Asda decided on a 'no go' for 'mass rollout' of store IT conversion Asda decided not to go ahead with planned cut-over dates to introduce new systems at some smaller stores earlier this month as part of its technical divorce from Walmart, the previous owner of the UK's third-largest supermarket. The move, initially scheduled for December 7, 8, and 9, was slated for the roll-out of mini-marts …
I doubt it. owners get profits, not bonuses.
As for directors, this is a closely held, so it might not be as easy as if it was a listed company. If it was still controlled by the Issa brothers I doubt they would reward failure (its their money, after all) but its now controlled by TDR capital who manage other people's money so I do not know. Probably still worse for the directors than being listed with a mix of small shareholders and fund managers vs a private equity fund - it has a lot more at stake in good management as it cannot just sell the shares on the market.
Why is this an issue?
Surely it is the correctly thing to do when managing a rollout that if things are not ready you stop.
It is nothing to do with bonuses and is actually someone making the correct decision.
If they have gone ahead and everything fell in a heap you would be saying exactly the same thing.
To me this sounds like a rare instance of better than average (which is still mostly crap) project management.
Completely agree with your points about how to handle the issue. However, when your project budget and schedule go so off the roof there's the question of whether the same guys taking the bonuses are the ones approving and executing these plans that go 2x on time and 3x the budget.
that is very true.
most entities, even government, have a freeze over Christmas even if its just due to staff availability etc.
the only reason to not freeze is if the penalties out way the risk.
Its obvious the pressure has been on the Asda project teams to succeed, i suspect that Asda has some contractual obligations with Walmart to at least show some percentage of migration movement that doing this work now is imperative to Asda.
You'd expect that these stores moving now are low hanging fruit, where problems can be swept under the rug,
"You'd expect that these stores moving now are low hanging fruit, where problems can be swept under the rug,"
Or these problems could disappear over the "Horizon" hehehehehe and I hope that none of the previous Post Office employers (who were intimately involved in the Sub-Postmasters legal actions) have applied for jobs with ASDA !
Exactly my thought.
When I've talked to big retailers on IT they were pretty clear.
Basically "If the upgrade/switch/whatever is not running smoothly by the end of Q3 we go with what we got already, pretty much regardless of the costs because Christmas is way too important to have our core systems going TITSUP on us."
"I thought most locked down from mid November."
Depending on the org that's very late in the day.
Either Walmart are charging them extortionate costs to continue support or someone is in line for huge bonuses if they bring it in this year.
Time will tell how well this works out. Walmart was based in Arkansas. If it goes badly Asda might find themselves in this sort of situation.
Walmart have bigger fish to fry - despite the so called intense competition in the US Supermarket sector, prices are (in my view) very expensive- even for basics. Shoppers not happy - and Aldi is rampant, Lidl still gaining scale.
Walmart also have $17bn ( inc I guess the sale proceeds from Asda) - sunk (cause ?) in Indian Amazon competitor - Flipkart to realise value from. After trading for 17 years still to make a profit…. and heading the wrong way currently.
Yeah, but India man.
The world's last remaining large democracy with a large English speaking population.
The potential is huge. Bezzos based his entire company on Walmart's SOP so they are about the only ones with maybe a shot at setting up viable competition
And as we all know real competition is the only effective way to bring prices down.
Well, Tesco have just done so. 2.5 years ago they did a software update that made their bar code scanners a complete pile of crap - several seconds to register a scan, and the same delay for repeat scans of the same item. In some parts of our usual store it took a lot longer because of the WiFi coverage.
So a couple of weeks ago I went into the store and all the scans are now pretty much instant, just like Sainsbury's have always been.
Having complained bitterly originally via their CEO mailbox, I thought I would write and congratulate them on having the balls to do a software upgrade just before Christmas! A pity it's taken them 2.5 years to sort it out though.
Have they also sorted out the problematic Google Pay acceptance, where often it worked, sometimes it didn't?
As a result of the Tesco/GPay problems I've taken my lunchtime business to Sainsbury whose tills accept Google Pay without ever a hiccup. One consequence is that I'm actually spending less for a better meal deal.
Logic and common sense are not allowed in the workplace. Have you never had a job good person? Even the mere suggestion is frowned upon. I once got a disciplinary for suggesting a meeting could have been a single email and that 5 of the 7 people attending didn't need to be there.
To be fair, if you used accurate language to describe the situation then that would be why you got the disciplinary... Some people think that certain words are automatically wrong to use even when used correctly in a context where there is no other way to express the same thing with the same level of emotion.
Something I have had to explain to a lot of FUCKING IDIOTS over the years... ;)
The only reason I can think of they'd choose the month of December is because there are some executives who have bonuses tied up to some schedule to either start, complete or hit some completion milestone by a certain date.
At least they are getting a clean slate IT system with no legacy, I wonder how long it takes before something shiny and new becomes a technological boat anchor it is too difficult to move off of?
"The only reason I can think of they'd choose the month of December is because there are some executives who have bonuses tied up to some schedule to either start, complete or hit some completion milestone by a certain date."
Yes, probably the originally negotiated end of service life of the agreement to use the Walmart backend. IIRC that's already been extended once. I'd imagine each extension is at an even higher price. The problem with deadline is people tend to try to meet them, not beat them :-)
Given all the issues they've been beset with, will they now see IT in a new light and provide their teams with the resources and funding to succeed?
i know we can all bet they won't.
handing over their IT intellectual property to TCS looks like a spectacular own goal that will lead to continued problems ahead as they will be reliant on 3rd parties managing their stuff instead of their own staff.
they'd be better off outsourcing to Sainsbury's and earn off the dividends, at least Sainsbury's tech seems to work even if they have outsourced to TCS too.
I was getting prepared to have a laugh at another ERP migration that went completely TITSUP, but instead i found... sensible IT management???
1. Sensible timelime for a large ERP migration
2. Staged rollout, starting with smaller stores for less impact (but including some larger stores to get a better representation)
3. within those stages, they had pilots
4. they collected feedback, and actually used it to adjust the timeline and fix the product
5. someone realized you shouldn't break your shit during christmas, especially for stores
What's next? you're gonna tell me they have a rollback procedure?
Sure they went over budget, but double the initial budget is not the worst i've seen, and at least it seems like they have an almost-functional product now.
Well by "almost functional" you mean "slightly worse than before" then sure. For example their new de-Walmartized phone app is now just an electron of their website, you still get prompted on every text to "let us know you're coming by checking in when you set off" but there's NO LINK TO CHECK IN ANYWHERE any more except in the text message you may or may not get telling you your order's ready to collect - this often arrives half an hour after your collection slot has ended.
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I’ve seen projects where the management is to scared to say no go even if they know it will be a disaster, so kudos to them for having the balls to do so.
But a go live in December? As others have said, that should have been enough for a no go flag months ago. It’s not just retail that have freezes in December.
I hope it works for them and the support staff don’t end up having to do even more overtime over Christmas and the NewYear.
"I hope it works for them and the support staff don’t end up having to do even more overtime over Christmas and the NewYear."
I don't. I hope it goes shit shaped, and the support staff are offered tons more overtime. The whole dynamic here means there will be precious few salaried employees who are expected to do overtime for free. So TCS (no love for them) will be charging by the second, plus padding and any UK contractors will be thinking "Jingle tills, Jingle tills..."
Because the business doesn't understand their own business and trust IT even less.
BTW, we have migrated parts of our enterprise, HR, purchasing and few other smaller bits to S/4Hanna and generally speaking it works well and was roughly within budget though about a year late due to delays after user testing.
Because time and time again, arrogant dinosaurs at the top think they've bought a bit of software that already "does the thing" and that it can be installed as one installs Adobe Reader. Despite protestations, it's easier not to have the difficult discussions about important people being given actual time and being incentivised to do project work when actually it's much easier to leave them prioritising current business efforts without backfilling them. There's no understanding that an ERP is a blank slate upon which you build your new processes, and that it will have the impact of highlighting shortfalls in your management/processes such as pointing a magnifying glass at an ant on a sunny day. Then when it starts to go sideways, cognitive dissonance makes a great umbrella that "the IT project" isn't working and they turn turtle: refusing to push through the difficult; not having the challenging discussions; shouting and blaming; and not fixing the resourcing issues.
In actuality, precious few see the criticality of resource, tight deadlines and the "lost productive time" engagement of the *really good* people in every team to make sure their processes are built properly and joined up between teams. Few *lead* and force through, making a big deal of those that won't prioritise it sufficiently. By the time they realise, it's passed the failure point of no return and they ultimately spend more time playing CYA, potentially with some career learnings, more likely off to somewhere else.
The amount of directorial teams that seem deaf when the CxO tries to drive this from the back are staggering.
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