AIS Implementation Case Study

Steve Cowan is the owner of a distribution company of salon hair products. The company, Professional Salon Concepts, (PSC) was growing and decided to upgrade their AIS to support the demands of the company. Steve engage Mike, his brother-in-law to assist him and the two of them began to research the different products available believing they could best(p) determine the needs of the company than a consultant could. After a pitiable time they bought first unity and then changing their minds and bought a second scheme. After a short training period the vernal system was inst tout ensembleed with somewhat very problematic first few days. Eventu solelyy the system was up and running but never fully doing what they had originally wanted from the unused system. Romney & Steinbart (2009).Implementing bare-ass AIS is something that businesses everywhere exhaust to consider at some point and time. The case of PSC and how they went about choosing and implementing their AIS is what we will be looking at. There are six main points of consideration I will be covering in this study. The first is a look at how good of a job PSC did in selecting, place and implementing their new system. We will look at what they did wrong and what they could stand shame differently. We will try to determine how PSC could throw off avoided the missing features, the conversion and reporting problems they had. adjacent we will review Steves analysis of his numbers and determine if his conclusions were correct. Looking at his new shipping system we want to see if there is a way that PSCs customers can defraud the company. Finally, we will take a look at the level of service PSC received from the company where they purchased their new AIS and how it could have been advanced. Steves AssessmentSelecting the New AIS PSC spent months researching software and att closing curtaining demonstrations. While doing research on their own is not a bad thing they nonetheless dismissed the possi ble use of consultants. Again not always a bad thing but when they did their research, it is not clear if they had a confirmed confine of requirements of their needs in the new AIS. As a result PSC never compared companies through a request 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 meet the minimum requirements, PSC could then do a comparison of the remaining vendors before making a net decision. Romney & Steinbart (2009). The key is the set requirements and minimum standards they were willing to settle for.In the end they had decided on one system, paid for it and had started installing it when they changed their minds and went with a different company. The company, DSM was chosen almost on a whim. DSM could not demonst target all of the features PSC had wanted and took a reassurance that they would get those features without doc umentation. PSC also did not do an extensive background get out 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 needed to properly seek 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 important 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 being implemented into the new AIS. Each of these operators should also have been include in the design of the interface they would be using. If their input was not a possible part of the design they should have at the very least been included in the original installation and test part of th e new systems to determine what the possible problem failures would be and to better learn the new systems. Missing FeaturesHow could PSC have avoided the problem of the missing features? If PSC had gotten RFPs the problem of missing features in the system they chose would have been eliminated during the vendor selection 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 written contract with the specifications explicitly written out. Conversion and ReportingHow could PSC have avoided some of the conversion and reporting problems it go about? As I stated before, more time was needed in the testing and training portion of the conversion before the new AIS went online.One play a joke on I learned from our own system change 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 distributively other they are gaining a better understanding 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 trained this way before the system change the better off you will be at the critical moment. Steves AnalysisSteves analysis of the numbers is incomplete in my opinion. Steve looked only at the sign follow 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 well as several other things. The conversion alone 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 make in this purchase was not to have the extra 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 slip 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 say that one of four or five boxes was missing an item. Without a packing slip in to each one box it would be easy for something to be overlooked when they are being packed. Im not sure if there is another way the multi-box one packing slip approach could be defrauded. Level 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 worst 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 judging from the first day. More of the employees should have been trained and trained much better than they were. Another area of overture 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 give that PSC would have to shoulder the majority of. One feature was added at an additional cost of ten thousand but the second feature was never added. ConclusionsIn the end Steve was satisfied with the new AIS. While the new AIS did decrease the turnaround time to only twenty minutes from five hours it never did do all the things they had wanted. PSC is negotiating with DSM to write th e 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.