Improving IT Infrastructure And Business Analysis At Hosted Desktop Solutions

Overview of Hosted Desktop Solutions

About Business Analysis

Business Analyst is an advisory role which has the responsibility for investigating and analysing business situations, identifying and evaluating options for improving business systems, elaborating and defining requirements and ensuring the effective implementation and use of information systems in line with the needs of the business.

Some business analysis roles extend into other areas such as strategy implementation, business case production, benefits realisation, specification of IT requirements.

A good business analyst can make the difference between a poor and a great investment in business and IT improvements. A good Business Analyst must have some competencies such as good personal qualities, great business knowledge and professional techniques.

The personal qualities are the skills and characteristics that are useful for a business analyst. These can be explained as communication, relationship building, influencing, team working, political awareness, analytical skills and critical thinking, attention to detail, problem-solving, leadership, self-belief and professional development.

Business Knowledge is an essential as a background and foundation for the business analyst’s work. The essentials of business knowledge can be explained by business finance, business case development, domain knowledge, subject matter expertise, principles of information technology, organisation structures, supplier management and business architecture.

The professional techniques can be considered with the following skills: Project management, strategy analysis, stakeholder analysis and management, investigation techniques, requirements engineering, business modelling, data modelling, gap analysis, facilitation skills, portfolio management, benefits management and agile thinking.

HDS is a small full-service company located in the Sydney IT hub of North Ryde.  It will install hardware, software, configure and manage systems, create websites, intranets and extranets. Clients currently come from design companies and other individual companies who do not see a need to internally manage their IT infrastructure as it is not a core result area.

The company is still delivering some hosted services from equipment within the premises. As well as developing open source solutions for clients, the company has also started to develop and deploy its own applications.

The company is undergoing significant growth as “cloud” computing is becoming more acceptable, and affordable, for businesses small and large.

The company has identified significant opportunities to expand the depth and breadth of its “cloud” computing services, particularly into the education sector.  These services are expected to increase revenues from current customers, increase the company’s market share, and create opportunities to enter other markets.

However, other larger more well-known competitors are also making inroads into these markets. While these companies do not offer the same level of high quality customer service that HDS is renowned for, they can offer very competitive pricing, and are often preferred by the bigger customers that HDS is trying secure. HDS still operates under a “small family business” culture. Roles and responsibilities are ill-defined.  Strategic planning is ad hoc at best.

Issues with IT Infrastructure

I have been hired as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for a small company “Hosted Desktop Solutions” (HDS), which provides hosted “open-source” IT solutions to small and medium sized businesses.  Due to internal IT constraints and issues, the founders, Bob and Jeff have asked you to undertake a thorough business IT analysis and to suggest solutions to resolve these constraints and issues.

HDS was started by Jeff and Bob, with a laptop each, and not much else!  While they have devoted time and effort to meeting their clients’ IT needs, their own IT infrastructure has become an ad-hoc affair unable to meet the demands of current growth.

Networking capacity is underdone, with one 4-year-old server being used for networking, storage, file sharing, as well as some legacy hosted applications for customers.  The server box lacks sufficient processing power or RAM, and the server set-up has become unstable over the years, as the founders and the senior technician implement quick remedies when something goes wrong.  Staff computers are becoming old, with a messy jumble of hardware, operating systems, and software versions.  Email is hosted through Google Apps, and the website is externally hosted. 

Customer management systems are also a mix of paper based and Excel files from the company’s beginnings, together with an initial but undeveloped CRM system. Mistakes with customer’s records are inevitable because of the mix of systems.  Telephony has also become inadequate. As well, helpdesk email monitoring and response management is under increasing pressure. While many of the hosting services supplied to customers are externally hosted, older clients are still managed using the company’s own IT. Most client IT system monitoring and maintenance is still undertaken through internal IT.

There is a separate application development “box”, however, but as with other systems it is not being optimally maintained and application development has slowed significantly.

It is a classic case of a small owner-operated business, where the hands-on approach of the founders is no longer capable of managing all arising issues. As the company grows, amidst whatever organisational systems are in place, company operations can no longer be effectively managed.  For example, Bob and Jeff used to look after all internal IT but when the senior technician was employed he was given the task of managing internal IT.  However, with customer growth, all 3 are often out of the office on a daily basis, so who does internal IT fixes, and when these are done is unclear and unsystematic.

Sub-Project: IT-Focused Business Analysis

This case study will focus on improving HDS as a business in general however I will be focusing on a sub project on this assessment: IT Focussed Business Analysis. How to fix the internal issues with the administrative staff and stakeholders will be one of the major topics.

I, as the new Chief Information Officer, will have key internal and external strategic, tactical, and operational responsibilities to help enable the business to manage growth sustainably. The role is primarily 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 idea is to give Bob and Jeff the opportunity:

• To focus on internal strategic activities to 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.

Strategic and operational need of the project

The strategic and operational need of the project is to design and develop an updated and enthusiastic website that has functionality to provide benefits for the Hosted Desktop Solutions. The Hosted Desktop Solutions is outdated and it needs to be reconfigured to make it more interesting and interactive. The project requires building an innovative and creative website for Hosted Desktop Solutions. This is required as the company is small-medium enterprise that wants to transform from outdated website to an innovative website. This will need to have accurate details of the company and its working that will the company to promote in an effective way. The requirement of the project is to build website that can minimize the efforts of the company manually and users get all the information at one place. The home page, other pages, contacts us, about us and site map and technical description are the requirement for the company.

The project’s strategic context and requirements are to provide an innovative and interactive website. The major requirements are analysing human resources, knowledge management, organizational planning, organizational budget and revenue. The roles and responsibilities of team members involved with the project are analysed. The project’s strategic context is to design and develop a better Information Technology management for Hosted Desktop Solutions. The website should provide a customizable solution for the users to provide interactive activities for them. It will also help to provide the staff of Hosted Desktop Solutions to maintain and manage the company details through the website. The user’s requires website to have easy navigations and simplified interface to access the website. This will help users to freely access the website to understand the company principles, working and norms. Therefore, these requirements will help Hosted Desktop Solutions to have better interactions among users and staff.

The business plan of Hosted Desktop Solution is to provide a creative and innovative website for the company. The Hosted Desktop Solution is to provide an analysis of website based on the company’s requirement to build a website. The business plan consists of outlining of the requirements needed to build website for the company. The business model should be developed where it should comprise of services that the website will provide. The marketing strategies should be determined to know how the website will achieve sales and revenue through the website. The competitors should be kept in mind while planning to build website as it will help to design and build a website that it will be user interactive and attract clients. The human resources needed to build the website must be analysed as it will help to understand who are responsible for handling which part of website. The financial projections must be created that will help to acknowledge the revenue cycle of Hosted Desktop Solutions. The business plan will help to build the website efficiently and effectively to benefit the company.

Designing an Innovative and Interactive Website

The legislation, industry codes and standards required to build a website are as follows. The legislation for the project is that Hosted Desktop Solutions must provide the same information that it has provided on other websites. The industry codes and standards for the project is to build the website according to the norms and regulations of the company and not violating the government laws. The impact of legislation, industry codes and standards on development of website for Hosted desktop Solutions is that it will help to maintain the integrity of the website. It will help to manage and maintain website as per the requirement of the company and its clients. This will help to build the website under the law that can prevent further complications in terms of rules and regulations. Thus the legislation and industry codes and standards impact positively to build a website for the company.

The risks assessment and risk management plan involved to develop website for Hosted Desktop Solutions are as follows.

Content- The improper structured content leads to improper understanding for the users. This can be managed through proper structuring of content prior and after testing of content.

Presentation- The difficulty in operating and complexity in the website poses risks. This risk can be managed by presenting the entire structure in a proper manner where the relevant content is only displayed in front for easy access of users.

Navigation- The difficulty in navigating and information contained in the website are too large. This risk can be managed by providing navigation that is easy to handle and information must be limited to as per the requirement. The users want to understand the company and its working in a detailed and short form.

Social context- The difficulty in defining the content and its functional requirements poses risks. The management for this risk is to manage the contents that are unique and not similar to any of its competitor’s content.

Natural context- The time and location involved with website to access the applications cannot be predicted and user’s expectations to access the applications at right time. The risks can be managed by updating of time automatically in the website.

Technical Infrastructure- The prediction of operational environment is hard and used components are immature. This risk can be manage

Development team- The concerns regarding safety, reliability and security of developing website pose risks. The other risks are using advanced technologies that are not properly known. This risk can be managed through improving safety and security at each layer in developing a website.

Strategic Context and Requirements of the Project

Integration- The involvement of several suppliers involved in the project development and poor legacy systems poses risks in website development. This risk can be managed by managing all the suppliers by separating them as per their requirement in website development. The legacy systems can be updated regularly.

The precise specifications for the website development are as follows. The first specification for website development is designing or redesigning of website for the company. The meeting of expectations with staff and users for the website development is required to execute the development phase of website. The third specification is providing general information such as contact us page, home page, about us page and other pages to develop website. The fourth specification is determining type, structure and dynamics for development of the project that helps to achieve the website development according to the requirements of the organization. The fifth specification is functionality involved with the website development that helps in accessing the website after its development. The sixth specification is budget that is important specification as budget helps to identify how the website will be planned, developed and executed. The seventh specification is deadline that helps to understand the time schedule under which the project will be developed and executed.

The project budget is defined initially when planning of website development is done. In this phase, the project budget is determined as per the following consideration of aspects. The first consideration is determining the business goals according to which the budget is defined. The second consideration is type of website that helps to determine budget according to the level and standard of project. The third consideration is requirements for design and technology that helps to determine the budget of the project development. The fourth consideration is website prototype that determines the overall look of the website. The fifth consideration is website content that includes the major details such as images, videos and blogs that should be added in the website. The seventh consideration is list of similar websites that helps to understand how the website will be developed. These are the considerations that are taken while defining the budget of the project that involves development of website.

The skills required for project completion are as follows.

Leadership- The leadership is necessary for developing website as it will help to manage and coordinate with the project development. This will ensure overall management of project development.

Motivation- The motivation skill is important as it will help to develop project effectively and efficiently to achieve the goals and objectives of the project development.

Communication- The communication skill is important as it helps to effectively communicate among the staff and users. This will help to build the website as per the requirement.

Organization- The organization skill helps to organize the entire process of website development where it will help to achieve the desired goal effectively.

Prioritization- The overall management of the project development must be prioritized as per the user expectations. This will help to build the website effectively and inefficiently. It helps to develop project with complete focus.

Problem Solving- The problem solving skill helps to manage risks involved with the project in terms of scope, budget and timeline. This helps to create an effective mitigation plans for the project development.

Adaptability- The adaptability is important as project development must be adaptable to changes that occur within the project and as the project develops. This helps to overcome the challenges in the development of the project.

The project timeline and schedules along with critical path of website development in Hosted Desktop Solution is defined in terms of following aspects taken into consideration.

Planning and discovery- This stage determines the overall scenario of the website development and its execution. This stage includes research, requirements, creative and technical briefs, discovery sessions, architecture briefs details, sitemap and wireframe. The duration of this stage is 2 to 9 weeks.

Design- The design is the second stage where the projects are made ready for execution and it takes 4 to 11 weeks to complete a design stage. This stage consists of homepage design, design for internal page and desktop and mobile views.

Content Creation and SEO- This stage includes style and functionality that is essential for any website to build and this stage is a little time consuming and it takes 6 to 15 weeks. This stage consists of key messages, calls to action and effective pages, titles and headings.

Development and coding- This stage is the major step which consumes 7 to 16 weeks to actually build the website.

Beta Testing- The beta testing is done after this that helps to determine whether the developed website is functioning properly or not. The duration for this project is 2 to 6 weeks.

Launch- The launching stage is the simple step that takes only one day for website to launch after full testing.

The consultation process for web development requires considering the following aspects that will help to build a website. The aspects are purpose for design, website design should be shown to the consultancy, branding of website, providing poos and focusing first on small details. This will help to complete the development of website effectively.

The team members that are there for website development in Hosted desktop solutions are as follows. The first one is requirements analyst that translates ideas into technical specifications. The second one is UI and UX designer that helps to create interface design as per user requirement. The third one is website developer that actually develops the website using technologies. The fourth one is quality assurance specialists that guards the quality of the project and helps to assess the project. There are other team members also who also contribute in the project such as company staff.

The effective communication process is achieved through website development where project team members create active design to convey company’s details, enhancement of visual communication, enhancement of user interaction and not limited to protocols. These aspects contribute in the effective communication process.

The reporting process for team members are through five process that include planning, intervention, evaluation, assessment and deciding outcomes. These processes help to report to the team members in an effective way and help to build website.

The project for the discussed web development can be achieved in 6 six steps that are based on waterfall methodology. The first step would be to identify the requirement of the project and is formulated as a report for safekeeping of the findings. Followed by setting a communication standard for communication between development team and associated stakeholders. The third steps include devising of the strategies while the fourth step includes organising of the findings, strategies and others in a pattern. The fifth step would include reviewing of the project requirements and addition of any new requirement from the stakeholder. The final step involves testing of the developed subject and reviews it for any identified errors or loop holes completing the process and ready to go live.

Launching a website does not complete the process of web development it further demands attention. The deployment of the website attracts customers who shares their review about the website which is crucial and hence, in the deemed scenario, the development team needs to evaluate the review of the website and formulate a review report which further needs to be evaluated. The evaluation of the review report will cite some valid changes that are required in the website. The identified changes then need to be modified in the website to ensure that the subject is free from the weakness that had been identified. The next process would involve redeploying the website to complete the process of review and modify. The deemed process is crucial because it completes the process and earns a positive response from the website visitors.

The performance indicator for the development of the discussed website can be extensive in the numbers however; the key performance indicator would be the following:

• The first would indicator would be assurance of the fact that the developer have formulated a draft that would define the project budget & time. It is significant because it defines the dedication of the developers and even ensures that the development process is structured.
• Another key indicator is considered post deployment of the website where a comparison is done between the development draft provided at the start of the project and the actual time & budget consumed in completing the task. Additionally, the numbers of bugs identified are also discussed.
• The final indicator would be to evaluate the developer and their capabilities. It indicates at the enthusiasm & motivation, ability of multi-tasking, communication among the team, documentation and other crucial factors that were part of the website development process.

The core stakeholders of the discussed development project are the project team that includes the project manager and the website development team, project sponsor, the owner of the firm who have decided to restructure and redeploy their website and the users of the website (who in this scenario are indirect stakeholders because they are not involved in development process but based on their review and needs the subject will be developed). The project sponsors have a high impact on the development process because they can change the requirement and their strategy in the deemed case is to evaluate the weekly performance report provided by the other stakeholder. The second stakeholder is project team that is developing the website and their strategy in the deemed scenario is to submit the progress report on a weekly basis.

The strength of the deemed plan is that it has adhered to the project development strategy and have offered a development draft for budget and time which will assist the organisation in devising other organisational strategies.

While the core weakness of the project is associated with the lack of commitment from the top management and departmental team. The project management team is also incapable of managing the project adequately as they lack project goal & objective along with a poor communication among the stakeholders. Another notable weakness of the discussed project is associated with limited availability of the required project resources and no proper supply chain is also managed to get the required resources. The above discussed weaknesses can cite significant challenge in successful delivery of the project and hence is in dire need of mitigation.

The strategic impact of project is that the website will be developed effectively within the budget and timeline. This will help to complete the project without any delay. The project will impact Hosted Desktop Solution positively by creating awareness of the company creating leads that further convert into sales. The updated information till provide company with latest information to manage their company.

Conclusion

Therefore, the above specification shows that the website is developed with effective requirements and analysis. This will help to improve the Hosted Desktop Solutions functions and operations

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