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Nelson's Choice

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Systematics Inc was a small business operating out of seven regional offices and one manufacturing plant. The seven offices acted as sales offices that serviced a client base of about 100 organizations with nine different products. Some sales executives sold only specific product lines, while some others sold the entire range to specific clients. Orders were booked from these clients by the sales staff and communicated to the head office, which in turn conveyed production orders to the plant. Manufacturing lot size was decided every Friday evening based on the orders in hand. But, newly booked orders were to be sent immediately by e-mail. This was supposed to make planning at the plant easier. But, in real life, production planning was a nightmare. Order positions were never known, as sales executives rarely updated the head office on time. And, their excuses were manifold: lost e-mail, too much junk mail, intermittent Internet connectivity, crashed PCs, viruses…. Invariably, last minute STD calls, sometimes multiple calls, had to be made to every sales executive.

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When there were major deviations in the orders at hand from the targets for the week, every one had to scramble, with the communications bill and plant inefficiencies going up manifold. On top of that, senior managers would also get into the act, demanding immediate action, if actual sales were below target.

Krishna Murthy, the Manager, Production Planning, was sick of all this and longed for some order to his work. However, his demands, first for an ERP system and then at least for collaboration and monitoring tools, were turned down by the management as being too expensive!

Finally, after one particularly harrowing quarter, when target achievement went berserk (read way below expectations) every single week, the management agreed to put an automated sales-tracking system in place, provided it did not cost too much.

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Sensing an opportunity that may never happen again, Nelson Fernandez, the IT Manager started hectic negotiations with a clutch of vendors. But, soon, he realized that none of the vendors would give him a price point that would satisfy the management, and decided that he had no option but to architect the system on his own and have it developed using freelance developers.

Does this sound familiar? Have you been in a similar situation? Has someone you know been? What are your learnings from it?

Can you help Nelson architect the system?

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Is his strategy of using freelance developers right? What precautions can he take to safeguard his system, to ensure that one fine morning, he does not wake up to find the system not working with nowhere to go to set it right?  

Alternately is there some existing software that he can use to meet his needs?

What management measures must be taken to ensure the success of the system? Particularly, how can he ensure that the sales team uses the system and not continue with the current method of using telephone calls and random e-mail to convey orders booked?

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Discuss your ideas at http://forums.pcquest.com, under implementation.

Good ideas will get surprise gifts. The best architecture will win a Mont Blanc pen. You do not have to register or log in to participate. However, do leave your office address if you want to claim your prize. Only one prize per person! The decision of the Editor of PCQuest regarding the winners will be final.

Krishna Kumar

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Nelson at the forum

PCQuest used to have a section called Experience IT, wherein we presented a case study and invited experts in the field to discuss the possible solutions to the case. We also welcomed and published the responses of our readers. We are now bringing back that section, though with a little difference. We will present a case in the magazine each month, but will invite responses to and discussions over it at our online forum, at http://forums.pcquest.com, under implementation. So, hope to find you at the forum.

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