Dear Board of Directors,

         Our past meeting with the IT consultants has been a pleasant enrichment experience; as our company looks forward to continue in growing and expanding our clientele.

         Unfortunately, I won’t be able to participate in our next meeting this coming Tuesday. As our company approaches one of our biggest challenges to retain our customer market share and continue expanding. For this reason, I am committed to contribute my personal view of our company and what I believe we should focus and learn from our IT consultants.

        Our IT consultants clearly understand our challenges and our advantages against our competitors. We have learned and disrupted our business model by using closed loop marketing. As we continue to grow we might face new challenges to retain our customers. New threats for competition may arise as businesses learn from our business model that infrastructure investments are not as profitable as closed loop marketing investments and IT software investments.

         Our IT consultants have recommended a suitable re-designed website that connects our card rewards programs to our customers. Here customers will be able to manage and choose their best deals as we continue to learn from them what they like to continue inducing them to play more with us. Our IT consultants clearly understand our objectives which are increasing revenues by giving customers more reasons to play at Harrah’s.

         In addition, the IT consultants have recommended us to opt for the Online Gambling industry. They have shown us that although online-gambling is not allowed in the U.S. it is one of the fastest and growing business in the world. As this approach is new to our company some questions have aroused from this recommendation. As Harrah’s wouldn’t be able to benefit our U.S. stockholder’s from online-gambling due to illegalness in the U.S., Will Harrah’s operate internationally under another entity? Questions of maintaining Harrah’s culture and reputation have also been brought up in our last meeting. Our separate entities will allow us to gain new international market and use projected profits for future infrastructure investments.

         In conclusion, although our competitors possess with larger amounts of capital investments. Harrah’s has a main competitive advantage among our major competitors; the advantage of experience on what customers like/prefer. This advantage will enable us to continue improving our home-base customer retention by enhancing our IT software with newer investments. While also continuing disrupting our business model internationally by looking new industries such as online-gambling.

Harrah's Reflection

Dear Board of Directors,

                Our past meeting with the IT consultants have been a pleasant enrichment experience; as our company looks forward to continue in growing and expanding our clientele.

                Unfortunately, I won’t be able to participate in our next meeting this coming Tuesday. As our company approaches one of our biggest challenges to retain our customer market share and continue expanding. For this reason, I am committed to contribute my personal view of our company and what I believe we should focus and learn from our IT consultants.

                Our IT consultants clearly understand our challenges and our advantages against our competitors. We have learned and disrupted our business model by using closed loop marketing. As we continue to grow we might face new challenges to retain our customers. New threats for competition may arise as businesses learn from our business model that infrastructure investments are not as profitable as closed loop marketing investments and IT software investments. 

Our IT consultants have recommended a suitable re-designed website that connects our card rewards programs to our customers. Here customers will be able to manage and choose their best deals as we continue to learn from them what they like to continue inducing them to play more with us. Our IT consultants clearly understand our objectives which are increasing revenues by giving customers more reasons to play at Harrah’s.

In addition, the IT consultants have recommended us to opt for the Online Gambling industry. They have shown us that although online-gambling is not allowed in the U.S. it is one of the fastest and growing business in the world. As this approach is new to our company some questions have aroused from this recommendation. As Harrah’s wouldn’t be able to benefit our U.S. stockholder’s from online-gambling due to illegalness in the U.S. Will Harrah’s operate internationally under another entity? Questions of maintaining Harrah’s culture and reputation have also been brought up in our last meeting. Our separate entities will allow us to gain new international market and use projected profits for future infrastructure investments.

In conclusion, although our competitors possess with larger amounts of capital investments.   Harrah’s has a main competitive advantage among our major competitors; the advantage of experience on what customers like/prefer. This advantage will enable us to continue improving our home-base customer retention by enhancing our IT software with newer investments. While also continuing disrupting our business model internationally by looking new industries such as online-gambling. 

Harrah's preparation case

Lessons learned:

In order to execute their business strategy Harrah’s needed to invest in Information Technology that was required to integrate data from a variety of sources

o   Patron database

o   Marketing workbench

· Harrah needed to understand critical concepts such as understanding and managing relationships with their customers

o   Where customer gambled

o   How often customer gambled

o   How much customers gambled

o   What games customers played

·         Understand other business strategies investments and costs experiences

o   Analyze Las Vegas hotels and casinos that invested a lot of money and resulted on great costs that cut their investments returns in half

o   Obtain a more cost-effective route to attract, maintain, and enhance customer relationships.

·         Building stronger customer experience by using marketing and business strategies

o   Loyalty cards or reward credits

§  Tracking of expenditure

§  Customer behavior and preference

o   Data warehouse

o   Closed loop marketing  

Actionable items in future project in reference to lessons learned

Executing learned business strategy to continue expanding.

Having learned customer’s behaviors and likes Harrah’s won’t need to spend much in investments in order to learn customer’s preferences. This will allow Harrah to focus on other types of investments such as enhancing software and technology infrastructure in their business. This action will allow them to focus much more on their retention level while achieving a strong growth expansion.

·         Harrah’s experience on rewards card should bring it to the next level and find out better ways to attract new customers in different areas to continue their expansion.

·         Harrah has gained a lot of experience from reducing costs and increasing profitability for the company. Harrah can use this knowledge to enhance their data warehouse and loop marketing strategy.

Recommendation

·         Harrah should invest more money on IT finding new ways of interacting with clients. Ex: implement mobile apps to see rewards points, redemption offers, or special targeted offers for those who can be high potential customer. Features in apps could include:

o   Variety of visual options for hotel rooms, shows or entertainment options for them

o   Could easily access through their app and hit accept offer

o   Develop new technology that links apps with games inside the casinos

§  Devices could easily scan the machines where they would play and avoid carrying cards

Harrah should maintain their competitive advantage on customer retention and fast expansion. They would be to accomplish this goal by investing in new ways to interact with customer and continue building stronger relationships. 

Bombardier Reflection

Dear Board of Directors,

With great honor I commend our fellow IT consultants for giving a great presentation on the result of the implementation of our ERP.  After having doubted the success of the implementation because of the failure we had concurred on the first attempt back in 2000 and our company severed a $130M loss.   

After reviewing my notes on the presentation, I felt confident to have a team that is driven and that is able to deliver such great data accuracy as they did with the Saint-Laurent Plant with a data accuracy of 97%. 

I truly believe that this success was driven to our company because more employees began taking ownership of their programs.  The implementation of the integrated system allows employees to interchange data from one plant to another and become more accurate when extracting data.  The system had been evolved by experts in their fields.

After many hours of dedication and team training that went in to developing the process we were able to implement a successful ERP.  The success for our company will continue to always grow because our employees take ownership of their work and have clearly defined roles.  I am confident that Bombardier will continue to be successful as long as they continue to have a strong relationship with their work.          

                The IT consultants shared with us their level of importance for their Saint Laurent Grading chart. I agree that “Maintain Right Governance Model” should be noted as 10 for level of importance. The IT consultants graded this with an 8.5 under the Saint Laurent implementation. Our company should focus in bringing this grading of an 8.5 to a 10. This qualification should be measured to ensure better project governance in terms of decision making, cooperation, transparency and communication between the project team and business side.  

The IT consultants graded the criterion of Ensuring Project team with Competence with an 8.5. It is very important that we know our team is capable of doing a task before it is given to them.  We must add more sophisticated training for our staff. This will create a competitive advantage in our company by adding more skilled workers and improving productivity. As a result, we will improve our grading to a 10. This action will influence our next Criterion of “Deliver post go-live support” to improve by creating a knowledgeable staff followed with proper and advanced training.  The establishment of employee functions is very important. Goals will never be met, if employees do not complete their tasks because they either neglect their task or are unsure that a task is supposed to be given to them. 

             In addition we will continue delivering Strong Executive Sponsorship. In the past, executive sponsorship was not always ensured.  Directors would lead to failure by example when they did not delegate the proper tasks.  Directors that were supposed to attend workshops would send managers in their place, in which then managers would send buyers to go in their place.  Therefore instead of having directors be experts in a certain field they relied too much on their employees to carry out the new processes. 

              In conclusion, I believe our grading chart shouldn’t include too many requirements. We should focus in those that were graded low in the Saint Laurent implementation and bring them to a grade of a 10 while continuing improving our other criterions. These actions will allow us to focus in avoiding possible further losses and learning from our mistakes as of those in year 2000.  

Sincerely, 

Ronald A Rojas

MS Project

Dear Mr. Garner,

         After our recent conversation of considering MS project for our current acquisition process, I have cautiously analyzed and researched it. 

       Our company is going through a major acquisition process by XYZ Bank. XYZ Bank Fund Services has acquired our hedge fund administration business. XYZ Bank now will benefit by expanding internationally at the London Headquarters and in the Cayman Islands.  This major acquisition from December last year has influenced major changes for our offices abroad and our local offices in New Jersey. XYZ Bank total investment in infrastructure and software development totals $15 million.  These major IT management infrastructure decisions and Project management decisions needs to be accompanied by a project management software that will add value to our infrastructure and software development through our acquisition process.

     M.S. Project certainly addresses all of our needs in terms of planning, testing, and going live. Project managers can facilitate this software acquisition by organizing, planning and developing projects. MS Project offers a unique software that helps them to create a time-line for the project. In addition, it gives the tool for the project manager to easily add cost and working hours in certain schedules that are needed to complete different tasks. Our recent acquisition by a major Bank required us to always make our deadlines and always be time efficient, as well as run statistics of duration of project and cost of project. Microsoft Project includes tools that help analyze and give statistics on the duration of the project and to when to expect our project to be culminated. Our acquisition project includes tasks of software proposal, infrastructure planning, software and hardware development, staff training and launching of software.

      The following screen is an example of how a project breakdown would look by attempting to all of our tasks for the recent acquisition. The Gantt chart shown in the screen shot will help project managers to input costs, time schedules, working hours, etc. In addition, Project managers can use the Project Statistics chart to have a summary of what they expect from the project.

         The cost of Microsoft Project is $1,159. We currently hold six project managers that are currently working in London, Cayman Islands, New Jersey, New York, California and Wisconsin. The total investment for using MS Project will be our current project managers would be of $11,590 + tax this total cost will include our 6 project manager plus our 4 board of directors that will need the software to review the project.

In conclusion, MS Project has been used broadly for civil engineering projects, manufacturing projects, cost allocation management projects etc. This investment will add value and efficiency to our recent acquisition process by keeping connected our project managers with our IT and support department followed by future building infrastructure planning.

            

Bombardier Preparation Case

      Bombardier, a large enterprise in the aerospace industry had been using the same ERP system for over the past two decades.  The past ERP had been sufficient, but as the world’s third largest designer and manufacturer of commercial aircrafts, Bombardier strived to become more efficient.  In order to keep up with the competition, with one of their bigger competitors’ a Brazilian-based companies, Embraer, it was necessary to come up with a wider focus ERP.  “One Company” was the name of special project that was envisioned by the Vice President of Operations and Project Sponsor.  As an outcome, a new integrated system would be implemented in which employees can interchange data from one plant to another by using a universal system with the same processes.  As a result, this was thought to become more a business transformation instead of technology implementation.  The company vision had also been outdated and the sponsorship model was weak.  The failed attempt was due to insufficient involvement of internal employees. 

       The first attempt to implement a new ERP was made in 2000.  After spending $130M, the project had been terminated because it had failed.  BMIS would be carrying out the second attempt at integrating and implementing a new ERP.  The system began with a vision, made by more internal team members as opposed to many third-party consultants to handle the project.  The ration of employees to consultants was now 10:1, the ratio was reversed on the first failed attempt when the employee to consultant ratio was 1:10.  Once the system had been designed by many experts in their field, the implementation phase would take over six years instead of a ‘big bang’ approach.  BMIS would be implemented at one branch at a time.  The first plant to have implemented the ERP was the Mirabel plant.  The first roll-out at the Mirabel plant was considered to be a controlled pilot.     

Once the implementing of the new ERP begun, the enterprise had determined that the individual businesses would be responsible to cleanse their data.  The BMIS team extracted, mapped, staged, and consolidated all data which was required before uploading and implementing to the target systems before Go Live.  BMIS managers also prepared many integration tests all which lead to the successful Go Live.   Less than one year after Go Live, the ERP helped save $1.2 billion in inventory expenses at the Mirabel Plant.  This was a big success after so many failures.  It did not take long before there was an increase in users and believers that were starting to see that the system made their lives easier.  Even with problems during the roll-out phase, it is evident that after the ERP had been implemented there have been many indicators that the ERP had increased the business’ performance. 

      The success of the system implemented at the Mirabel Plant encouraged many directors at the Saint-Laurent Plant that embraced the change.  There has to be a strong relationship between the business team and the project.  More hands were on deck for this project, as the employees were aware they would have more success if they took ownership in their vision for the BMIS project.  In the Go Live of the Saint-Laurent Plant a data accuracy of 97% was reached.  In the implement of the ERP in both the Mirabel and Saint-Laurent plant, it is evident that after dedication of their experienced employees and training the project was a big success.  
         The result of the project is highly important just as the process, dedication, and team training that went in to developing the process.  An integrated process developed by a successful team, does not only prove the company’s current success but it also forecasts a successful future for the company that always collaborates and takes ownership of their work.  I expect that the company will continue to grow and work better as a team as long as the business team has a strong relationship with their work. 

Ubuntu VS Windows

Dear Mr. Garner,

It is to my greatest pleasure to aid in your request to find out whether Ubuntu or Windows is the greater operating system.  I have cautiously researched and analyzed the benefits and threats for both Operating Systems.

Our company has administered around 200+ hedge funds in the past with over $16 billion in assets. Let’s not forget that the recent acquisition from XYZ Bank have expanded to $40 billion in assets to be administered by our fund. The acquisition from XYZ Bank has changed the way of taking MIS/IT decisions due to US Bank centralized decision policy. Our IT decision now counts for 65,000 employees in our company from our previous 175 employees. US bank IT infrastructure have currently invested $1.5 million on our 175 employees. The following table is our current breakdown of the investment. 

Our company has invested $ 775,000 in a home-software called the “workstation”. In addition, we have added a new software “Shadow Financial System”. This investment on technology and software upgrades are compatible with Windows O.S. “Shadow” notably improve our cash management, position management (all of our securities), stock record and general ledger. Our Net. Developers have designed our home-software the “workstation” to be compatible to Windows. The “workstation” allows our Hedge Funds (clients) to login on the web and download easily any report they want such as change in profit and loss reports (Month to date, Year to date), Income statements, balance sheets, Historical PnL Reports, etc. Although our clients will be able to log in from any server I am concerned in our middle office department for uploading all the reports. If they were to use Ubuntu as their main operating system, how risky would it be for the company to mishandle or input the wrong information in our system due to incompatibility issues? Our company’s goal is to administer by the end of 2014 around $40 billion in security assets. Most of our foreign investors require us to use efficient and high quality software to manage their reports. Ubuntu offers libreOffice which is a similar version of Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office in comparison to libreOffice has the market reputation for business use. Our domestic and foreign investors expect us to deliver and receive all of the documentations and reports in certain formats. I decided to use Ubuntu libreOffice and ran a derivatives analysis report in excel. When I opened the file in Ubuntu, it did give me the conversion option to see it and edit it on LibreOffice. However, a message alerted me and I asked myself several questions.  What if our investors are not able to save our files due to formatting issues? How important is it for our company to save time and peace of mind to our clients? Do we want to frustrate our clients by using another office software? (All of our clients use Microsoft office). 

                Ubuntu is really attractive is similar to Apple’s operating system. It has a lot off applications that can be accessible and downloaded. However, the usage of a free Operating System will negatively impact our image. We manage billions of dollars and our clients expect more than a free version to run recs/reports.

                The ITTwist.com site has rated Windows 4/5 compared to Ubuntu 3.5/5. I found this comparison chart from the same website that allow us to see the comparison between both operating systems.

Points Of Comparison	Windows 8	Ubuntu 12.04
Platform	Microsoft	Linux
Safety	Less	More
Internet Speeds	More	Less
Graphics	It Has Metro Desktop Environment, Which Seems More Stable Than Aero In Windows 7	More Efficiently Desktop Environments For Eg; Cinnamon Desktop, Default Unity Theme, LUBUNTU(Older System)
Cost	$200	Free
Compatibility	It has a bundles of Applications & Integrated Environment Which Seems More Catchy & Elegant	It Has No Ability to Run Windows Applications But You Can Run It By Installing WINE
Speed	Very Much Faster Speed As compare to previous versions	Faster & Much Improved OS
GUI	Great Graphical User Interface In METRO UI But have a lots Of BUGS	Great GUI Wih Unity , You can Experience the Ultimate Graphics by Installing MAC Like Dock Named CAIRO DOCK
Boot time	8s	9s
Shutting down Time	16s	8s

Source: “http://www.ittwist.com/2012/12/windows-8-vs-ubuntu-1210-complete-review.html"

The compatibility section certainly points out the risk of not being able to work efficiently with Ubuntu operating system. As a result. our company will not only lose $1.5 million in our prior investment but will negatively impact our image and reputation to our investors.

Although Ubuntu offers great features, Ubuntu does not fit into our business perspective. Why? Ubuntu can cause a lot of issues for compatibility. Ubuntu can certainly be used for other types of business such as limousine/ taxi, cosmetic, bakery and other businesses. LibreOffice will allow these small-businesses to create data bases and save certain files without buying addition a fancy software such as MS office. Small businesses will be able to complete all of their basic needs with this software. Basic needs would be such as, keeping inventory logs, creating charts, and small presentations for staff members. Small business usually don’t start with a lot of capital. This free Operating system will allowing them to save money while using great software features that enhances their businesses’ needs.

For all these reasons, I believe upgrading to Windows latest software will allow us to adding more value to our clients while easily flowing through our new software acquisitions. We will focus more on improving our technology and making technology easier for our clients rather than adventuring with a new operating system that could create a negative impact for our business.

Zara's Reflection

Dear Board of Directors:

The argument of whether or not we should upgrade our POS system has already been presented to me by our IT consultants; however I regretfully inform you all that I will not be able to attend the meeting in which the agenda will be to strictly discuss the current POS system this coming Thursday.  In order to assure that there is no under representation from our department I would like to present you all with the material and information the IT consultants presented for us and give my proper recommendation. 
Currently our POS terminals are running on a DOS software, which will eventually become obsolete.  We are the only one of our vendor’s customers that is using this system to run our POS application.  Even though it does run over the DOS system we cannot be assured that our vendor will not make major changes to their hard drive.  Unfortunately, we cannot take the word of our vendor if it is not in writing.  We need to update our POS application and be able to run it on a more current operating system that will add functionality as well as be connected to a network.  We are at major fault for not having thought in the potential increase of customers as well as retention of satisfied customers if we were able to make sure at all times that all of our shoppers had a great experience in-store. 
It is very important that we become connected to a network and to our headquarters at all times.  In order to make sure that our customers always leave happy, we need to make sure that supply meets demand.  If a customer comes to a store looking for a particular blouse but we do not have their size, we need to make sure in the most efficient way possible how to find the blouse for the customer and how to get it to the customer.  Our PDA handhelds are not the most efficient way to look up store inventory.  The PDA’s are only able to register the SKU of a particular item after being scanned.  In order to find out if the blouse is located at another location, we will have to bring the customer to the terminal and explain to them that they will have to call several stores until they find a store that has it.  The customer will potentially become irritated for having wasted so much time looking for a blouse that our store does not have. 

I recommend that we update our software to a more compatible and current operating system.  We have a highly trained IT team, and I am strongly confident of our managers and their ability to learn a new operating system.  By updating our system, we will be able to create a lot more functionality for our PDA’s and have more accurate information.  I hope that you all have a better idea about where you may stand on the issue of upgrading to a new operating system. Please prepare yourselves accordingly as I believe this meeting will truly shape the future for this company.  

P.S. I have attached a table to consider the reasons to upgrade OS.

iPad for Success

Dear Bill Wolfson and Tom Armstrong,

                Upon the request of choosing among the Ipads and the Laptops; it is to my greatest pleasure to help you with the investigation process in determining which is the best option for your sales rep team.

              

  Prior to my recommendation I would like to include certain articles that will add value to this research analysis. “Use of iPads among pharmaceutical sales representatives doubles in one year” by MedReps.com. This article shows the significant impact that iPads have on influencing doctors’ behavior when considering which drugs to prescribe. Another Article found on tabtimes.com “Four ways tablets can help the modern sales rep”, clearly emphasizes on four different ways tablets can make sales reps more effective: information on demand, Geo Location, Productivity, The wow factor (impressing your customers with high technology)

Taking in to consideration all these features and benefits that makes an iPad more valuable than a laptop, I will focus on certain requirements that we define certain criteria that are needed for the complete success of our business. The iPad column certainly addresses all of our requirements and improve every criteria in our chart. The importance column is measured within a range from 1 to 5. The number five represents the highest level of importance for our company’s objectives; meanwhile, a grade of zero will not meet our requirements.

             

Information on Demand: Our sales reps need to be updated with all current information. iPads in addition to WIFI provide Hotspots. This technology adds more internet reliability for our sales reps. Laptops in comparison are mostly restricted to WIFI.

             Productivity and Saving Time:  Amrahp LLC currently holds 25% old computers that are 4 years old and 23% of them are 3 years old. With this information our current laptops uses Windows 7. Cnet.com (See reference table below) ran a test to see how long a windows 7 laptop takes to turn on and the result was 228.567 seconds which is equivalent to 3.8095 minutes. Based on our limited time to see a doctor we need about 30 seconds to 1 minute per interaction. The laptop on the other hand can be on sleep mode and can still take about 5-8 seconds to resume. An iPad, in contrary, has the ability to last for 10 hours, does not need to be on sleep note. It takes approximately 1.05 seconds to resume. In addition the iPad can multi-task many applications at the same time. We can certainly use significant application that can result in a positive advantage to our sales reps. One of the applications that can be used would be rxvantage. This app can be easily downloaded from the app store. Sales reps have access to see their appointments, canceled appoinments, search for territories; save time by using scheduling through the app. Sales reps through the app can communicate with the main office through their direct connection feature that includes communicating with their office managers, view provider profiles, etc. All other information, such as daily reports, travel and expense report can be modified through many apps available for pharmaceutical business, in addition to apps in the market such as Google drive and others.

Saving money/Costs: Laptop costs can range from $1,000 to $1200 giving us a median of $1,100. An iPad can range from $500 to $800 giving us a median of $650. Our total approx. investment for our 2000 employees if we opt for laptops would be $2.2 million meanwhile our total approx. 4 years investment for iPads would be $1.3 million. Opting for using iPads would result in almost $1 million in our 4 years investment.

Uncover hidden opportunities: The Geo-Location feature on iPads help sales reps to constantly search for territories to find hidden opportunities for sales. These opportunities are delivered in real time allowing sales reps to save time and get to their destination faster and allows them to increase their goals of visits per day, resulting in more doctor visits = more revenue for the company.

Ease of use: Sales reps would be able to provide marketing information from our tablets, avoiding to put it on a table, or carry to see it which will create a friendly environment adding relationship building with customers.  

Security:  iPads can use a mobile device manager (MDM) system; this technology helps monitor when iPads connect with internal systems. Laptops in comparison do not offer that feature.

           I have also researched companies that their sales reps are currently using iPads and those are: Pfizer, Stryker, Novartis, Medtronic (See Reference Table). Pfizer had already anticipated savings of $500,000 just from printing saving costs on avoiding printing training materials, and sales manuals.

         

  In conclusion, many pharmaceutical companies have realized that there are many reasons as to why invest in new technological advances such as iPads. Opting to choose iPads over laptops will certainly create positive advantage over our sales reps. This action will create more business opportunities and will generate savings in costs for our company.

Sincerely, 

Ronald A Rojas

References:

http://www.medreps.com/pharmaceutical-sales-job-news/use-of-ipads-among-pharmaceutical-sales-representatives-doubles-in-one-year/

http://tabtimes.com/analysis/sales/2012/11/20/four-ways-tablets-can-help-modern-sales-rep

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20101652-285/find-your-computers-boot-time-in-windows-7/

Zara Case Preparation

Summary:

·         Zara is the largest chain retail store owned by Intidex, one of the world’s largest fashion distributors

·         Biggest competitors are H&M, the Gap, and Benetton.   Unlike these companies, Zara does not predict trends; Zara produces clothes that are fashionable now and is constantly changing styles.   

·         Original design conception to finished production takes about 3 weeks and is on the sales floor two days later

·         POS application software was written internally by the IT department

Key Issue:

Zara is using DOS, an older Operating System that is no longer supported by Microsoft.  Zara has not upgraded in their Operating System for about 10 years and remains to be the only customer of their vendor that still uses DOS.  While this system still efficient and Zara is able to run their POS application on top of it, there is no guarantee that their vendors will drastically change their hard drive to no longer support their software.   There are over 550 Zara retail stores worldwide; however, they do not have a centralized network nor are they always connected to headquarters by a modem.  The PDAs that are used by all of the employees are not able to detect whether another store has an item in inventory; this causes employees to become less efficient because instead of having access to look up to see if a store has a particular SKU item, the employee will have to waste time calling the store to find out if they have a specific garment.  Also, Zara’s headquarters in La Coruña, have to wait until the end of the business day to find out what their comprehensive sales were for the day.

Requirements:

Network Capability 

Does not have technical issues 

Functionality and easy to use

Supported by current operating systems 

Solution:

·         Buy a substantial number of current POS terminals; therefore, in the event that their vendor does drastically change their hardware Zara will still be able to subside while they port their software to another Operating System

·         Use a different operating system and update POS software.  IT can create a network to that all companies are connected and can view each store’s inventory.

Recommendation:

I would suggest porting the POS application to a stable operating system that is current with technology.  Even though Zara is one of the biggest customers of their vendors, there was no contract that said the vendor would not drastically change their hard drive.  Zara is growing at a rapid pace and should not only focus in on what is working now operations wide, but should also be thinking on the future and not worrying about having an obsolete system.  The current PDAs which look up SKUs are accurate; however, it would be more efficient if all of the company’s stores were on the same network.  Zara is a company in which their employees are very autonomous; managers decide which clothes to order and decide which clothing goes on sale.  There are very tight deadlines in the Operations department.  When supply does not meet demand it is individuals that choose which stores receive the items.  I believe that there would be more accurate accounts for inventory if Zara invested in a new operating system that supported the newer POS application software.  Reports would be run more often to create optimal plans to begin production, stores would be able to check up SKUs from other stores, as well as have a faster system with more functionality.  There are too many potential problems that could come from not updating our system, our company can be running fine on today’s POS terminal, but we are living in a fast paced world and anything can happen.  Store managers will learn how to use the new system, and if they run into any problems that is Zara has an IT team that includes experts in Store Solutions, Logistical Support, and Administrative systems.  Amancio Ortega, founder of Zara, believed that computers were crucial to build his business; therefore, why not continue with his belief and keep Zara current with technology, so that the company grows even more and continues to be Inditex’s largest chain store.  

JUNK-VAN REFLECTION

To: Board of Directors C-Level

From: Ronald A Rojas

Date: June 26^th, 2013

Sub.:  Recommendation

Dear Board of Directors C-Level,

I would like to start by expressing my sincerest apologies for not being able to participate in our meeting tomorrow.  Tomorrow our company will be making a major decision that is crucial to the profitability and continuity of our company’s goals and objectives. I would like to contribute with the decision taken tomorrow by providing a core analysis based on our previous meeting with our IT consultants.

The IT consultants have given their recommendation for using Google Docs as the best alternative for our business technological implementation. To my knowledge the IT consultants have not fully addressed certain major issues that can negatively impact our business’ future. This year Google has opted to discontinue Google Reader due to a decline in Google Reader’s usage. This action from Google has raised many questions and concerns in attempting to consider Google Docs as an option/alternative. What if Google decided to discontinue Google Docs after a decline in sales/usage? The IT consultants have provided a vague answer addressing the question of Google Docs’ future in terms of security and reliability for our company.

                 My recommendation to the board of directors strictly attempts to fix the unsolved issues from Google Docs such as the reliability on current product and security awareness. For this reason I have opted to restructure the IT consultant’s chart by adding a new technological tool that can certainly add value, security and reliability to our company. The chart below shows the requirements that IT consultants have brought to our attention followed by the alternatives. In addition, I have added Microsoft Office 365 which certainly addresses all of our requirements and improve every criterion in our chart. The importance column is measured within a range from 1 to 5. The number five represents the highest level of importance for our company’s objectives; meanwhile a grade of zero will not meet our requirements.  The following chart has been graded based upon my own perception after our meeting with the IT consultants.

Google Docs offers almost all of the required features but does not fully satisfy our business needs. I have graded MS office 365 for vendor support with a five and Google Docs with a 2. MS office 365 offer vendor supports in addition to new features such as “direct billing” and invoice complimentary services. Google Docs offers only this type of service by blogs and forums. (See Ref.table)

                MS offices 365 in comparison to Google Docs has been on the market for many years and their business office products have not been discontinued. MS office products have gained a lot of reputation over the years and acquired most of the businesses usage; office is the most reliable product in the market. Office 365 brings new features that certainly helps our technological futuristic vision for our company; providing cloud storage, integrated communication with employees and customers among other features. Microsoft Office 365 is completely secured and offers automatic updates, anti-malware, anti-spam protection, and a 99.9% guarantee. (See ref. table) Google Docs is limited to attempt these issues based on the lack of certainty in terms of security and reliability.

Our company is facing a critical decision; our main competitor 1-800-GOT-JUNK has benefited from investments in technological advances, resulting in $32 million of return from a $700 investment. For this reason, I am committed to provide you with the most updated technological information in the market. I believe MS office 360 will satisfy all of our requirements adding more value in securing sensitive information and reliability on a product that has less risk for discontinuation.  

Sincerely,

Ronald A Rojas

P.S. Please see MS Office 365 video below

Reference Table:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/office-365-midsize-business-productivity-software-FX103037683.aspx 

http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/casestudies/a/1800gotjunk.htm 

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/

http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/240149498/microsoft-office-365-open-lets-vars-control-billing-revenue.htm

What should we expect from our meeting this Tuesday? (Junk-Vanpreparation)

Dear team members,

We are approaching our meeting with our IT consultants this coming Tuesday. This is an essential meeting that portrays our company’s future in which 1-800-JUNK-VAN is about to make a decision on.

                1-888-JUNK-VAN is rapidly expanding, and ambitious to open more franchises in the coming years. The rapid expansion of the company has resulted in operational mistakes due to the lack of an accurate IT system not contributing to the company’s virtual business model.

                Kingo has considered five targeted options that we would like to analyze and discuss in our meeting with the IT consultants this Tuesday. The following Visio Flow chart below provides us with a better understanding of the five options that will be discussed.

             

In addition we will explore the pros and cons of each segment of the chart in the chart.  Kingo’s solution is to find a central database that provides internal information avoiding functions of emails. The best solution will provide remote access to all workers, automatic emails by the system avoiding delays for customer’s experience while keeping an easy system to use for staff members that are not highly skilled.

                Google Docs is certainly what best fits for Kingo’s business needs. Google, in comparison to the other options, offers online applications that can be quickly shared with employees. In addition to the shared data base, this technology offers three different types of access that can be used with our employees and our customers: Google docs offer full, editing and reading access. There are certain concerns that we certainly would like to discuss with the consultants.

                This pre-meeting investigation will helps us target Kingo’s preliminary options that will define our company’s path of success.

Sincerely,

Ronald A Rojas

Swimlane Diagram

Should we use Visio for our business?

Dear Mr. Garner, 

As requested after our last discussion, I did some research on the program created by Microsoft which is titled Visio.  This is a very innovative program which allows a person to create flowcharts, organizational charts, and networking plans that would make any presentation stand out.  After reviewing this product this product would be a splurge i would not be likely to spend $589 for this system. 

After a careful review of your concern in considering using MS Visio for our company; I am to advise on rejecting such a proposal for the following reasons. 

 This software is obsolete and irrelevant for our daily data process. Although, MS Visio offers a distinct and unique way of creating flow charts our company does not need those tech tools.  It would be an unnecessary expense. We can use other alternatives such as: Google Drawings (free) compared to MS Visio $ 589 per download. MS office offers Power Point which could be used as an alternative to create flow charts and other designs.  Last year our IT department created software that allows investors to see their P&L month to date and year to date. This home software can be still better used by adding more reports to our investors that can allow them to create flow charts and other designs as per their request. Our investor relations department has recently launched a new site that allows investors to log-in and download their files while it creates charts for them and breakdowns on any reports they need.

For a program that solely makes charts it is far too expensive.  It would help to have a program that can help our company because we have a very intricate order of operations. The investors relations department gets the customers contact information and they are in charge of the communication between the investors.  From there, they communicate with on and off shore investors.  The shore subscriptions get into the master funds which are handled by brokers.  And finally everything gets analyzed and reconciled by the Operations department.  While the system would help organize in a strategic way, the system is not worth it. 

There are many sites that you can create the same charts.  It is possible to create the charts on Google, and many other MS office programs that we already have as a company, such as MS word and Power point.  It would be a waste of money to buy another program, when we have it in so many other  programs that are capable of completing the same task. I strongly am against in investing in this program.  Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Ronald A Rojas

How efficient would be blogs for our business?

Mr garner,

Our company should have a strong presence in the social media network.  In particular it would be beneficial to our company to begin a blog.  Becoming part of the online community would bring us closer to our customers.  We would acquire new clientele as we would have the opportunity to expand our brand name. We do not only get the opportunity to introduce ourselves and explain what we do, but we also explain why we do it. 

A blog is a great tool of communication to give company updates. We would be able to provide statistics and figures of how much risk has been assessed.  We would be able to provide more updates to our customers.  Our customers would become engaged by the brand.  It is our opportunity to have a real connection when our customers can post comments and we can react with them in real time.  When it becomes more personal the brand seems almost humanized. Because our blog would be updated regularly, we would know in the moment of a person's frustration as well as appraisal, and we would react appropriately to the post.  This would allow us to gain company perception in that moment.  

Pros:

Introduce your company:  Tell prospective customers who you are, what you do, and why you do it. 

answer any questions from customers to avoid them searching outside sources when they can find it on the companies blog.

Post current information about any relevant topic of discussion or even post related articles.

Increase online presence.  

Can be linked to main website as well as post other social media networking sites.

Strengthen brand loyalty 

Personal connection with clients

Gain feedback in real time

increased credibility among your customers which may include board of directors, stakeholders as well as business partners. 

Cons:

It needs to be updated constantly. 

A schedule needs to be set for when things get posted. 

Have to make time to answer all blog comments

There is a lot of negativity that will be exposed

CEO's are stepping outside of their role by exposing themselves to the social media spotlight.  

This blog would allow us to expand on all key industry points.  As a company we would become more credible for having a greater social media presence as well as have more brand exposure. With our frequent blog entries we would have an increased amount of loyal customers that followed us online.  The entries could be as simple as one sentence leading to a link that takes them to a related article or an entry on how to invest your money.  The blog would be written in the voice of an executive and reflect all viewpoints that come from the CEO himself.  In summary, I think that it would be to our company's advantage to enter the blogging community so we could have greater brand exposure as well as increased credibility and we can continue to grow as a company.  

Sincerely,

Ronald A. Rojas