The University of Western Ontario
9806E020
ESTORE AT SHELL CANADA LIMITED
Chad Saunders wrote this case under the supervision of Professors Deborah Compeau and Barbara Marco/in, and Roger Milley solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. lvey Management Services prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmittal without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request …show more content…
Most of these applications came about as separate initiatives that plugged into the eBusiness infrastructure. There were general user interface standards implemented along the way, but the standards evolved and were not always retrofitted on the older applications.
With the software built and rolled out at Shell Canada, Milley settled into an operational role as IT eBusiness leader. Milley and Mann worked to establish the IT operations. Initially, it was the eCommerce strategist, working with the eStore business lead team, Kathryn Wise, and former eCA TS business analysts who sorted out the associated business operations. Eventually, a new position on the business side was created, the eProduct manager, a role assumed by Wright.
Collectively, those involved with eCATS development, its implementation as eStore and the operations to support it, learned that interdepartmental coordination was going to be a key success factor. The Webenabled nature of eStore was forcing integration across organizational groups that had previously existed as silos. According to …show more content…
During early 2003, Wright began investigating why customers were not using the system to the extent envisioned by the organization. He headed to the field to observe the customer experience.
Report from the Field
The eStore usage data showed an interesting pattern whereby customers signed up for an account only to not use the account again or use the system only perfunctorily. To obtain first-hand experience, Wright began to accompany the local field agents as they visited their customers to see how the system was being promoted, to obtain feedback from customers and to observe the experience of the customer using the system. The feedback Wright received from customers seemed to touch on a range of issues. Some customers had not heard about eStore. Those who had heard about eStore expressed concerns: they preferred to deal with their local sales representative who knew their requirements and knew how they operated their business.
These customers valued that relationship. Their sales representative had always provided excellent service so they didn't see any reason to use eStore. For those customers that were aware of eStore, there