PM 2008 Case Study 3

Dear Students,

This is the 3rd Case study. Good luck.

Case Study 3

Title : Manchester Airport’s Web Strategy

Dead Line for submission : 16 June 2008

Manchester Airport hosts about 18 million passengers per year, making it one of the UK’s busiest airports. The customers include a relatively high percentage of business travellers along with recreational travellers on scheduled and charter airlines.

The airport had a Web site but not a clearly defined Web strategy. The company saw the potential of the Internet to implement a simple to use document publishing system; the development of a major customer-focused Web presence; and to integrate partners’ systems to provide services to customers.

In essence the Airport wanted to develop online services that would generate income and ultimately increase profitability. In addition, it was thought that the Web site should offer local residents information in relation to the ways in which the airport might affect them as one way to maintain and improve community relations.

Manchester Airport has adopted a ‘Smartsource’ methodology for acquiring partner organisations to provide skills that the airport does not possess internally. The airport was aware it did not have internal expertise in web development so it would need to seek an outside partner to design, develop and maintain its web presence.

As the Airport has complex relationships with the companies that operate within its boundaries it was clear that the business objectives of the airport would need to be handled sensitively in order to maintain the high level of rapport enjoyed between all parties.

The Airport considered the Web site to be fundamentally important and so decided it should host the system. The Web site had to integrate with existing systems such as CRM database and messaging systems along with the platforms used by partners and suppliers. The preferred approach was to have a fully integrated system under the Manchester Airport brand.

An underlying principle was to make use of existing technology as much as possible. Also the solution had to fit wherever possible with existing skills sets in the organisation. The Airport decided to pick the technical infrastructure requirements leaving the supplier to design and build the solution.

The Airport required a solution developer with the technical expertise to design and develop a fully functional web site that was integrated with backend systems, that was qualified to act as a one-stop-shop partner who would assume full responsibility for the design, building and installation of the Web site, was able to provide 24/7/52 operational support, that could understand the Airport’s business and was able to communicate and work with all Airport staff.

The company chosen, from a shortlist of four, was based about 10 kilometres from the airport, met all of the Airport’s selection criteria and was very comfortable working closely with non-technical staff.

The first stage of the Web site provided up-to-the-minute details of arrivals and departures similar to those shown in the passenger lounges at the airport. This alleviated the number of calls enquiring about the timing of flights. The Web site provided the facility to book scheduled flights and hotel accommodation. Rather than develop a new system it was decided to integrate with the already-available Telme.com online travel booking service. This integration was designed in a seamless way.

In order to use many of the services supplied on the site, users must register on-line. This data is then utilised whenever a service is requested. If the customer wishes to book a flight via Telme.com then the airport’s own CRM (customer relationship management) system feeds information into the Telme system, receives data back and then passes it to the user as appropriate. A significant amount of effort was expended to ensure that the functioning of the Web site met the real world requirements of users by involving them in the testing process.

The second phase of the operation was targeted to exploit the new Web presence and the on-line Manchester Airport brand. The second-phase offerings included the ability for customers to:

· preorder duty-free products on-line

· reserve airport car parking spaces

· book charter flights and package holidays

· preorder foreign currency.

The Web site receives up to 500,000 hits per day. The benefits of the e-business systems are many. Passengers are feeling more comfortable with the Airport as a result of the Web site since they can understand the layout, parking, shopping and currency exchange facilities before they leave home. Local community residents can be informed of developments at the Airport which helps community relations. Through the on-line shopping and ordering systems, income and profits are increasing. Finally, there has been substantial increases in revenue to the airport from car parking. Prior to the new Web site an outside company had sole control of the parking and the airport only received 5% of revenue. Via on-line booking, 90% of the revenue now comes to the Airport.

Overall, the main lessons learned from their experiences are: exploit the experience of employees; work closely with the real end users and work with suppliers in a partnership fashion.

From an e-business perspective the system is successful because it provides what the users want in a convenient manner. Travellers require timely and accurate data and the new Web applications provided this.

Questions

Answer any 5 Questions. Attempt all if you are smart.

1. Identify the key business objectives related to the Airport’s e-business initiatives.

2. Who was involved in the Web Development team? Did this conform to good practice principles explained in this chapter?

3. Classify the main benefits of the new Web site?

4. Visit the Web site of Manchester Airport (http://www.manairport.co.uk/) and write a 250 word review of the site?

5. How do you see the site evolving in the future?

6. Identify the various ways that Dell Corporation uses e-business in its sale of computers - both B2C and B2B.

7. What have been the benefits of using e-business for Dell Corporation?

8. Visit the Web Site of Dell Corporation (www.Dell.com) and provide a 200 word review of the site.

9. Do you believe Dell's use of e-business has given the company a competitive advantage? Is this competitive advantage sustainable over the medium to long term? Explain your answer.

10. Do you believe all large companies will use the Internet in the future like Dell Corporation?

Project Management 2008 Case Study 2

Dear Students,

This is the Case Study #2. Prepare. Dead Line : 29 May 2008 ( Thursday ).

Good Luck.

Project Management

PM 2008

Lecturer : Zainudin Johari

Case Study 2

Title : A Nightmare Project

All in a day’s work!

One day the boss called me into her office and offered me the leadership of a high profile internal IS project. At first I was rather pleased with the offer but as I found out more about it I wondered whether it is such a good idea to accept it. The boss informed me about some of the background to the project.

"Look", she said, "it is a good opportunity to prove your project management expertise. However, there are a number of problems related to the project of which I should make you aware. In fact the project should have started a while back. The trouble is there was a major dispute that we were unaware of between the two user departments. The project failed to get off the ground because of a dispute between two user departments - yes you guessed it, it was finance and marketing. Both felt they should be responsible for it and because of personalities that clash the matter just got worse. There is, as you are probably aware a history of conflict between the two departments."

"Well, I see! Who will be the primary users of the system", I asked.

"The users of the system will be from marketing, but the thing is that the information produced by the systems will also be of use to finance and they will want to query the data," she continued.

"Before we go any further, can I ask what happened to Gerry, he was managing the project wasn't he?" I asked.

"Didn't you know? Gerry is off work with stress and won't be back for a good while, however it is not all due to managing this project so don't worry too much", she replied. "The project is really very high profile and is in fact critical to the company's financial success. Even the CEO has told the two departments to get on with it and sort out the problems. I know that if the project doesn't get moving he will be knocking on my door asking for an explanation."

I accepted the project position and was provided with a project update which is summarised below along with some of my own thoughts from personal observations.

The finance and marketing departments have now assigned someone to the project to define the business requirements. Although the two individuals are experts in their own domains and they appear to get on well together the key user has not been identified. In fact both Department managers still want to blame each other if anything were to go wrong. At this point no other resources have been allocated to the project.

I have been told that the systems should be completed by the end of the year. The problem is that this is only four months away. It seems impossible to have the system up and running in such a short time.

I have still have a number of concerns such as will I still have to oversee the maintenance of System Alpha which I have been looking after for the past year? This takes about ten hours per week to attend to but the work is spread over every day of the week. My planned leave later this month will have to be postponed.

The new project looks to involve the development of new software. It will also impact on existing systems and databases. A large number of screens will have to be updated so there is considerable interface work to be done.

The team allocated to the project consists of:

Two Analysts

Both seem competent and appear willing to do some programming if required. Their knowledge of systems development techniques is acceptable. Both are motivated and work hard.

Junior Programmer

Is enthusiastic but lacks the ability to work independently and so will need close supervision.

Contract Programmer

Was taken on a number of months ago to work on a different project. Has some ability but appears de-motivated due to uncertainties with his contract. He could be a real problem and be a threat to the project if his attitude goes any worse.

Overall, my guess is that I need extra resources but the project can be completed successfully. Any advice would be appreciated.

Questions :

1. What do you consider to be the major issues related to the project.

2. Can the project be made a success?

3. What action should be taken and what recommendations made?

4. Was I foolish for taking the project on?

5. What is your idea of a “Successful” Project Manager?

6. Do you think a Project Manager can make a difference to a given project? Why and how?

7. How does this Case Study relates to your Assignment “ Bank of Putrajaya”?

Project Management 2008 Case Study 1

Dear Students,

This is the Case Study #1. Prepare. Dead Line : 12 May 2008 ( Monday ).

Project Management

PM 2008

Lecturer : Zainudin Johari

Case Study 1

Title : Project in Developing Systems at XL Ltd

XL Ltd is a printing and packaging company. It mainly deals with large companies and has around 2,000 customers in total. There are on average 200 orders per day. The company is a family owned organisation and many of the employees have worked for the organisation for many years. It is not what you might call a technologically innovative company but the staffs know they must update their approach or suffer the consequences. The Managing Director is fearful that sweeping changes may be hard to take for some employees and so is concerned about how the entire process is handled.

XL had separate software systems for the processing of orders, accounts and stock. This arrangement was seven years old and was not integrated very well as the three systems were developed at different times and did not have a consistent interface, although data could be transferred between the systems. The interfaces to all three systems were not very easy to use for many of the employees. XL believed this to be the cause of many errors in the system as terms and key words were different in each system.

Besides the order processing, accounts, and inventory systems XL wanted to investigate the use of the following systems:

Transport delivery system

XL would like a system that produces a listing that includes the routes for the delivery of the goods. This will be used by the drivers so that a more economical delivery process is maintained. Currently, a member of staff works on the delivery routes for the drivers.

Marketing Systems

The company wants to utilise the data and information in the systems more fully to market more effectively to its customers. There is data on all of the orders for the past seven years.

Ordering via the Web for their customers.

The Managing Director is conscious of the danger of being perceived as an old fashioned company. She is still not convinced of the merits of ordering via the Web but would be very interested in hearing a proposal to do so.

The Managing Director along with the new IT Manager called a meeting with the senior members of the organisation to discuss the information systems at XL. The IT Manager was given overall responsibility for the development of the new systems.

The IT Manager explained that XL did not have the in-house expertise to develop the new systems and should go about selecting a good software development company to do much of the software selection and development whilst XL employees could so most of the analysis. The Managing Director explained that XL did not have a great deal of money so any outside involvement should be kept to a minimum. As a result the IT Manager selected her team of two IT staff (Bill was asked to act as systems analyst and Jane as junior analyst) and Francis on secondment from the Accounts Department.

Bill asked Jane to start gathering information on the problems and requirements of the new systems. Jane had little experience in doing this but decided to talk informally with a number of people in the organisation. The reports they gave were somewhat conflicting as some staff liked the existing systems and hinted that they would be very displeased if any major changes were made. Other staff appeared at their wits end with the information systems and suggested radical changes. Jane knew that the Managing Director wanted improvements and so chose not to spend time gathering more information from employees as this would only confuse matters further. She presented her findings based mainly on her own dealings with the information systems in the organisation and passed them off as representative findings and requirements from the users.

Bill spent time modelling the data and processes related to the existing systems in a CASE tool that XL had recently acquired. Once he had received Jane's documentation about the users' requirements he started on creating models for the new systems. Once this had been done a presentation was made to the Managing Director and senior staff who although not fully understanding the implications of the models presented were in agreement that the system should now be developed.

In consultation with the IT Manager, who had been spending much of his time trying to oversee the corrections to the existing systems, a decision was made on the purchase of software. Jane was given responsibility for any customisation of the software.

To avoid employees clinging to the old systems it was decided to start with the new systems on 2 January after the New Year holiday break. Many problems were reported and many of the employees threatened to walk out if they were not rectified quickly. The Managing Director was most upset with the situation and asked the IT Manager to report on the situation immediately.

Questions

1) Outline the main causes of the problems that led to the disastrous situation at XL.

2) Did the team responsible for the changes follow the systems development life-cycle phases? What aspects of the SDLC were missed out?

3) What approach would you have adopted if you had been responsible for the changes?

4) XL did not conduct a proper feasibility study. What were the consequences of not conducting a feasibility study and what should it have included?

5) How would you have dealt with the concerns of the managing director about the staff coping with the changes?

6) Was the team responsible for the changes adequately skilled for their roles?