Operational Capabilities of VTBTo maintain a competitive advantage, VTB must build its business model keeping 5 strategic pillars in mind in order to become a successful company: leadership, innovation, technology information, Organizational Excellence, agility and knowledge. Vermont's leadership team grasped this concept early in its development, but did not continue to adopt these pillars to ensure continued success. VBT has most of its operational capabilities and strengths in the IT domain, as its business model is heavily based on IT. They have good operational capabilities, but they also face several challenges, especially during peak seasons. Their operational strengths and capabilities are: • They hire a good workforce during peak seasons to help process and wrap gifts ordered by a large number of people. customers for delivery. • During peak hours, if and when the middleware goes down, expert IT team members help in one way or another to fix things and ensure that all deliveries are carried out on time.• They have a strong core transaction processing infrastructure to meet operational needs. of a company of this size.• They have good practices when it comes to password management and recovery mechanisms. They have redundancy built into their systems. So if something in the network goes down, their customer order systems continue to work so orders aren't lost. • They host their e-commerce applications in colocation facilities outside of Vermont, and in doing so, they are able to obtain a more advantageous position on the national Internet backbone. • They follow a cutting-edge approach in which they buy separate packages that offer features closer to optimal instead of...... middle of paper ......ornt and not what someone needs to work because they think that it's important. • Standardize procedures and project management. For example, using the same language or coding and decoding software. • Establish a change management process. All changes should be documented for reference by other team members. Appendix: SWOT (Exhibit 1) Strengths: • Quality product • BearGrams • Closed retail stores • Effective change in packaging and shipping system • Employee training and retention • Shelburne outlet store weaknesses: • Coverage insufficient management • Financial situation • Customer service • Weak IT architecture Opportunities: • Distribution methods • Outsourcing abroad • Expansion into new markets • Technological advances Threats: • Patents/Logos/Disney brands • Competitors (flowers, gifts, objects collectibles)• Products and services• Seasonal demand for products in the market