Research

Case Analysis

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Contents Executive summary 3 The Problem statement 3 Case analysis 3 Alternatives 7 Alternative one 7 Alternative two 8 Alternative three 9 Alternative four 10 Alternative five 11 Decision criteria 12 Research 12 Consultation 13 Improving the existing system 14 Redoing the project 14 Training 15 Evaluation of the Alternative 16 Recommendation 17 Action and implementation plan 17 Reference 19

In this analysis, the research looks at the case study of the CDVS Company, which has a challenge of coming up with an IT system that will make its operation fast and reliable. The case study has been analyzed. The analysis also looks at the various alternative and criterion to use in implementing the alternatives. The essay also gives the best alternative and the plan to implement the best recommendation.

The company CVD is in need of an on-line store and an ERP system for it to optimize its sales and profitability in accordance to the current fashion industry.

The firm has been tone in between a situation where by it has to use an IT system that will favor the customers, buyers, employees and suppliers. It has to make its products easily accessible. Furthermore, it has to ensure that all the customers information and the history is well recorded. Furthermore, it has to ensure that all the product and the information is easily accessible to all the clients and the employees. The CDVS Company plans to achieve this by having an ERP system and an online store for its product.

The on-line store will allow all the clients to access the product and make their orders via a website. The company does not have a technical experience for putting up such a website. As a result the company has to find a way of coming up with the project. This will require the company to have enough resources also have the most qualified experts in the Programing department to ensure that the website run according to the company’s specifications and needs. Furthermore, the company has the challenge of ensuring that all its employees have enough knowledge of programming in order to update the website according to the changes that occurs.

Another major challenge that the company face in the implementation of the project is that the ERP and the online store have to be interfaced in such a way that they can have the exchange of information. This challenge occurs as result of the fact that the two systems have to be built by two different firms. The same firm cannot design the magento project and the ERP and therefore CVDS has to ensure that it becomes the mediator of the two consultancy firms to carry out the project in order to meet the company’s specification. This is quite a difficult task especially when the two firms do not understand each other. This therefore, forces the firm to make sure that both organization share information to ensure that they meet the CDVS company needs and specifications. This is demand because if one of the companies fails to carry out its obligation as agreed then the entire project will fail. Therefore, in choosing the two firms that will carry out the project are competent and have enough experience in carrying out the project as CDVS expects.

Furthermore, the company faces the challenge of the research carried out in ensuring that the right project is implemented. The right systems will only be designed if proper research is done. However, in the CDVS case the manager failed to agree on the right chose of research done by the IT manager. Instead, the company chose to follow the decision that made out of bias and the fact the advisor knew the company and a friend working in the company to contract for the ERP systems. The end of all this is the fact the company, which is INBIZ, failed to deliver as agreed. Therefore, for the company to be successful in the implementation proper research need to be done as in the case of the company to implement the on-line store system which had experience and did a perfect work in the entire project.

Another challenge that the company faces is the fact that it has to incur a huge financial burden to implement both the ERP and the online store project. Funding this project given that the company does not enough expertise to implement or design such a project will cost more as it has to outsource the technical labor. The other thing is that it can be easily lied to in the contract by the fact that there is no expertise in the company to implement such a project. This project requires a very careful evaluation to ensure that those working are fully aware of the company’s needs. Therefore, the fact that the company does not have staff who are familiar with such project means that it has to incur an extra cost of training its workers to familiarize with the programs. This is especially so with the technical teams who are essential after the implementation of the project for the purpose of updating the information on the website with the changing need of the customers.

Additionally the company faces the problem of how to transit from the older Raymark system to the new ERP system. The company cannot simply jump into the new ERP system without transferring all the data in the older system. It has to ensure that all the data concerning the customer history is transferred in the current system for the purpose of observing the marketing strategy. Furthermore, the company has to test the ability of the new system to serve its purpose before fully embracing the new ERP system. Therefore, for the first few months the company has to the two programs parallel to each other for security reasons.

Finally, the company employees will take time to adapt to the new system. Given that, the employees have been used to the older Raymark system it will take some time before the company employees get used to the new ERP system. Furthermore, given that the employees are not used to the programing used to design the program there are some errors that are bound to occur in the first few months that they will use the new system.

Several people in the organization will be affected by the implementation of the new project. Firstly, the senior manager in the IT department Kizna Nasri is affected by the fact that she has to carry a thorough research to ensure that the right firms and the most experienced firms win the contract of designing the program. Kizna also has the challenge of convincing the owner and founder of CDVS Antoine to sign the name he propose to carry out the project. The same issue faces Fadi the external IT manager/ advisor. This is not the only challenge facing the two, as they have to carry the burden if they make the wrong decision.

The other persons are all the senior managers who have to ensure that they get the proper training in using the new system. Furthermore, they have the responsibility of training the employees they are supervising. The other person majorly affected by the implementation of the project the IT manager who is responsible for ensuring that all the data in the previous system is transferred to the new system without the loss of any data. The employees are not left out, as they also have to ensure they adapt to the new system.

The company has the chance of improvement if the project succeeds. The employees will be able to enter the customer information, inventories, accounts, orders among much more important information in an easy, reliable and more accurate way. Then system also will give the organization the opportunity to spread a word about its products and design, which will give it a wider market. The system also gives the clients an opportunity to make an order and receive a quick response. This will give the company a high customer loyalty, as most of the organizations in the fashion industry do not have such system. The added advantage will allow the company to make more sales and the company will therefore expand its markets and increase its profitability.

The system if success will eliminate the cost of having many employees to file the records manually. The manual records need more employees to keep the records up to date. However, the digital record will only need a few employees to update. Moreover, the digital records are last longer than the manual records. The other advantage is that the digital records are easy to retrieve whenever needed. However, the manual records especially if not organized in a certain order are hard to retrieve. The final advantage of the digital records is that they are easy to share among member of staffs or even with external parties.

The first alternative that CDVS should carry out is having a thorough research before implementing the system. The first research area should be the customer needs. The system should be designed in such a way that the customer will be satisfied and will easily adapt to the system within the shortest time possible. The organization should know if the system would upset the client or not. A system that will upset the client no matter how good it is will lead to a reduction in the number of customers. This is not the desire that the company has, as this will lead to low profits and failure to expand. Therefore, the research should seek to know what the customers want and the way the system can in corporate this factor.

The other issue to be reached is how the employees will easily adapt with the technology that is to be used. In this case, the organization should ensure in meeting the company’s needs the system will take a reasonable time for the employee to understand and know how to use without making errors. This will translate to low costs of training and will ensure that there is reliability and accuracy.

The other thing to research is the success the system has had in the same industry and even in the other industry. The research in this sector involves observing the system been used in the industry. The things to look out in this research include the advantage such system has offered to the companies using them, the limitation of using such system and the cost of operating such programs. The advantage of such a research in the first place it helps in estimating the cost the company will incur in running such a system. Furthermore, it will help in the determination of the viability of using such a system in the company situation. Finally, it will give the company the chance to know the kind of organizations offering the service at the price and quality.

Furthermore, the company should research on the companies that are offering such services in the market. The company should interact with IT service provider to find out the companies that are the most recommended to offer each of the service. Furthermore, this will help the company get the highest quality service at a fair price. This will give the company a higher assurance of success than when it does not carry such a research.

The second alternative is that the company top management should consult with its IT expert before making the decision of the firm that will offer the service. The decision maker in CDVS should take the advice of the IT expert Kizna who has done an indepth research of the appropriate firm to offer the best service that are assured of succeeding. Kizna has attended several conferences in IT and also met with a number of IT expert to gather information of the firms that offer the best ERP design services (Savery, 2015).

Therefore, the IT manager is in a better position of offering the best solution to the firm unlike Fadi who has not carried out any research. In choosing INBIZ, which is proposed by Fadi the external IT advisor, Antoine the founder of the company fails. The founder of the company who has the final decision makes this decision because Fadi is a close friend of his and Kizna is just his child. He is blinded by the friendship and the longterm relationship with Fadi instead of taking the best option, which could have been offered by Kizna. Fadi picks INBIZ, which is a young firm with no experience in such large, and sensitive project because his friend works for the firm instead of looking at the ability of the company carrying out such a project.

Therefore, in making the decision to choose the company that should have designed the ERP system the company should have done the same way they did in making the decision for the on-line store design. The company that is chosen for designing the online system is experienced in the field and has built over 600 of such system. That why the online store is delivered perfectly but for the ERP system there is failure. Therefore, the company should have ensured that it choses an experienced firm to offer the ERP design services.

The third option the company could take is improving the existing Raymark system. The company can continue using the older system but at the same time add more features to it to ensure that it corresponds with the current trend in the industry. Firstly, it can do this by designing the online store and eliminating the manual recording to digital recording. In this way, it will be able to compete fairly well in the global market where most firms are selling their products in the online sector (Min, & Smyth, 2014).

Secondly, while using the Raymark system it can optimize its social media platforms. This is attainable by the use of its social media sites to mobilize more customers into buying the company’s product. In the world today, most companies are using the social media as a means of marketing their product and for any fashion company it has to ensure it is not left behind to survive in the market. A very important social media tool in the fashion industry is instagram whereby people share their photographs online. Therefore, for the company to succeed it has to display all its design in the social media (Porat, & Tractinsky, 2012).

Additionally the company has to ensure that Raymark is error free to avoid the losses it experiences. Even though, the company has been growing with the use of the old system, the company needs to block the loopholes in the system to ensure that the losses due to the loopholes are minimal. This will enable the company to keep growing and succeed in the global market.

The fourth alternative that the company can use is taking a second chance with another company that has experience in the design of the ERP systems. This is by ensuring that it goes back on its drawing board and identify all its needs. After identify its needs it should seek for a firm that has previously done such a project and worked properly for an ERP that is to be used for multiple locations.

The company to be chosen for the second project furthermore should be well equipped in terms of the software and hardware requirements. The company furthermore should be ready to cooperate with the online store provider. This will allow the company to mediate the two firms to design the ERP and the Magneto systems easily.

Furthermore, the role of mediating the two firms to design the systems should be contracted to an external contractor that has the experience in such design. The fact that CDVS does not have enough experts to design and operate the system it would be much efficient if the firm gave all the specification to another firm that is more experienced in the design to mediate the two firms designing the system to ensure that the firm is able to correct the two where they go wrong. Furthermore, this will mean that the three firms will deliver the required design in term, as CDVS is not involved in the design process at all.

The fifth and the final alternative that the company would have is employing expert who can train CDVS technical team to design both the ERP and the online store. This actually can be the best alternative, as the employees would not have any conflicts. Furthermore, this alternative is cheaper and if there is any failure in the system, it will be easy to debug and remove all bugs at no extra charge. The other advantage of this alternative is that the employees are already familiar with the older system. This gives the experiences and the knowhow of where the old system had weakness. Therefore, in designing the system will manage to eliminate all the failure and the errors within the older system.

Therefore, by training the existing employees the process of designing the system the company gains the advantage of cheaper design, cooperation, and low maintenance costs. Furthermore, the system will be more familiar to the employees by the time it comes to the implementation stage.

Research is an important and integral part of making any decision for any company. The research can be carried through several methods. The methods include observations, interviews, statistical data and questionnaires. The company should go out and observe how the ERP and the on-line store systems have been working for other companies. By carrying such observation the company will decide if the implementation is appropriate for the company. Furthermore, such observation allows the company to take statistics of the firms that have successfully used the system and those that have failed by using the system. This statistics is vital in the company making the decision of whether to use or not to use the system. Observation is done by attending various seminars and even observing the trend in the use of the systems through online search.

Statistics is taken by recording the various organizations that have implemented these programs. Take the statistic of the firms that have become successful by use of the same program. There is also the need for CDVS to take the statistics of the firms that have failed by use of the program. Then the statistics should be categorized according to the sector. This will give a clear picture of the sector, which have successfully used the program. Furthermore, it will show where the program has failed. The other statistics that the company ought to collect is the number of the company that provide the system design and the ones that have done it successfully done it many times.

Interviews and questionnaires are important for the company to do. First, the company should interview the customers to access their needs. The interviews will be met to show if the customers are in favor of the project or not. The other group that should be interviewed is the employees who will show how the system should be designed to ensure that the program would fit their working.

The final decision maker should first consult with all the employees that spearhead the program before deciding the people to contract for the project. For instance in this case study Antoine should have listened to the opinion of all the managers concerned before giving the contract to INBIZ Company that finally failed in its end of the deal. Failure to consult with all the employees leads to great loss both in term of finances and time.

Therefore, Antoine in making the next decision after the failure of the program should listen to what all his managers have to say. Furthermore, he should also consult external advisor who can give a second opinion and after weighing all the decision then make the right decision. This way the company chances of failure reduce and if they failure the Antoine does not become the sole person to blame.

The existing system can be improved by carrying out a thorough search and revisiting it to see where it is going wrong. After the research, the company should take the corrective measure to ensure it is operating as expected. Both internal personnel and external firms should do the performance evaluation. The internal personnel that are most fit to do the evaluation are the once that directly interact with the system. After they have found the weakness then they should write a detailed report and pass it to the senior management.

The external firm should be a firm that is very familiar with the fashion industry market. The main objective of the external firm is to understand the market trend in the market. Furthermore, they should observe what other firms in the fashion industries using the Raymark are doing to succeed. Then the firm should do a comparison with CDVS operation and write a detailed report, which it should submit to the firm management.

In both the reports, there should be a list of the failures and error in the system. Furthermore, the reports should give recommendations of what the firm should do to rectify the errors. Once the management gets the report, they should take into consideration the best recommendation and implement them in order to improve the firms operations.

The other criterion is that the firm should go back to the drawing board and take another opportunity with another firm. This time the company has to take a serious research to ensure that, it contracts a firm that will be able to deliver according to the agreement. The company has to seek for a company with a high experience in the ERP system. Furthermore, it should also seek another firm to carry the mediation between the online store designer and the ERP designer.

The company should post tender for company to apply for the design of the program and mediating firm. In the tender, they should state all the specification and the qualification that the firm applying should have. The firm should give the minimum requirement and the term and condition that will be used to implement the project. After the firms have applied, the company should do the selection and look for the companies that best fit the work. The company should then give a time through which the project should be complete and the consequences of bleaching the contract to the firms allocated the contract.

The final criterion is giving training to the firm’s employees. The first step is to seek expert who will train the employees how to design the ERP and the online software. The firm should place an advertisement in the media seeking for individuals who are qualified in training people ERP and online store design (Hoffer, 2012).

The advert should be precise stating all the specification required for the trainers. The specification may include the education level and the experience the trainer has in the field.

Then the company should choose the best-qualified trainer. Once the trainers are employed, the firm should then select a team of employees who will join the training program. The company management should give the duration of time through which the training will go on. Once the training is over the employee should be tested. Once they pass the test, the company should immediately deploy them to begin the process of designing the system.

The first alternative, which is research, has the advantage in that it is easy to carryout and is cheap. However to implement this alternative is quite trick especially if the outcome of the alternative is not what the company expects

The second alternative is advantageous in that one individual does not take all the responsibilities for a failure that occur. Furthermore, it reduces the level of risk that the firm faces. The disadvantage of the alternative comes in when the senior or the key decision maker think he is above all the employees and that his decision should be final even if it is wrong.

The third alternative is advantageous in that it the employee will not have a hard time in adapting to the working routine (Schmitz Weiss, & Domingo, 2010).

. However, there is a high chance that there are some problem that will not be solved by implementing tis alternative.

The forth alternative has the advantage of having less risk of failure. Furthermore, the alternative will result in the company having a better and a more reliable system.

The final alternative has the advantage of employee been familiar with the program even after implementation. Furthermore, it is cheap. Additionally the maintenance cost when this alternative is taken will be minimal.

The essay takes alternative five as the best alternative. The alternative involves training the employees to implement the system themselves. This alternative is advantageous in a number of ways. First, it is cheap to implement compared to all other alternatives. Secondly, by training the employee the cost of maintenance will drop to zero. Furthermore when the employee are the one to install the project then they become familiar with it faster than when it is designed by external firms. Finally, the employee been familiar with the previous system they are the one best suited to design the system to the right specification. Therefore, the list of advantages for this alternative is many and therefore, it is the best alternative.

The firm will employ four trainers on a one-month contract to be paid $12000 for the one month period. The firm will have 20 of the employees from the technical department undergo the training with each having an allowance of $100 each for the period. After the one-month training the employee are expected to design and implement the system in a period of 5 months. Therefore, the program is expected to take 6 months.

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