Boardman Management Group manages the Baderman Island resort. They are considering whether to upgrade the word processing software currently in use at the resort or to purchase a new word processing software application. Boardman plans to hire Smith Systems Consulting to help them analyze their options and to prepare an implementation plan.

Submit a 3-4 page plan for how Boardman Management Group should utilize Smith Systems Consulting as an outside consultant for this project. Include a discussion of why the specific elements of your plan are important, how they will achieve the results you intend and why they were chosen over alternative methods.

Background of Request:
The Baderman Island Resort has 3 hotels, a convention center, 4 restaurants, 2 gift shops, a pro shop and a spa. While all of the business entities are owned by the Baderman Island Resort and executively managed by the Boardman Management Group, each business entity is operated independently. Each business entity was opened at different times and, while each entity started out with up-to-date computer hardware and software, upgrades of equipment and software have not been uniform. The word processing software in use at the Resort is a case in point. Currently, we have:

26 computers running Windows XP and Word XP
38 computers running Windows 2000 and Word 2000
6 computers running Windows 98 and Word 97

While there is backward compatibility between the various versions of the software, the older versions do not have all of the "bells and whistles" of the newer versions. We are wondering what would be entailed to upgrade to a standard version of Microsoft Word or, alternatively, to switch to a word processing software application from another vendor.