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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · E-business: value chain

Norvale Retail has 40 years of success in stores. Its board approves an ambitious e-business programme and gives the IT team three months to build a full online platform and integrate it with stock, finance and logistics. Store managers were not consulted and fear job losses. Early pilot users report that the site shows stock that is not available. Which assessment best identifies the key implementation weakness?

The key weakness is poor change management and weak back-end integration. Staff were not consulted and fear job losses, while the website shows stock that operations cannot supply, meaning the front end is not linked to inventory systems. These are core implementation issues, whereas pricing or the pilot itself are not the problem.

  1. AThe programme neglects change management and integration of back-end systems, so the front-end promise is not supported by operations and staff resistCorrect
  2. BThe programme is flawed only because online channels never suit established store-based retailers
  3. CThe main weakness is that a pilot was run at all before full launch
  4. DThe main problem is that the website has not been priced competitively

Explanation

The facts show lack of stakeholder involvement and fear among staff, plus a front end showing stock data that is not reconciled with back-end inventory. This points to poor change management and poor integration, which are central e-business implementation issues. Established retailers can succeed online, piloting is good practice, and no pricing facts are given.

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