Casa del Libro

Spanish nationwide bookshop chain Casa del Libro was established back in 1923. By 2003, it had 12 specialized bookshops in all major cities, successfully competing with general retail chains, such as native El Corte Ingles or French FNAC.

The company had established a very comprehensive database, comprising over 1 million articles from over 1600 suppliers. With new technology becoming increasingly popular, they started selling their books online in 1995. In anticipation of rapid expansion of online trade the owners of Casa Del Libro, large editorial group Planeta had acquired a strategic partnership with AOL to launch a dedicated e-commerce company, casadellibro.com, in 2000.

The new company was almost destined to be a market leader, owning state-of-the-art equipment and premium software (Oracle/Excalibur/Vignette on Sun cluster) solutions, backed up by the new management and prominent consulting company...

But then came Dot-Com and 9/11... Following global market, Planeta revenues plunged, newly developed platform had serious integration issues, and new venture was barely surviving the initial stage.

The proposal was to forgo the part of set-up costs and switch to Microsoft SQL solution with a far cheaper setup and mainteinance, but, as analysts argued, less scalable capacity to support the market upturn.

Should the company eventually go for cheaper option? To make an educated guess, one needs to compare fixed costs of maintaining the existing equipment (bear in mind - it's not really working yet!) and anticipated revenues in foreseable future.

If I was to make a decision - heaven forbid - I'd go for Microsoft...
Honestly, because it's less haute-couture type of thing, you are not the hostage of one system integrator and can bring in the tech guy you can afford. In addition, for online business the variable cost is far less than the fixed one, so it's easier to survive with less drag on infrastructure.

Today the things are easier - Microsoft Dynamics provides a fairly sophisticated solution for medium businesses to play with, and if you really hate it - you can convert your databases a bit easier, due to well-known format and exporting options.

Speaking in general, when planning a major switch of platforms one should consider a list of factors (not exclusive):
- Analyze existing situation - is there really a problem (see here, for example)
- Check costs vs. benefits, both in time and money dimesions
- Think about your personnel - if you have established business processes, prepare for drop in productivity and have a good coaching plan handy - people like the way things are.
- Consider sustainability: are you serviced by a one-of-a-kind system integrator? Is he the one who optimizes the system of your competitor?
- Think about external user, should you have any (yes, it's obvious!)
... and it goes on! (that's why IT consultancies prosper, by the way).

But don't think too long - in the high-tech environment the winners and loosers are separated by hours...