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.