Using Technology to Build a Business

Times-R-Us (TRU) is a growing brick and trench mortar retailer with over cc American stores. Specializing in seasonal items, they stock their stores from January to mid-February with Valentines gifts; from March to whitethorn with Easter and Mothers twenty-four hour period gifts, from June into the summer with Fathers Day gifts and backyard leisure items; in r atomic number 18fied with back to school items; in October with Halloween costumes; and from November to December with Christmas gifts. By act over inventory, its small retail stores are always in busy season-with very apprise discount sales pursuit each season. TRU currently does non have a substantive online sales presence, although it uses the web for guest keep up. TRUs corporate offices are in Hoffman Estates, IL. It has nine regional offices and distribution centers in: siege of Syracuse NY, Greensboro NC, Pensacola FL, Grove City, OH, Bennett, CO, Denton, TX, Portland OR, San Luis Obispo CA, and Hoffman Estat es. The company grossed $475 one thousand million in sales live course of study and netted a $40 million dollar bill profit. It is growing at a rate of about quint percent a year and opening about 10 new stores each year. Payne Indaneck, the CIO, whole kit and boodle from the corporate office. Each regional IT staff is run by a Technical manager. So there are ogdoad IT centers with the Hoffman Estates operation doing corporate support as well as regional operations. Anita Lotta-Help is the Technical Director in Hoffman Estates. You work for Anita.\nThe IT centers are connected by utilise AT&T as the answer provider (currently leased line T1 from Corporate into the Regionals and SDSL from Regionals into the stores. HQ also has an net income friendship and a separate association for their web server (also with AT&T, both T1 speeds). AT&T also provides the voice links. The Regionals and stores do not have Internet connectivity except through HQ. TRU also uses RackSpace fo r offline archival storage. Each of the cc stores is able to tie into the RackSpace service (t...