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The Marriage of Retail Marketing and Information Systems Technology: The Zellers Club Z Experience

Wightman, Kenneth R.

Management Information Systems Quarterly · 1990 · Volume 14 · Issue 4

DOI: 10.2307/249783

Abstract

This paper examines the major influences and events that led to the creation and implementation of Club Z, a very successful frequent buyer program, by Zellers Inc., a Canadian mass merchandiser and a division of the Hudson’s Bay Company. While the paper describes this major retailer’s innovation in the adaptation of computer technology to store-level marketing, it also analyzes some of the significant aspects of the Club Z implementation from an IS management perspective: how a champion emerged to advocate and protect the project at the highest executive level; how an outside systems consulting firm was brought in to manage the Zellers IS function during the project life; and how the cultural problem of anticipated store resistance to the required new technology was overcome.

Keywords

Computer applications, administrative data processing-marketing, management of computing and information systems, project and people management-systems development, training, H.4.m, J.1, K.4.3, K.6.1

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