Managemnt Assignment

You have to follow the instructions very CAREFULLY step by step

Goal of the Assignment.

Understanding the steps in IT planning process and the role of competitive strategy, business environment analysis, value activities analysis and critical success factors in IT planning and development. Reinforcing the PFD skill and understanding their use in discovering problems in Business Processes. Developing awareness of issues with IT implementation.

Objectives.

1. Identify the steps and the tools needed in creating an IT plan.

2. Describe how Internet and mobile technologies have created opportunities as well as challenges for businesses.

3. Demonstrate how to integrate competitive strategy to IT plan.

4. Uncover problems in Business Processes using PFD and suggest solutions that would incorporate competitive strategies and critical success factors.

5. Identify at least 2-3 alternate solutions to the existing problems.

6. List at least 2-3 implementation issues in implementing the selected solution.

Specific Tasks.

1. Pick any two properties of the Internet and one property of mobile technology from the list described and discussed in the class and identify how each one them creates opportunities and challenges for CaRent assuming that the competitive strategy of CaRent is differentiation. Please note that you need to identify the opportunities as well as challenges for each property. An illustrative example is shown below. Of course, you cannot use it for your analysis; this is just an example to explain the assignment.

a. Property: Time moderator.

i. Opportunities: Internet allows CaRent to operate on a 24/7 basis thereby making it easier for their customers to book cars and also see the availability of the cars at any time without needing to go to the rental location.

ii. Challenges: The 24/7 operations demand extra resources for database and website maintenance and create a tightly coupled system thereby allowing for very little scope for errors.

2. Based on the above strategy of differentiation and using Porter's Competitive Strategy model, identify the main competitive forces that CaRent should pay attention to and identify the value activities where changes are to be made for CaRent to remain competitive. Use Porter's framework for identification of the value activities (primary, support, etc.). (10 points)

3. Using the result from Assignment 1 analysis and the value activities identified above, identify the major changes in business processes within each of the value activities required by CaRent and list the new/changed processes. Compare it with the old processes that you listed in your PFD in Assignment 1 and clearly indicate the changes. (10 points)

4. Identify Critical Success Factors (for CaRent's business) in different processes and based on the analysis, develop an information technology plan that can help CaRent to become more efficient and better. The plan should include the various types of systems to be used at the operational, tactical and strategic levels of management. (10 points)

5. List some of the issues that CaRent should keep in mind for implementing the new processes including implementation of the technology.

You do not have to be too elaborate on this section; just list the important issues to consider. Think of the organizational factors besides technology that are to be kept in mind to make the suggested changes successful.

CaRent Inc.[1]

Peter relaxed by his swimming pool sipping the ice-cold frapp. Earlier in the day, he had accepted the position of Vice President of Sales and Marketing at CaRent Inc. He is pleased with his decision because he now has the opportunity to manage a small business to grow into a national chain. Peter knows that it will not be easy, but he is ready to face the challenge. As he watched a couple of squirrels play on a tree next to the pool, he began to think about the challenges at CaRent and what he would have to accomplish as a new VP.

CaRent is a small car rental company in Los Angeles that specializes in renting within a city. It is modeled after Enterprise Rent a Car, where the customer is picked up and dropped off between their offices/homes and the renal office free of charge. The rate is very competitive and the cars, though small in numbers, are kept in excellent condition. Since its modest beginning, the company has seen the business growing steadily. Its customers vary from individual renters to large corporations.

One of the critical success factors of CaRent is its excellent customer service and its ability to keep its vehicles in top-notch condition. CaRent sees itself as a serious future competitor of Enterprise Rent a Car by satisfying the "Customers' Moment of Value" by delivering the exact product at the correct place at the time it is needed. So far things are working out, but some problems have started to show their ugly heads. As the customer base is growing, the company is facing a new problem, and that is of keeping information and inventory in order. Customers are being wrongly informed about the availability of a particular car type (which results in unnecessary free upgrades to a better car and thus loss of revenue), promotions are not targeted well, repeat customers are being asked the same questions about their addresses for drop-off/pick-up locations, and many customers are not getting their frequent flyer miles that they are supposed to get for renting with CaRent (CaRent has an agreement with Ameta Airlines for crediting 500 miles to the frequent flyer account for every day of rental). The maintenance records on the cars are getting mixed up as well resulting in delays in meeting the regular maintenance schedules on many cars.

The promotional department of CaRent works with the local hotels, travel agencies and tour operators to get the business and a fixed percentage commission (5% of the revenue) is paid for each referral. CaRent also gets a lot of business through their e-mail marketing and yellow page advertising. CaRent also does mass-mailing of coupons containing various discounts (5%, 10% and 15%). These promotions are not targeted at all and CaRent feels that the ROI on the promotions are rather low. It needs a system to identify the business coming from each marketing effort and better target the promotions.

Currently, the entire record keeping is done on paper at CaRent. Given the size of the company and the operation, it is manageable, though the signs of strains have started showing. Peter is afraid that the future growth of the company will make the operation completely chaotic if an electronic record keeping system is not put into place. He ponders about the various avenues as he puts on some more suntan lotion and suddenly remembers the conversation that he had the other day with the new intern, an AIMS major from LMU, and realizes that help may come from that direction. Needless to say, you are that person and you have to show your brilliance to Peter to help him and secure a position in this new growing company! How would you go about doing that?

Assume that the company currently has only two computers, one is used by the company secretary and the other one is used at the rental desk for printing the rental agreements. The computers are networked through a basic home networking Netgear router. The office has high speed connection for accessing the Internet. The computers are relatively new and are quite powerful in terms of processing, memory, storage etc. Peter wants to have a plan from you that can help the company. The plan should present a prototype of the proposed solution, explain the advantages of it, should include a rough budget, and should discuss the managerial issues that should be kept in mind in implementation of the plan including the future changes that may be required.