business case-critical succes factors online asignment

Executive Summary

The business case of Spring Corporation gives an outline on how new web-based platform will solve the current issues being faced the company. The organization has been operating for ten years. With the rapid expansion and increase in client base, the legacy mainframe system being used by the company has not been effective. A number of tasks are now impossible to perform thorough it. Some of these tasks are administrative, reporting, and payroll among others. This has led to increased overhead costs and reduced performance. Also, there is high employee turnover. Other things touched on in the paper are solution, project description, data flow diagram, budget and project timeline, and recommendations.

Spring Corporation is a consultancy firm that has been in operations for the past ten years. The organization has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. Spring Corporation has been growing at a rapid speed. However, growth without enough changes in the organizations makes Spring Corp. encounter some hurdles in its operations.

Problem Statement (Issue)

With the rapid expansion of the organization, the client base of Spring Corp. has increased so much. The increase in clients has made the organization to shift to decentralized business model for the past one year. The company has been forced to support the increased customers not only from one location but many locations where the organization is operating. This has brought about issues with regards to the administration if the company’s workforce. Administration of the workforce has become difficult. A number of the internal requirements of the organization are being performed through the legacy mainframe system. Some of these internal requirements are payroll activities, reporting, and resource management among others. The legacy mainframe system being used is the same one that was installed at the start of Spring Corporation. The legacy mainframe system is an old technology (Hakansson, 2015). With the rapid expansion being evident in the company, especially opening operations in different locations, legacy mainframe system has not been adequate when it comes to properly managing various administrative activities of the organization. The difficulties in the administration have lead to high employee turnover and increased cost. This has been seen in the past one year. There is immediate need for Spring Corporation to move to web-based applications. The benefits of this will be proper management of the company’s administration, reduce the high rate of employee turnover, and bring down costs that have gone up. Doing this will empower workers with the required responsibility of properly managing their administrative tasks. Also, workers will have easy access to online timesheets securely. The organization will also benefit from easy management of administration from a common platform and centralized location.

Analysis of the Situation

The old legacy mainframe system does not have the ability to handle all the activities of the organizations. This is because of the rapid expansion of Spring Corporation. This is a system that was installed in the organization ten years ago. It has become outdated, but the organization still relies on it to perform various tasks. It is now difficult for workers to perform their responsibilities. A number of things, such as payroll activities, reporting, and properly managing resources have become difficult to carry out since these were things that were being done through the legacy mainframe system. The decentralized business model has made operation and administration costs of the company to go up.

Also, Spring Corporation depends on mainframe system to manage administrative activities and payroll of workers. The burden placed on the headquarters of Spring goes up with the increase in the number of workers. The main office has the pressure of properly managing the administration of the company to an acceptable level. The company has been forces to employee a number of workers into the overhead positions. These workers were hired so as to assist in the running of administration activities. However, the positions do not give the organization good returns when it comes to investment. They do not improve the administration of the organization as is required. Moreover, workers are forced to call their regional managers so as to create awareness with regards to any matter related to administrative and payroll tasks or for their work hours to be entered. This increased the burden on managers who also have to work on their billable functions. Another area with many problems is seen on the part of reporting. This is because weekly and monthly financial reports are now generated manually because legacy mainframe system is overloaded. Manual generation of these reports increases the chances of errors. Also, much time is consumed in producing the reports.

Solution

The solution to the problems being seen is for the organization to move to web-based administration platform, which is centralized. Moving to a centralized web-based system will enable Spring Corporation effectively manage its administrative activities and payroll systems. Web-based system will easily consolidate many tasks (Syberfeldt, Karlsson, Ng, Svantesson, & Almgren, 2013). Due to this, there will be technology migration. The migration will have a number of benefits, such as bringing down the overhead costs that are incurred due to the need to have more workers to manage administration tasks. Additionally, the new system will enable the workers of Spring to effectively and easily manage their administrative tasks, reporting, and payrolls. The organization will also reap many benefits as a result of getting accurate financial reports and in a timely manner. Regional managers will have the ease of frequently updating various financial metrics of their branches. Many cases of errors that were present previously will be reduced. Information will be readily available as a result of improved cycle time.

Project Description

This project being considered by Spring Corp. is considering a web-based platform project. So, a number of potential products that are intended to replace the legacy mainframe system will be analyzed and reviewed. This will be carried out through determining and selecting a system that will enable the organization to run smoothly for the next ten years without any hick-ups (Mourtzis, Doukas, Psarommatis, Giannoulis, & Michalos, 2014). The new system should be able to offer more compared to the legacy mainframe system. Selection of the new system will replace the one that is currently being used. The implementation of the new system will be done in phases. Completion of the phases will mean that the new system is fully operational and the old one is no longer in use.

Greater efficiency will be obtained through full implementation of the new system. There will be the management of administrative and payroll operations as well as reporting. The high rate of employee turnover will be brought down since workers will be provided with much flexibility and autonomy. Also, the high overhead costs will go down as a result of using a new system. Other hand, managers will be able to direct much of their attention on billable tasks. The old system made them allocate some of the time to non-billable administrative activities. A request for information will be issued by the organization so as to establish the products that are available to ensure the needs of the company are met. On acquiring the products, implementation and proper monitoring of the new system will take place.

Data Flow Diagram

Budget and project timeline

Legacy mainframe system

· High overhead cost

· High employee turnover

· Reduces performance

Increased retention of workers

Low overhead cost

New web-based platform

Increased performance of Spring Corp.

Timeline

Recommendations

Spring Corporation should take advantage of the advancement in technology. Many organizations have succeeded in staying ahead of others due to proper utilization of technology (Simon, 2013). There needs to be acquisition and installation of the web-based platform. This will help the organization reduce its overhead costs and significantly improve business processes. What every organization wants is to meet its corporate objectives. Adoption of the new web-based platform is necessary to enable the company to meet its business objectives. Among the objectives that this new system will enable it to meet is integration of advanced technology, reduction of costs and expenses, and improving efficiency among others. The implementation of this project should be carried out in phases. Doing this should give the organization time to train its workers on ways of using the new system. Introducing a new system in an organization and not training workers on how to make use of the new system is like doing zero work. Workers should possess the required knowledge when it comes to using the web-based platform. The good thing with this new web-based platform is that it is compatible with many other systems that are being used today. Accuracy and efficiency when it comes to reporting will be enhanced in the company.

References

Hakansson, H. (Ed.). (2015). Industrial Technological Development (Routledge Revivals): A

Network Approach. London, UK: Routledge.

Mourtzis, D., Doukas, M., Psarommatis, F., Giannoulis, C., & Michalos, G. (2014). A web-based

platform for mass customisation and personalisation. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, 7(2), 112-128.

Simon, B. M. (2013). The Implications of Technological Advancement for Obviousness.

Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, 19, 331.

Syberfeldt, A., Karlsson, I., Ng, A., Svantesson, J., & Almgren, T. (2013). A web-based platform

for the simulation–optimization of industrial problems. Computers & industrial engineering, 64(4), 987-998.