However, TacDoh's IT group has hard choices to make: The STF application development effort requires increased programming work, but the IT budget is frozen at last year's levels. Even though the infrastructure is of prime importance in supporting the company's distributed retail chain, customer outreach program and employee incentives, network management is considered an expense. TacDoh is exploring ways to manage this cost without interrupting store operations or customer-base enlargement.
Each of TacDoh's 300 retail outlets is linked to one of the company's regional distribution centers, which act as warehouse and communications hubs. The Chicago center is the original location, housing the corporate offices and data center. Chicago supports 150 retail stores, while Newark and Atlanta have 100 and 50 locations, respectively (see network diagram, page 55).
In our RFI we defined the following goals and asked vendors to indicate how these goals will be supported, violation thresholds, and audit and reimbursement procedures (the RFI and complete vendor responses are available here.)
Reduce and stabilize network management costs by outsourcing configuration, monitoring, reporting, planning and maintenance of all network infrastructure at each warehouse, store and the corporate offices.
Keep existing helpdesk and operations support, but at reduced levels to support PoS, accounting and STF applications. Staff reductions based on removal of network and branch systems are planned.
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