AIS Implementation Case Study

Steve Cowan is the confesser of a diffusion connection of salon hair products. The company, Professional beauty shop Concepts, (PSC) was growing and decided to upgrade their AIS to support the demands of the company. Steve chartered Mike, his brother-in-law to assist him and the two of them began to research the different products l finisable believing they could let out understand the needs of the company than a consultant could. by and by a pitiable while they bought first champion and then changing their minds and bought a second scheme. After a defraud give chaseing period the cutting dust was inst entirelyed with roughly very conundrumatic first few days. ultimately the system was up and running and neer fully doing what they had origin ally wanted from the modernistic system. Romney & Steinbart (2009).Implementing current AIS is almostthing that businesses everywhere confine to consider at some point and time. The case of PSC and how they went well-nig h choosing and implementing their AIS is what we leave behind be looking at. There are six main points of consideration I will be application in this study. The first is a look at how good of a job PSC did in selecting, put in and implementing their modfangled system. We will look at what they did ill-treat and what they could use up enduree differently. We will savor to determine how PSC could wee-wee avoided the deficient brags, the conversion and reporting problems they had. contiguous we will review Steves analysis of his poesy racket and determine if his conclusions were correct. Looking at his sweet cargo ships system we want to see if there is a way that PSCs customers stinkpot defraud the company. Finally, we will take a look at the take aim of service PSC received from the company where they getd their bran-new AIS and how it could perplex been meliorated. Steves AssessmentSelecting the New AIS PSC spent months researching software software program a nd attending demonstrations. While doing research on their aver is non a bad thing they save dismissed the possible use of consultants. Again non always a bad thing only when they did their research, it is not clear if they had a confirmed personate of requirements of their needs in the new AIS. As a result PSC never compared companies through a necessitate for proposals, (RFP) if they had they could have displace their requirements to the vendors. The vendors would then have sent back their proposals to PSC. After eliminating vendors that do not bring the minimum requirements, PSC could then do a similitude of the remaining vendors before making a final examination decision. Romney & Steinbart (2009). The key is the set requirements and minimum standards they were willing to bury for.In the end they had decided on angiotensin-converting enzyme system, compensable for it and had started installing it when they transferd their minds and went with a different company. The company, DSM was chosen almost on a whim. DSM could not gravel all of the features PSC had wanted and took a reassurance that they would get those features without documentation. PSC similarly did not do an extensive background grade into DSM before they purchased the new AIS. InstallationInstallation and implementing of the new AIS was anything but smooth. In retrospect even Steve knew they did not take the time infallible to properly quiz or to train employees on how to use the new system. Three months was not sufficient time to try and work out the possible problems they would have with the new AIS. While Steve felt that training was very great he greatly underestimated the amount of time that was needed for proper training of employees on the new systems.The operators should have been involved from the beginning to determine what was needed and how it was beingness implemented into the new AIS. Each of these operators should also have been include in the design of t he interface they would be using. If their input was not a possible reveal of the design they should have at the very to the lowest degree been included in the original adeptness and interrogatory part of the new systems to determine what the possible problem failures would be and to better learn the new systems. deficient FeaturesHow could PSC have avoided the problem of the lacking(p) features? If PSC had gotten RFPs the problem of missing features in the system they chose would have been eliminated during the vendor picking process. However, in the route they did take those features that were important to Steve but were not included in the AIS could have been included by having a systems requirements list and a scripted contract with the specifications explicitly written out. Conversion and accountHow could PSC have avoided some of the conversion and reporting problems it confront? As I stated before, more time was needed in the testing and training comp unrivalednt of t he conversion before the new AIS went online.One play I learned from our own system trade at the city I work in is to train a few operators on the new systems during the testing phase and then have them train a few more in their own departments. By using your own employees to train severally other they are gaining a better intelligence of how the system works. This way on the day of the change you have more people who understand the system and how to fix or correct the things that can go wrong. The more people you can have deft this way before the system change the better off you will be at the decisive moment. Steves AnalysisSteves analysis of the poem is incomplete in my opinion. Steve looked only at the sign live of the package but he did not look at recurring costs of up keep of the hardware and software, systems maintenance, conversion cost, training expense, cost of running the testing phase as hygienic as several other things. The conversion unsocial cost him a 15% drop in sales and none of these expenses were calculated into the cost of the new AIS. Steve and Mike should have consulted an accountant to help with the crunching of numbers before they had purchased the AIS from DSM. One other mistake they do in this purchase was not to have the additional features written into a contract as a part of the cost. Shipping and FraudIs there a way PSC could be defrauded by the new multi-box shipments? After looking online for ways the only thing I could come up with was for the customers to claim that not all of the boxes were received. Because they only require one packing landing strip for multiple boxes, one of the boxes could just not make it to the stores or items could go missing from the shipments. I dont think it would be hard to express that one of four or five boxes was missing an item. Without a packing slip in sepa targetly box it would be easy for something to be unnoted when they are being packed. Im not sure if there is another w ay the multi-box one packing slip approach could be defrauded. train of ServiceOn a level of one to five, one being the best, I would probably rate DSMs level of service about three. DSM was not the switch company I have read about but they could have stepped up their service. One of the things they could improve on is their training. Training was something of a disaster legal opinion from the first day. More of the employees should have been happy and trained much better than they were. Another area of advance would be in the testing phase of the installation before the new system went online.The sales person made assurances that it was apparent after the fact that they had no right to made or no intention of keeping. The extra features that PSC was told would be included in their package were only going to be added for an extra requital that PSC would have to shoulder the majority of. One feature was added at an additional cost of ten chiliad but the second feature was neve r added. ConclusionsIn the end Steve was satisfied with the new AIS. While the new AIS did decrease the turnaround time to only cardinal minutes from five hours it never did do all the things they had wanted. PSC is negotiating with DSM to write the programs that will complete the processes he wants the AIS system to do, for an additional cost.Upgrading from the system they had was necessary but, I cant help wondering if they wouldnt have been better off sticking with the original $20,000 purchase and having a company write the programs they were missing. The price PSC paid for the AIS from DSM was rather steep in comparison. In the end Steve said he was satisfied but I have to wonder if he really was or if he was just trying to feel ok with what had happened and what he paid.