#Chicken Sad, so it was an IT problem

Much has been said about Jollibee having to close down 72 stores because chicken was not available.  My mother was surprised when I told her it was an IT problem, and not entirely a chicken supply issue.  My mother together with many others thought it was something else - delayed in cargo because of the Manila truck ban, shortage of chicken supply, part of rising increase in prices of rice and basic commodities.  Many would not think (or maybe understand), that this is really an IT problem.

In an article by Calen Martin Legaspi, CEO of Orange and Bronze Software Labs (link below), he mentioned Jollibee Foods Corp migrating from Oracle to SAP.  And that "the change impacted the fastfood giant's inventory and delivery system."


http://www.rappler.com/business/features/66087-jollibee-chickensad-costly-it-problem



It was reported that some $4 million in revenues are lost daily because of the problem.  But what's really amazing here is the news blackout on who the Business Integrator is.  There had been many clues:  a global SAP integrator, "a large multinational service provider", someone who is relatively small in the Philippines.

I remember a few years ago when GSIS quickly went out on media citing problems with IBM.  For IT practitioners, the complaint by GSIS in 2009 was somewhat vague as it was merely pointing to DB2 issues, rather than a bug in a software.  In fact, IBM also said that they played no role in the supply, installation and even support of the IT system of GSIS.  I do not know what happened to that case, but it seems the legal battle between GSIS and IBM was been legally settled, as in the yahoo news below.

So now, in the age of social media, it is interesting why the name of the Jollibee Food's System Integrator has not been named.  Have they learned the lesson from GSIS?  Or is too big of a multinational company that can actually blackout news about its identity.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/06/03/09/gsis-ibm-sue-each-other-over-defective-software
https://ph.news.yahoo.com/gsis-settle-legal-battle-ibm-corp-20101219-101356-162.html