Gotham Sales Company

Gotham Sales is in the business of eliminating stress. It’s a company that specializes in warranties for all the appliances you buy for your home: refrigerators, dishwashers, television sets, personal computers, and even DVD players and portable stereos. Gotham sells these extended warranties to your local retailer. In addition, Gotham is a manufacturer’s representative for many well-known brands of consumer appliances, including Fedders and AESP Connectivity Products.

The Problem

Several years ago, most of the big appliance manufacturers switched their distribution strategies, to cut out the “middleman.” They started going through direct channels to retailers, eliminating the need for distributors and representatives who had been marketing their products for decades. Firms like Gotham found themselves out in the cold, with large payrolls and expensive mainframes that no longer made sense. Fortunately, Gotham had plenty of warranty work to keep a leaner, meaner business going strong. But the change in corporate direction required a rethinking of the company’s staffing and information systems. Due to layoffs of IS personnel, it suddenly became necessary for non-computer professionals to handle information management. Gotham Sales had been using MAS 90 on their UNIX system and they were very happy with it. But they were worried about how the software would function if they moved to networked PCs.  Could they transfer files without a system failure or loss of data?  Would MAS 90 be hard to learn on Windows?  Would it be as reliable as their old system?

The Answer (more…)