CORONADO, Calif. -- It is ironic that information systems executives are gathering here today on this island nestled in San Diego Bay. Islands are precisely what they seek to eliminate -- islands of data that are collected but not used effectively, and islands of systems that work on their own but not together in an integrated fashion.
IS executives attending the Washington-based Food Marketing Institute's Information Systems conference here this week said integration of both systems and data is a key objective but not their solitary focus.
Electronic commerce, advanced communications networks, front-end technology and change management strategies are just some of the areas that are developing rapidly and warrant attention, retailers told SN.
A project that leverages the power of data and distributes it to store-level users in an integrated manner is at full throttle at Fiesta Mart, Houston.
Gil Russell, chief information officer, said the initiative will give store managers more useful information and they, in turn, will be held more accountable for their store's profit and loss reports.
"There's no doubt about it. We are looking at sales per man hour, things like the impact of ads on margins in the store, [for example], 'What did we give away this week? What did these ad specials do to the store margin?' "
Software linking stores to the data base is not yet in place, Russell said, but when that phase is completed, managers will gain access to the big picture of operations.
"They'll be able to look at budget vs. actual labor, sales, margins. They will understand what items are moving and what the margins are," he added.
"The store manager is going to have to have that information to run the store in the next five to 10 years," Russell said.
Other retailers looking to the future are trying to assess how information technology's role will evolve and how they can best respond to changing needs.
"I'm interested in knowing what people are doing with IT management. By that, I mean systems for monitoring and controlling the IT infrastructure to provide reliable service and anticipate problems before they occur," said Bill Borer, director of information systems at Seaway Food Town, Maumee, Ohio.
"I'm interested, too, as a priority need, to learn about what folks are doing with jobs and skills and measures of success -- the 'people side' of information systems management," he added. "The whole people side of IS and trying to leap-frog into client-server has me concerned that we need to know more, to do more."
Associated Food Stores, Salt Lake City, is also migrating to client-server systems and is seeking out the best strategies to manage the transition, said Byron Goodwin, manager of information systems.
"We are migrating from developing everything ourselves to purchasing everything we can and developing what we can't purchase," he said.
It's for that reason that Goodwin hopes to learn what other retailers' experiences have been with particular programs. "Those success stories are very important. You need to know what worked and what didn't work," he said.
Goodwin said he'll also watch closely developments in intranet projects that might lead to more effective communications between retailers and wholesalers and at the store level.
Seaway Food Town's Borer said Internet projects are on the upswing, and electronic commerce, in particular, merits closer examination. "There's an awful lot of interest in the Internet and I'm curious to know whether anyone is seeing any payback or if it's all 'me-tooism.' "
Internet applications -- as well as intranet applications -- will definitely take hold as a viable way to share information, said Jerry Johnson, vice president of management information systems and chief information officer at Abco Foods,
Phoenix.
"I think it's a coming thing. A lot of us are capable of securing things properly so we'll be able to share code and a lot of other things together," he said.
Johnson said retailers need to explore advanced data communications networking to boost the efficiency of their wide area networks. While some companies are using frame relay and others are exploring an integrated services digital network, Johnson said he believes the greatest potential lies in asynchronous transfer mode.
"I think the key is how things are developing with ATM," which consolidates the transfer of voice, data and video communications over a single line. ISDN promises to deliver the same capability, but Johnson is skeptical that it will.
"I think ATM is the answer. I don't think ISDN is going to make it. It has too many problems," he added.
Abco has been using frame relay communications protocol for five years and is anxious to move up to ATM. "We've got to. That's our next step. We've been on frame relay for five years and we've got to get voice over data and video on one line.
