Grocery chain uses content management to improve communications, workflow

Computerworld - Regional grocery store chain Giant Eagle Inc. hopes to increase its business from within through the use of a collaboration and content management system from Open Text Corp.
With 214 full-service grocery stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland, the Pittsburgh-based company began three years ago to look for ways to help employees at various locations share their marketing, product-display and management expertise with one another. The company's internal IT staff built a prototype content management system three years ago to experiment with ways to help employees and managers share information. In May, it replaced the homegrown prototype with Open Text's Livelink Web-based content management application. Giant Eagle is testing a related real-time conferencing application called Livelink MeetingZone.
The motivation for the project, said Jack Flanagan, vice president of business systems for Giant Eagle, was that the company realized it needed better ways of communicating best practices, product marketing methods, seasonal product availability and other information to its workers to help ensure consistent operations from store to store.
"We're a $5 billion-a-year company aspiring to be a $9 billion-a-year company in less than four years," Flanagan said. "A high level of uniform execution is desired."
In the past, the retailer relied on paper memos to communicate information from store to store and worker to worker, he said. But that process often led to delays or misinformation when the latest memos weren't received on time. With an electronic system that allows users to search through databases of information for answers to questions about things like product displays, marketing or employee policies, Giant Eagle employees can benefit from the shared experiences of their fellow workers, he said.
"It's not just the instantaneous distribution, but that the people who need [the information] can get it," Flanagan said. "If it's in our system, it's an artifact" to be shared.
Keeping it easy to use has also been a priority for the company, since many of the store employees have little or no computer experience. "This has been their introduction to personal computing," Flanagan said.
The system has been set up with role-based information available for each employee as they log in, so a manager would have different information on his log-in page than, say, a deli clerk or produce worker would. "We don't make you work hard for [the information]; we bring it to you," said Bob Guy, Giant Eagle's director of knowledge strategies.
Since bringing in Waterloo, Ontario-based Open Text in May, Giant Eagle has installed the software across about 70% of