Bruce Burgetz
Hall of Fame Inductee 1997
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of Fame
Leadership, innovation, tireless enthusiasm, tenacity these are some
of the qualities that associates ascribe to Bruce Burgetz, who directed
the exceptionally difficult transformation of one of Canada's largest
retailers, Shoppers Drug Mart, into a technologically advanced and unified
company from a paper-based organization of disconnected stores.
In late 1995, Shoppers Drug Mart established a new strategic direction,
Vision '97, which included setting up central control of distribution
and accounting for its chain of more than 800 stores. At the time, Shoppers'
use of information technology was very limited and the stores did all
their own buying, pricing, inventory management and accounting. Burgetz,
as Senior Vice President, Information Technology, led a team with responsibility
to design, acquire, install, test and operate all the systems needed.
They built systems for national distribution, accounting, satellite
communication and electronic data interchange all from scratch in
18 months. They completed the implementation of Vision '97 on target
in January 1997.
Shoppers Drug Mart believes that no other Canadian retail organization
has ever taken on such a huge transformation in so short a time. "It's
been an incredible ride," Burgetz says. "The adrenalin has been flowing
for a long time. It's still flowing. "This was a real transformation
of a company through teamwork. I've been fortunate to have some very
key people working with me." Burgetz, who joined Shoppers Drug Mart
in 1992 after 22 years as an information technology consultant, says
he has never known pressure and stress such as he and his team experienced
in implementing Vision '97.
"You have to have a sense of humour, you have to keep everything in
context," he says. "That's sometimes a challenge but it is a critical
ingredient in any project." Burgetz is credited with a significant change
in the mindset of the organization and, as a member of the board of
directors, with educating his fellow board members in the systems challenges
facing the company. His key approach was to adapt the company's processes
wherever possible to the capabilities of commercial software products,
even though many of the products were evolving and had never been used
to handle the volume of information 300 million customer transactions
a year that Shoppers Drug Mart required.
"When you are in a project of this nature you are constantly taking
what I call managed risks to make the deadlines," Burgetz says. "We
didn't have the time to make it perfect. We said let's take our best
shot at it, and then come back and fine tune. That's the phase we are
in now."
Work is still intense, but Burgetz is glad to have more time for his
wife and three daughters and for his activities with the United Mennonite
Church. He is Chair of the Mennonite New Life Centre, a refugee agency
in Toronto. |