7.2 The Information Sheet
You will not send the business case to the vendors. However, they must have some feeling about what you want in order to provide you with targeted information when you send them the request for information (like this sample). The business case, target process and legacy information we discussed earlier is mostly for your internal discussion to be able to judge the vendors and their systems, and for the second round; the request for proposal.
You can provide some kind of summary of your information hunt to satisfy the needs of the vendors in this stage. The main components are:
- A general answer to the "why you need a new system" question
- An overview of the organization of concern
- An overview of the global target process
- A description of the technological environment
Example Information Sheet
Current issue
The current information systems at WinDings Ltd. are at the end of their technological life cycle. It's getting more and more difficult to apply changes to the old systems to keep up with today's business needs. After some years of severe acquisition, the company has for all its five business units different order systems. It's difficult to have an integral customer view, and nearly impossible to do cross selling of the different products. The market of today and tomorrow makes it essential to change this situation.
Organization overview
Our organization consists of five business units (BU), each handling a part of the productlines. One centralized accounting department does the billing for all our clients.
Each business unit has approximately 30 employees. The billing department has a headcount of 15.
Target process
The target process for booking orders and billing is the following:
Each BU must handle all the orders for their own products. However, if a client want a product from a different productline, they must be able to book it themselves. The employee who had the first contact will maintain the client contact. All handling however will be done by the people involved with the ordered item. The billing will be handled still by the responsible department.
Technology
All current systems are currently running under either VMS or OS/390. Considering the relatively low number of users, WinDings performs to migrate to an Microsoft platform. The network is running TCP/IP and just 2 years old. All workstations are PC bought maximal 3 years ago and running Windows NT Workstation.
Leave a Reply