Michael Eubanks is the information technology marketing director, while Andy Wnek is the chief information officer (CIO). The two protagonists work in the department of information technology (IT) at Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC). Such is because they belong to the CTC, IT group, which has the mandate of redeveloping the infrastructure for business intelligence (BI) so that the organization can realize the return on investment (ROI). The department of IT that is occupied by Andy Wnek and Michael Eubanks provides a good explanation as to why there is no full attainment of the functional business intelligence system at CTC. The protagonists have been given the task of completing the ‘quick wins,’ which are making it complex for them to concentrate on the business intelligence infrastructure that is expected to yield a high return on the investment (ROI). The IT group has focused on offering the strategic initiative, which will ensure that CTC gets real business value from the business intelligence, but needs still do emerge that they have to address. The information systems at CTC have evolved into a costly and complex environment that provides substantial opportunities for cost-cutting, integration, simplification, and consolidation. The involved staff lacks the skills for a future program, there is no assignment of responsibility for business users, IT costs are high, there is no linking of project priority to the value of the business, IT reacts to short-term needs and forgets the long-term ones, and there are shadow IT, groups. The IT group at CTC has realized these challenges and focused on formulating initiatives to overcome them, as well as a business strategy that builds on the strength of the department. The focus of the strategies has been to ensure that business alignment to operational and strategic priorities occurs, cost control is enhanced via technical architecture, and IT resources governance is implemented. CTC started BI analytics in 1994 with the information warehouse (IW) development by the IT group at the CTR request and funding. At this time, the chief executive officer (CEO) of CTC focused on changing the role and image of CTR from wholesaler to retailer. In this process, the IT group realized that there was a lot of data to be involved. Wnek was the CTR chief financial officer (CFO) at this time. He engaged in the efforts of offering better information that would help in decision-making for the business, which led to the establishment of the retail analytics for the CTR finance group. The period was characterized by the fragmentation of the business intelligence efforts. The situation accelerated from 1998 onwards.
