• The Strategy concentrated on applications, governance and IT organization while balancing risk management issues.
• The strategy included review of all applications, both legacy and those acquired through recent acquisitions. We then developed a detailed map by function of technical and functional strengths for the company to leverage in the future.
• Support the CIO in the development of the required strategic decisions to ensure IT systems would align with the business strategy, budget constraints and desired future flexibility.
• Identify supporting governance plans and structures to lead the decision making processes to completion.
• Develop an IT organization strategy to balance the need for internal and external support in executing the future IT roadmap.

The result

The IT Strategy was completed within three months to present to the Executive Team and Board of Directors with successful results. Using the strategy the CIO developed implementation plans for his organization and application architecture.