Information Technology (IT) Improvement at PT. Sumber Alfaria Trijaya

Retail industry is the second largest industry after agricultural industry in terms of employment absorption in Indonesia. The situation of the quite dynamic retail industry is marked by the development of modern retail trade and it impacts on traditional markets and suppliers. PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya, known as Alfamart is one of the best retail company in Indonesia. It already uses Supply Chain Management and B2B to support their operations. Alfamart also has its own website which provides information about products, outlets, services, and promo. This research discusses about IT improvement. The purpose of this paper is to improve Alfamart IT performance and make innovation on the IT to increase customer satisfaction. The methodology used is defining the problem, measure, analyst problem, improvement required by Alfamart, and control to monitor the implementation. Problems are identified using SWOT analysis, problem clarification, and business model canvas. Analyzing the problems, solution hypotheses and IT improvement are recommended for Alfamart.


Literature Study
Having observations on the stores condition, comparison is made between the real situation with ideal condition in the theories retrieved from book, internet, and other media related to the scoped of the problems.

Recognizing and Defining the Problem
Obviously, before any action can be taken to solve a problem, we need to recognize that a problem exists. SWOT Analysis is used to analyze the details about Alfamart's strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats. After that, the best recommendations for Alfamart can be proposed.
From the observation to the company, there are some issues that can be discussed. In this case, excellence IT Improvement for CRM is used as the problem solving to be implemented by the company.

Collecting Data
Data are collected from Alfamart Annual Report and Alfamart website. Data collected include: (1) general data that includes company history, vision and mission into the future, and the number of stores; (2) customer needs to make IT improvement in the future, so Alfamart could build new CRM to meet customer needs.

Finding Possible Solution
Through an analysis problem process, this phase focuses on creating solutions and making project design to increase IT performance. In addition to ensuring continued success, this phase also involves monitoring for new problems created by system changes.

Conclusion and Recommendation
After make analysis and find the alternative solution for the problem, conclusion and recommendation can be made which represents all of the results in the study. Conclusion should maked to make more understanding about the goals and ensure the problem analysis will meet the right solution.

Current IT Implementation at Alfamart Strong Supply Chain Management
Alfamart already implement supply chain management from supplier to retail stores, both on regular and franchise store, and also has Customer Loyalty Program which generates date of customer spending pattern. Alfamart Distribution Centers already uses integrated system and IT driven which include Order, Receiving, storage, Picking, and Delivering. Distribution Centers work seven days a week to ensure stock fulfilling in all of Alfamart stores. These conditions are based on Alfamart Annual Report 2011 (Figure 3). radical change on IT. It only needs an additional connection between e-commerce and inventory system. We believe this new mechanism will bring more value to all Alfamart customers and increase customer satisfaction at Alfamart.

Risk Management
To implement new project of the system, we should consider about risk management in the company. In this case, Alfamart need to prepare the security system to mitigate the risk. Every customer that wants to use online tracking system should be registered as member of Kartu Aku and have their own username and password. The system also protects all stock data and only presents the information of the items searched by customers.

Performance Measurement
This system implementation will be reviewed every year with the increase number of Alfamart customers and Customer Satisfaction Rating from independent research company. This project should include several people, as follows: (1) IT officers, such as web designer to design the user interface, and programmer to create application, connect the program and network; (2) inventory officer to maintain the latest stock in every Alfamart store and update price for every item purchased; (3) customer service officer to respond customer request of complain, especially if the website can not work well.