SAI460 Course Project

Organizational Process Analysis

180 Points Total

Background

You are a senior member of the IT Management Team for SAI Toys, one of the leading manufacturers of products for Gifted Electrical Engineering Kids (GEEKs). The toys that the company sells are manufactured in-house and shipped to brick-and-mortar retailers, such as Best Buy and Target, as well as e-Commerce only sites, such as ThinkGeek.com and Buy.com. The company has no direct interaction with the final purchasers (individuals) of their products other than through warranty service.

The company has four distinct IT systems:

Public Website - provides information about each of the products, locations where someone can purchase them, and information about how to get warranty support. Details of warranty support and defect rates are not tracked, but the staff has anecdotal stories.

Manufacturing Support System (MSS) - maintains the supply chain information necessary for manufacturing the company's products, such as raw materials, vendors, and prices.

Human Resources System (HRS) - maintains and tracks personnel and benefits information.

Sales and Marketing System (SMS) - tracks the sales and marketing efforts of the company's sales force. Orders from this system are printed and sent daily to the MSS to be filled.

The current IT staff consists of 25 individuals. Five are assigned to maintain and operate each of the current IT systems, (except the HRS - only four work on that system). There are four support staff members that manage the internal help desk and provide network and workstation support for the internal company staff. The department is headed by the Vice President of IT and her Deputy Department Manager (you!).

Physically, the company has two buildings. The manufacturing building and warehouse are located on the east side of the city near the docks and the expressway. The executive and business offices, as well as the IT staff, are located in a separate building on the west side of the city.

Situation

The Board of Directors and the CEO have decided that they want to stay on the forefront of geekness, and therefore the company should integrate all of their IT systems. In addition, they want to develop a more robust web presence and sell their products directly to individual customers in addition to selling through traditional retailers as they currently are doing.

Assignment

You are to write a report of about 20 pages that outlines the situation, weighs various alternatives, and presents a final recommendation as to how the company should go about implementing this executive directive. (If you recommend it should not be done, you better have strong reasons!)

Your report should include the following sections. Please begin each with a heading so that the paper will be organized according to the board's request and will be is easier to follow.

Executive Summary

Provide paragraph(s) giving an overview of the report and your recommendations.

2) Current IT Situation [TCOs 1, 2, 3]

This section should contain an analysis of the current business environment using one of the formal tools discussed in Week #1: SWOT Analysis, Porter's Five Forces Analysis, Value Chain Analysis, or Competitive Strategy. I recommend SWOT and Competitive strategy, as the CEO is partial to those, but feel free to use the others.

This section should also include a sample UML Diagram or Swim-Lane Diagram showing an AS-IS process that will be changed by the current system.

3) Overview of Recommended System [TCOs 3, 5, 7, 10]

This section should have a high level description of the new system. Describe how the various systems currently in place will be replaced or integrated into the new system and what new features and information will be available to management. Discuss how the e-Commerce portion of the system can help the company and possible issues that could arise (Week #6). Also discuss if SOA would be of benefit to this project and how. You can include a few UML diagrams to help explain the new system. You should also include a TO-BE diagram for the AS-IS diagram in the previous section.

4) In-House versus Outsourcing Development [TCOs 4, 6]

Discuss the benefits and costs of developing this system in-house versus outsourcing the development (in-country or offshore?) or purchasing off-the-shelf. Make a final recommendation as to how we should develop the system, but also include some best practices for managing the project type (in-house/outsourced/off-the-shelf) so that we have a better chance of success. In determining vendors, discuss CCMI and ISO certifications and whether or not they should impact the decision here.

5) Stakeholder Buy-in and Internal Politics [TCOs 8, 9]

Discuss the stakeholders of this system and how we can get them to buy-in and support the system development. Present any other issues that may arise as a result of the internal politics in our company that could have a negative impact on the project. What should we do to reduce the risk of project failure due to internal issues?

6) ERP Project Failures and Lessons Learned [TCOs 6, 8, 9]

Present at least one ERP project that is similar to the one we are undertaking that failed. Discuss what when wrong with this implementation and what we can do to avoid the same failure.

7) Return on Investment and Total Cost of Ownership [TCOs 7, 11]

This section should include metrics that we can use to determine if the system was a success. Include how to measure the metrics, when baselines should be determined, and so forth. Give an overview of items the financial group should consider when determining the total cost of ownership and return on investment for this system. You do not need to compute the TCO and ROI; just give guidelines and methodologies for doing so.

8) Conclusion

This section should summarize the discussion in preceding report and give an overview of the recommendations and their supporting reasons.