INFS 770 Knowledge Management for E-Business

Case Study

This case study is intended to motivate a central theme for the course, that is, the acquisition, refinement, classification, management, and use of enterprise knowledge within the context of E-business.

Present Situation:

Acme Enterprises is an old-fashioned department store retailer with outlets in major cities in the US and has been quite profitable in its business. It caters to an upscale clientele comparable to Nordstrom’s or Neiman-Marcus. Suppliers have long standing contracts as preferred suppliers and new suppliers are added based on the quality, availability, and novelty of the items.

Competitive Pressures:

The Internet and Web present a new challenges for Acme. The recent success of Amazon.com to show that a pure Internet-play e-tailer can become profitable has motivated Acme to try this approach. Also, Acme’s competition has some web presence so management feels the need to match and exceed the accomplishments of its competitors.

It wants to complement its brick-and-mortar operations with an advanced Internet presence second to none. In order to accomplish this, Acme management has decided on a radical and revolutionary approach that embodies the most relevant aspects of Knowledge Management and E-Business concepts, methods, methodologies and tools.

Project Scope:

The goal is to create a framework and prototype for On Line Acme Enterprises (OLAE, pronounced OLÉ) that will be state of the art in terms of E-Business concepts and strategies. Some of the advanced concepts to be included in the OLAE architecture are:

1) Intranet for Employees to logon and find the latest news as well as access to 401K information

2) Web site for customers to browse the OLEA Catalog and integration with supplier catalogs for the newest information on new products.

3) Procurement Marketplace for OLAE to interact with their suppliers and accept bids for commodities, thereby obtaining the best prices.

4) Adherence to standards for Business-to-Business interactions, using industry-supported protocols for business processes, data interchange, product catalogs, web services, etc.

5) Security is priority number one for OLAE in the privacy of customer information, secure browsing of catalogs, secure transactions, etc.

6) Use intelligent agent technology to create an intelligent information system.