[MIT Sloan]

15.566:
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS AN INTEGRATING FORCE IN MANUFACTURING

SPRING 1998

Case Study Questions: Catalina Marketing Corporation

 

The Catalina Marketing Corporation case shows how Catalina Marketing Corp. translated the expertise of its founders in market research, scanner technology and the packaged goods industry into a growing and profitable business. In preparing for our in-class discussion of this case, think about the role of information technology at Catalina Marketing Corp., addressing the following six issues. You do not need to turn in a written case analysis.

  1. What are Catalina's core competencies, other than information technology? What is Catalina's strategy for competing in the marketplace?
  2. How is Catalina using information technology to support the strategies you identified above?
  3. Do other in-store marketing competitors pose a threat for Catalina? How can these competitors try to capture the lead from Catalina? How would Catalina respond? What is the role of information technology in all this?
  4. It seems that compensation issues have been causing friction at Catalina. Can the technology come to the rescue by helping devise a fairer and/or more effective compensation scheme?
  5. A number of "Future Options" for Catalina are presented starting in page 17. Select the one option that you think is most promising, justify your selection, and think how Catalina can use information technology to support it. Does this option leverage existing information technology skills, or does it require the development of new expertise?
  6. It can be argued that Catalina (and the other in-store electronic marketing vendors) are in trouble, because they depend on supermarket scanner data. Soon supermarkets will want to "take over" this electronic marketing function, or at least the electronic coupon part, in an effort to appropriate the payments manufacturers currently make to companies like Catalina. What is your view on this? How do you see Catalina's relationships with vendors (including supermarkets) evolving over the next five years (1995-1999)?

You may also want to look up information on more recent developments related to this case.