Dennis McDonald's Web Site

Date of Interview

• February 9, 2006

 Person Interviewed

• Respondent is an IT Director at a national specialty retailer with 1,300+ local retail stores, nearly all states in the U.S.A. are represented.
  
• Retailer has a separate sister company that manages a variety of eCommerce sites. Other than store look-up functions on the eCommerce company's web site, the web business and the retail operations are operated as two separate business entities.
  

Interview Notes

• Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, podcasts, and wikis are "... not currently on the radar screen," according to respondent.
• The IT department supports the relationship between the local stores and the headquarters in two primary ways (1) via an email network and (2) via feeds of retail data supplied by in-store local area networks.
• The company does not currently operate a web-accessible intranet for communicating with stores or for communicating with customers. This is in the works, respondent says.
  
• Communications with stores basically follow the hierarchy of management; information tends to flow out from top management, through regional management, to local stores, via email and telephone.
• In-store local area networks are currently being upgraded -- a long process. The company has added a large number of stores in the past few years through acquisition and in the process has created an IT infrastructure with a wide range of in-store equipment.
• The IT department is upgrading and standardizing in-store systems onto a commercial vendor's  Linux/Java based retail software suite. Respondent says this upgrade process is a major upgrade and he questions whether this architecture is relevant to typical "Web 2.0" applications such as blogging and podcasting.
• Interviewer asked whether technologies such as podcasting might be relevant to informing store staff about company news. Communications like this, says respondent, are basically handled by local and regional staff who communicate with headquarters via telephone and email.
• Respondent does not see an immediate need for the type of "interactive" communications represented by blogging. Respondent says that the company's Marketing department might have a different attitude about such things.
• Respondent points out features of the company's culture, that it is privately owned and that it has never engaged in the type of interactive or collaborative communication represented by "Web 2.0." IT's main focus now is currently on the standardization of in-store software/hardware infrastructure and on security and effectiveness of communications with store staff and regional management.