Business Analysis For HDS IT Services Company

Importance of Technical Requirements for Business Websites

About Business Analysis

Business Analysis refers to the practice of making change possible in the context of an organization through the definition of needs and recommendation of suitable solutions that deliver value to stakeholders such as business shareholders. Business analysis is performed using a set of techniques and tasks defined in the BABOK (A guide to Business Analysis body of Knowledge) guide.  Business analysis is undertaken by a Business Analyst; a business analysts performs more than business analysis, they also undertake systems analysis, business systems analysis, process analysis, requirements engineering,  enterprises analysis, and business intelligence analysis (Frame, 2016). The analyst assumes the role of the product owner, business architect, data scientist, and management consultancy. As such, a business analyst requires business, analytical, IT, and effective communication and negotiation skills in order to be effective as an analysts (Blais, 2012). The skills of the business analyst are critical for other others and roles; the management of a product, project management, quality assurance, interaction design, and software development heavily rely on accurate business analysis (‘International Institute of Business Analysis’, 2017). Business analysis is important in that it helps businesses do business better by being change agents; the analysis of a business is a systematic approach for the introduction and management of change in organizations. Through business analysis, the needs for change are identified and articulated I how a given organization works. In this analysis, a business analysis of HDS is done:

HDS is a company based in Sydney that provides IT services to its clients; it has an interesting history, having been founded by Fred and Bob with just two laptops. Despite growth, the company has not left its roots and still operates like a startup without a structure or corporat strategies, yet this is its bane in the present world. Currently, clinets come to HDS to amange their IT services and resources; these companies, including design firms, as yet see no need to manage their internal infrastructure themselves as this is not a core result area for these businesses. HDS still delivers some hosted servces to clients from its premises, and has developed open source solutions for her clients. Further, it has started developing custom applications for its clinets and is currently undergoing significant growth as a cloud services provider as cloud computing becomes mor mainstram and the oreferred form of  IT architecture for many forms. There are many opportunities for it to grow; however, as presently set up and run, it has little or no chance of growing into a corporate firm with a unique identity or brand.  This is because bigger firms have also developed interest in this burgeoning growth area and is seeking to expnad its cloud servces area (hosted IT) and software development, while maintaining managed IT services for exsiting clients. Further, there is an identifoed opportunity to offer improved customer services and impove her customer relations. Competitors offer competitive prices and bigger companies prefer them, desoite not offering customized and personalized customer services as HDS presently offers. HDS should therefore maintain its current business position, but offer enhanced services and products; the personalized customer service should especially be maintained as a competitive strategy

Role of Business Analysis in Improving Business Operations

HDS is a small full service IT company located in the North Ryde region of Sydney, an IT hub. HDS installs software, hardware, configure and manage systems, develop websites, and create intra and extra nets. Currently, it gets clients from design forms as well as other companies and they see no need to have their own internal IT systems that they manage, seeing as this is not their core business area. The founders of the firm (Bob and Jeff), are still very much hands on managers of all business aspects and still look after the welfare of their foundation clients. The company has a small team of administrators made up of two persons (a senior and junior IT technician). Bob and Jeff still handle the customer relationship management and marketing duties of HDS. HDS delivers services from within its premises, though with legacy equipment and resources, such as low RAM. It also develops open source solutions but has began developing customized software fr clients, work that is still undertaken by the founders. HDS is undergoing significant growth as a cloud service provider as the model becomes more mainstream among organizations.

The cloud computing market is expanding, though the expenditure in IT is not, if anything, it is decreasing. As such, HDS is not seeing revenue growth, even as it grapples with problems in its capacity in planning, human resources, IT infrastructure, organizational structure, knowledge management,and budgets). HDS operates using a ‘small family business’ structure that is ad hoc in terms of operations and strategies. Strategy development is ad hoc, and wile the founders have an idea where the firm is heading, other staff have no clue. Tactical decision making is more than often usurped by pressing client needs, which implies that even software development projects are stopped midway to handle client issues. Skill levels are either junior or mid levels, and this is reflected in their roles. The founders are more occupied with client issues and day to day running of the firm, meaning strategy development, research and development, and other forward seeking tasks are suffering. HDS seems unable to understand market needs and requirements, and is in danger of declining as happened to Nokia and Blackberry when they failed to respond to market shifts towards smart phones.

The author has been hired as a business analysts to help initiate and effect change at HDS working as the CIO (Chief Information Officer) with the job pf helping HDS grow into a larger company and take advantage of available opportunities in the market. This is because of its constraints and capacity issues, as well as management issues that are adversely affecting a key area; customer service and SLA (service level agreements) management. The CIO (business analyst) has internal and external, as well as operational and tactical responsibilities to enable HDS grow in a sustainable way, and will work with an assistant to achieve this objective. The CIO role is focused on;

• Alleviating some of Bob’s and Jeff’s tactical and operational decision making
• Managing internal operations across all areas
• Contributing to IT deployment into larger companies
• Contributing to application development
• Assisting the founders with strategic planning

            The goal is to offer Bob and Jeff an opportunity to;

• Focus on internal and external strategic activities enable the business to continue to grow and innovate while still maintaining a culture that is caring and supportive, as well as effective and efficient.
• To focus on strategic activities to take advantage of industry developments and favourable market opportunities/conditions
• To focus on the application development strategy which is often delayed and interrupted by new, larger, and ever increasing service delivery requirements that only the founders currently have the experience to efficiently and effectively manage initially.

Background of HDS IT Services Company

Analysis of business Goals and Objectives

The business goals of HDS is to offer hosted managed open source IT services  and solutions to SME’s (small and medium enterprises). This analysis analyzes the present situation at HDS and proposes suitable solutions

Presently, HDS has ad hoc policies unsuitable and ill fitted for its growth needs and the present business environment. While it is innovative, HDS has not reformed its operational and organizational structure, neither its IT infrastructure to leverage its innovations in software development and provision of managed IT services. The present business relationships, processes, and methods are unsustainable and ill fitted for a modern business environment for a company that wants to grow and be competitive; these processes are ad hoc at best. Customer service and product delivery services are poor and do not reflect customer needs, such as efficiency, and reduced cost. The operational processes and strategies need to be overhauled and changed, as do the organizational, and IT infrastructure systems; these need to be more responsive to customer and market needs and enhance efficiency and competitiveness at HDS; these areas need to be changed

The cloud computing services market has expanded significantly, as it becomes a mainstream model for IT resources acquisition and management and gains greater acceptance.  However, HDS is nor placed to take advantage of this opportunity due to resource constraints and capacity issues such as human resources, knowledge management, organization and strategic planning, budgets, as well as planning. As such, HS is not seeing any revenue growth to enable investments into these critical aspects. HDS operates in a small family business structure and mentality, approaches not ideal for a company seeking to expand and compete with the industry leaders (Marín, Hernández, Del Valle, & Castillo, 2016; Zook & Allen, 2016). If there are many client class, the list is prioritized in favor of older clients, who take much resources because they require customized services. The client management process is poor, with project margins declining and software development projects being dropped midway. Research and development initiatives are falling behind, as are strategic planning and decision making.

Customers need better services, especially new clients that must be nurtured as the older clients are demanding grater attention and personalized services. Further, customers want a dedicated team of customer service agents; this is also a key company requirement as efficient and satisfactory customer service is critical fro growth (Abeysekera, 2011). Social media and the use of ICT infrastructure that include websites and associated systems are now a requirement to provide firms visibility and effective decision making tools that respond to market and customer needs (Jha & Kshetri, 2016). Present hardware and software resources that HDS uses to offer clients cloud services are low capacity and relic, unsuitable for a growth model or excellent service delivery

The company has an opportunity to develop intranet and extranet to meet client needs. HDS needs to develop a database driven wen portal that will act as a contact center for customers, and be used for customer service purposes as well as an E-commerce portal. The web portal needs to be integrated with other systems including customer relationship management (CRM), financial and accounting, as well as reporting to be used for customer service and decision making. The CRM system will ensure better scheduling and allocation of client service calls. More manpower resources are required for satisfactory customer services, while legacy systems and hardware capacity need to be improved.  The CRM system will provide useful insights into customers, including the number of complaints, revenues associated, service calls, purchasing patterns, and other details, useful for effective strategic decision making (AlHarbi, Heavin, & Carton, 2016). The web portal will drive sales as clients can browse products and services and make purchase decisions; being an E-commerce website will enable transaction processing

Challenges and Opportunities for HDS

Presently, HDS can only use technicians to provide customer services while the founders are engaged in in dealing with client issues, Existing hardware and software resources are outdated and HDS can still just continue operating as a garage based, ad hoc services startup. The desired state is an efficient customer relationships management system and a well defined organizational structure, a defined strategic goal and objective, and a new organizational culture aligned with strategic and organizational aspects. He company should be cognizant of external developments through better interaction with clients and potential clients to respond to, and align strategies to take advantage of opportunities in the market. Further, operations should be efficient and new business sought to balance expenses wit income and achieve income growth as alluded to by Rosemann & Vom-Brocke (2014).

HDS needs to scale up its operations by offering cloud based services to clients; this requires becoming a wholesale provider of cloud based solution; it does not have to develop its own cloud infrastructure, but source these services from specialized providers and customize to meet client needs (Korzeniowski, 2016). The company needs to use its website as an E-commerce portal tom enable clients view available products and subscribe through the website pay processing system. Clients can then access the products from a HDS cloud through the web portal. Develop a social media presence for better interaction wit clients and  use it, together with the website, for advertising and promotional services. Develop custom software and provide it from the cloud as a SaaS (Software as a Service).

Cloud services model will help reduce costs and enhance efficiency. The customers (existing) will be receptive to the cloud services model. The owners will not abandon the project mid way and there is sufficient funding to initiate and execute the change strategies. A database driven website will seamlessly integrate with other systems for effective operations and decision making. No new legislations and regulations will be put in place that jeopardize the new approach. The organizational culture will change in response to the new organizational structure.

• A scalable cloud based managed IT services business model that can provide services and resources on demand
• A business model aligned with organizational structure and culture
• A new organizational culture where roles and responsibilities are clearly defined
• A project oriented organizational and management structure for greater effectiveness and efficiency (Araújo & Pedron, 2015)
• Continue providing managed IT services to clients but from a cloud platform

• A new private data center cloud for managing data and provisioning
• A cloud infrastructure reseller model where HDS can host its software, infrastructure, and platforms for use by clients
• A robust data driven web site
• A social media platform linked with the website
• Relevant IT systems such as financial and accounting, CRM, scheduling installed in a hybrid cloud to aid management and decision making
• Mobile platform linked with its website and social media platforms

System will run unaffected by other performance demands from other clients and resellers using the main cloud services provider

main cloud resources provider will configure th system to transfer operations to another data center to ensure continuous availability

The chosen project management approach will ensure all goals and objectives are met

Clients will have the knowledge to access and use the system

The website developed will be intuitive, user friendly, and interactive

The constraints include the company has a limited budget, a specific well defined scope, and a time-line in which to complete the project. It must use available personnel and premises to implement the new system. Existing files and information must be migrated to the new system. The new system must retain the personalized customer service model used at present as the changes cannot be too drastic as to make the company lose its position (Mafini, 2016)

The proposed service model and services must be to international standards and performance must be benchmarked against these international standards. The system must have high availability

Current Structure and Operations of HDS

 and reliability so as not to inconvenience clients. The private data center

A suitable cloud service and resources provider that will provide them wholesale will be sought and a suitable SLA agreed with them. HDS will purchase and upgrade its in house IT resources, capacity, and infrastructure and develop a data center to host its private cloud. All services and products will be provisioned from the cloud and the change management process will ensure changes are adapted, internalized, and are long lasting (Kerzner, 2013)

Rank	Solution
1	Develop a new organizational strategy, vision, and mission as well as objectives
2	Change company culture in line with the envisaged new organizational and business process model
3	Change the organizational structure to be project oriented and use a matrix management structure
4	Secure qualified and suitable human resources and develop a human resource management policy in line with new objectives
5	Assign roles and responsibilities and develop policies for their management in line with organizational strategy
6	Implement a new IT infrastructure including a database driven e-commerce website and a hybrid cloud  with social media linkage
7	Develop purpose built cloud (public)

Rank	Opportunities
1	A guiding organization strategy linked with culture and structure
2	Better decision making and strategic management
3	Better customer experience
4	Better customer service through web and CRM as well as social media
5	Greater visibility from website and social media (marketing and promotional goals)
6	Better service delivery
7	Business expansion and increased revenues, sales, and customers

Rank	Solution
1	Develop new organizational strategy and culture
2	Develop cloud based IT infrastructure
3	Secure human resources dedicated to customer service
4	Develop an Enterprise level e-commerce website with social media
5	Offer services and products from the cloud

The enterprise system should capture and organize client data and information into a CRM from the website and social media as well as through other forms of communication. The website and systems should capture customer and potential client activity, such as web visits, viewed products, and any subscriptions made; with the social media, it should capture raw data on customer sentiments. System should show what services and products are subscribed and the top sellers as well as financial transactions stored in the financial and accounting system. The enterprise system should generate reports with various parameters to enable effective decision making (Romero & Vernadat, 2016; (Fosso-Wamba, Akter, Edwards, Chopin, & Gnanzou, 2015)

Communication of the proposed solutions will be done by the CIO using suitable channels depending on communication type. Official proposals will be communicated through typed documents and PDF files, with an option for signing. E-mail will also be used a lot, as is the collaboration software to run th project (Zoho -free version) and all communication will be alignd with the stakeholder management plan. Effective communication is an important strategy for project success (Weaver, 2007; Thyr, 2015)

The table below shows the stakeholders and their influence and impact

Stakeholder	Influence	Impact	Communications strategy
Rob (Sponsor)	Very High	Very high	Weekly progress and status report
Jeff (Sponsor)	Very High	Very high	Weekly progress and status report
Project manager	Very High	Very high	Weekly meetings
Project team	Very High	Very high	Weekly meetings
Consultants, suppliers, and contractors	High	Very high	Weekly meetings

• Third party products and services must meet objectives and perform seamlessly
• The project team shall deliver project objectives, with support of stakeholders
• organizational structure to be based on organizational culture and new organizational processes
• CIO to develop project backlog and use Agile SCRUM methodology for project implementation
• Each sprint backlog must be completed before executing the next and each completed sprint backlog must be tested and reviewed

• The solution will lead to increased efficiency estimated as time to receive, process, and service client concerns
• Fast decision making based on data to enhance policy development
• Increased revenues and profits due to expansion from greater visibility, achieved through web based advertising
• Assigned roles and responsibilities to make operations smooth and efficient

            Main risks defined below with impact and mitigation measures proposed

Code	Risk	Effect	Impact	Probability	Mitigation
1	Poor budgeting	Results in budget under/ over runs	Very High	High	Effective and accurate budgeting
2	Late delivery	Late delivery leading to increased costs and delayed benefits and missing opportunities	Very High	High	Effective project planning, monitoring, and implementation tools
3	Poor scope management	Several scope changes causing increased costs, failure to meet objectives, later delivery	Very high	High	Strict scope management and control
4	Loss of support by sponsors	Project abandoned	Very High	Low	Effective communication and stakeholder management
5

Cost	Cost	Benefit	Remarks
Purchasing new equipment and software	High	Better service delivery	Justified
Implementing new cloud based enterprise architecture	High	Better and efficient service delivery	Justified
Hiring customer service staff	High	Greater customer satisfaction from better customer service	Justified
Developing custom software	Medium/ Low	Better customer delivery, increased sales	Justified
Website, supporting systems, and social media	High	Greater visibility (advertising and marketing), better customer delivery better decision making	Justified
New cultural, organizational, and operational strategy	Low	Operational efficiency	Justified

The project to be managed using project management principles ad methodologies, including stakeholder management, effective communication, with periodic reviews and requisite documents used for managing interaction with client. HR and products/ services will be procure competitively and a dispute resolution mechanism and process implemented, in conjunction with risk management strategy (Camilleri, 2016; Haapio, 2007)

The project, being run using project management principles, will have a documentation policy managed by the CIO and based on agreed terms and policies, including contracts and contract management, project plan and management document, risk management document, project quality document, and other related documents. All documents will have approvals and versions and nay revisions must be documented. Documents to be kept in electronic and paper format (Rakos, Dhanraj, Jackson, & Harris, 2015)

Using the new enterprise approach will ensure objectives of the project are met, and existing projects solved; including lack of an organizational culture and structure, inadequate manpower, poor customer service, and poor IT resources and infrastructure

Project to be executed using Agile scrum method where incremental development will be used and tested f meeting client requirements. The steps will be repeated until the product backlogs are effectively tackled and delivered

After implementing the system, HDS will undertake a promotion and marketing campaign to sensitize clients and gradually introduce clients to the new service. Change will be gradual and involve customers to ensure success. The performance of the system will be assessed using metrics including number of new clients, retained clients, subscriptions, speed of customer service delivery, and client feedback. Execution to be managed and monitored through project monitoring tools (Amabile & Kramer, 2011)

Options are defied by project objectives and the constraints of running a project

Quality: Proposed system should lead to better performance that the existing ones and have inherent software quality in terms of performance, meeting customer needs, and meeting organization needs: quality metrics must conform to the ISO/ICE/ IEEE 209119 standards for software quality (‘International Standards Organization’, 2018

Cost: Effective budgeting and estimation to be used and costs managed with the project management and monitoring plan to meet all objectives and deliverables without over shooting budget

Time: Project schedule to be monitored using project control tools to ensure delivery within time and cost

Delivery: Scope management and control to be used to ensure desired deliverables are achieved based on project management principles (Melton & Iles-Smith, 2009)

Conclusions

HDS is a company founded by Bob and Jeff to provide managed IT services, software services as well as cloud services. It is based in Sydney, at the North Rydey IT hub region. For long, it ha sbeen running as it dd whe founded, withot structure or strategy and it has grown due to growth in cloud services demand and use. However, it has run into headwinds, with stagnating revenues, lack or manpower, disorganized customer service and a non defined strategic goal. The analysis has determined a need for cultural, organizational, and strategic reorganization to use a nw cloud based infrastructure with an e-commerce website and social media linkage. Managed using  project management techniques, this goal is feasible 

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