Section 7.1. Why an RFID Strategy?

7.1. Why an RFID Strategy?

Do not mistake the creation of an RFID strategy (in the context of a large enterprise) for a needless corporate process that you can short-circuit to delve right into the excitement of implementation. Such a short-circuited implementation, although perhaps successful in the eyes of the implementers, might come to be viewed as a failure, or even useless, by other parts of the business in the long run. Post-implementation use of the technology might be questioned/resisted, leading to frustration and demoralization of the technology supporters. You can avoid these types of situations by ensuring top-down buy-in, and a comprehensive RFID strategy can facilitate such top-level decision making.

In brief, the fundamental reasons for establishing an RFID strategy include the following:

• To determine the various impacts of RFID technology

• To ensure basic understanding and buy-in from senior management

• To form a high-level master plan from which business justification, deployment strategies, and other policies can derive

• To ensure cross-functional support

The following sections review each of these reasons in detail.

7.1.1. Determine the Various Impacts of RFID Technology

RFID is a tool that businesses must apply judiciously to realize its benefits. Otherwise, the use of the technology might turn out to be detrimental. For example, operational efficiencies might go down; costs might rise, resulting in lost revenue, missed opportunities, and customer turnover. Therefore, businesses gain by not using RFID technology before determining how best to use it and how that use will impact their processes and personnel. When decision makers do decide to deploy RFID, a comprehensive strategy enables them to validate its use via justification analysis and pilot implementation results. Thus, enterprises can focus on areas that align properly with their line of business and that promise the maximum return on investment while significantly eliminating misdirected efforts that might negatively impact the business.

7.1.2. Ensure Basic Understanding

An RFID strategy can show the potential benefits of using the technology at a level that can be viewed, analyzed, and understood by senior decision makers. In general, each decision maker has his or her own special interests and priorities. The viability of a plan in the long run depends on how these people perceive the plan and understand its benefits for them in their individual endeavors. Therefore, an RFID strategy should cater to a broader set of interests rather than seek to satisfy the needs of a few.

The best way to achieve this goal is to create a strategy that aligns with the core competencies and strategic directions of the business instead of focusing on isolated areas of benefit. Such an integrated plan, when validated and supported at the highest level of decision making, can provide a path of realization that is less cluttered with internal politics, funding nightmares, and deployment-decision delays. The implementation of a successful RFID system being as nontrivial as it gets, having these elements under control will enable the adopters to focus on solution delivery, which is by no means a small achievement in a business environment. In addition, an RFID strategy ensures that if the technology meets the benefit expectations, it will be assimilated into the other parts of business in the long run.

7.1.3. Form a High-Level Master Plan

An RFID strategy can drive the next level of activities, such as the following:

• Estimating the technology benefits

• Estimating the cost of implementation

• Creating a deployment strategy

The outcome of some of these activities can provide further evidence to validate the strategy objectively. Indeed, the strategy needs to be validated periodically from the results of the adoption efforts. Such validation can help the proposer bolster his credibility and can strengthen the case for use of RFID in the business.

7.1.4. Ensure Cross-Functional Support

Enterprise concerns are typically multidimensional, involving several functional areas of the enterprise. For example, chronic shrinkage might involve ordering, security, warehouse and transportation logistics, and so on. If RFID is to be used to address such a problem, a decision regarding its use will probably require input from all the involved parties, generally at senior-management levels. Therefore, cross-functional support is a crucial element for the success of an RFID deployment to solve a business issue. This support generally includes resource allocation, identification of the relevant factors, design and implementation of solution components to address the factors, integration of the solution components to provide an integrated RFID solution, process changes, and training. The buy-in of the top management for an RFID strategy that aims to eradicate problems or improve business efficiency can act as a powerful catalyst to jump-start such interdisciplinary support and cooperation.

The following section discusses some high-level RFID strategy guidelines.