50 Case Studies for Management and Supervisory Training

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Case 44

A System’s Migration to New Skills

Background Information

Looking across the rows of men’s suits, Bob Williamson spots Pat Dekkar working

with one of his employees, a sales associate. They are trying to complete a sales

transaction on the new WIZARD information system. Bob watches as Pat again

fumbles his way through another transaction. Almost instinctively, he rolls his eyes

and shakes his head.

Bob Williamson manages the Men’s Furnishings Group for the Northridge Mall

store of the Dukes and Noble Department Store chain. As one of the younger group

managers, Bob has charge of over 20 full-time and part-time sales and service rep-

resentatives in four units: Suits and Outerwear, Leisure Clothes, Shoes, and Acces-

sories. Bob has been with Dukes and Noble since joining their Management Asso-

ciates Development Program after graduating from college. Pat Dekkar is about 15

years older than Bob, with about that many more years of experience in the retail

trade. Pat began his career in a floor sales position and, after years of hard work,

was promoted to supervise the Leisure Clothes Unit.

Beginning about six months ago, Dukes and Noble began a “systems migration”

(as the Data Processing staff called it) of replacing the somewhat antiquated com-

puter and information processing system with one that was more streamlined.

Under the new, integrated system, all the retail functions—inventory, sales and

customer tracking, returns and adjustments, accounting and profitability calcula-

tions—would be joined together and operated out of the same database. Further, all

stores would be linked together, giving headquarters better ongoing control of the

company as a whole and of stores and departments in particular.

As a result of this “migration,” virtually every job in the company was changed

in some way. The jobs of the sales associates changed most: virtually every product,

customer, or financial transaction was to be done differently. While the complexity

of any one task might be small, the combined weight of all the changes resulted in

major learning stresses on employees. They had to learn how to operate the system,

access it, complete all transactions through it, and make any needed corrections directly

on the point of sale terminal—all while the customer waited across the counter.

As the kick-off date for the conversion to the new system neared, all employees

were brought in for a comprehensive four-day training program. Managers and

supervisors were trained first so that they could serve as aides and coaches to the

other employees once the WIZARD was operational. Bob and Pat attended one of

the early programs together.

Bob was impressed by how much the program covered. The trainers went

through every conceivable transaction and procedure, demonstrating and explaining

them. Each participant in the class was able to practice some of the procedures on

the demo terminal. The manual provided in the program was reasonably thorough,

even if it was poorly organized.