Case Study:

Dollar Tree: A Case Study

1. Introduction and Company Overview:

·  Primary business activity: Managing an outlet of the retail stores for cheap variety goods.

·  Key challenges: The Key challenges involve expensive operational costs, increased competition, and possible disruptions in the supply chain and maintaining profitability.

·      Key opportunities: The strategic priorities of the organization to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage include market expansion, increased organizational efficiency, and better customers’ satisfaction.

·  Technology role: Facilitates smooth management of operations, optimizes supply chain, and offers better services to customers.

2. Core Business Processes and Data

·      Core business processes: Some of the main processes are purchasing, stocking, handling operations within stores, and customer relations.

·  Process interaction: Closed loop communications between procurement function, inventory control, and store management.

·  Critical data: The most common examples of operational data include sales and revenue per product, inventory information, customer information, and supply chain information.

·  Data sharing: Centralized data hub for sharing data and optimizing data consumption within an organization’s departments.

3. Technology Infrastructure:

·  Key technologies: They include the ERP system, the inventory management software, the point-of-sale systems.

·  Technology support: Makes working processes more efficient, optimizes product storage, and increases the experience of customers better.

·  Strengths: Retail success hinges on two key factors: one is operational which makes operations to be automated as well as to improve on the quality of data and the other is the customer experience which makes it possible to offer customer services.

·      Weaknesses: Integrating new technologies faces compatibility issues and high costs for implementation, maintenance, and training.

4. Enterprise Architecture Maturity

·      Maturity stage: Our client company is at “Optimized core” Enterprise architecture maturity stage.

·  Characteristics: Optimized core Architecture and Cloud Infrastructure, Formalization, utilization of technology, and control from a central point.

·  Implications: It facilitates efficiency in operations, enhances communication decisions and fosters the core business objectives growth.

5. Operating Model

·      Operating model: Dollar Tree operates with Co ordination model where supply chain, inventory and pricing are controlled centrally allowing the company to manage all outlets effectively and cohesively.

·      Alignment with business strategy: Dollar Tree’s Coordination model is consistent with its low-price strategy as it focuses on centralizing procurement and supply chain and achieving uniform shopping experience.

·  Benefits: Increase in productivity, reduction of costs incurred and improvement in overall customer satisfaction.

·  Drawbacks: Little maneuverability and expensive to maintain.

6. Challenges and Opportunities

·      Primary challenges: New technologies adoption, supply chain risks mitigation, and productivity enhancement.

·  Opportunities: Dollar Tree has opportunities for growth and the areas which it can improve in are technology, inventory, supply chain, partnerships, and data analysis

·      Addressing challenges: The potential challenges can be mitigated by enhancing the company’s use of technology, partnerships, and flexibility, which results in cost-efficiency and customer satisfaction.

7.  Recommendations

·      Migrating from a traditional on-premises ERP system to a cloud-based system and using advanced applications such as Artificial Intelligence on the inventory management system as well as launching a customer loyalty program.

·       Implementation: Sequential approach, accompanied by information to the employees.

·       Benefits: The overall performance of the business increases, and customers’ satisfaction increases while the revenue increases as well.

·  Risks: One of the hindrances is high implementation costs apart from disruption of business due to competition.

REFERENCES

·  Dollar Tree, Inc.. Dollar Tree, Inc. (n.d.). https://corporate.dollartree.com/

·  David Luther. (2020, September 15). Your guide to retail store inventory. Oracle NetSuite. https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/inventory-management/retail-inventory-management.shtml

·  Paridehpour, M. (2024, February 14). Optimizing inventory management: Techniques for Efficient Store Operations. 4sgm Blog. https://blog.4sgm.com/optimizing-inventory-management-techniques-for-efficient-store-operations/

·  Anna Baluch. (2024, June 20). Retail Inventory Management Best Practices. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/retail-inventory-management/