Providian Trust Company’s Information System

📄 Words:	1521
📝 Subject:	Business Analysis Case Study
📑 Pages:	5
✍️ Type:	Essay

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT/TOWS analysis has been carried out to highlight the key strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the project; this will also reveal any bottlenecks that are likely to affect the smooth flow of the project to be undertaken.

Strengths

The company has already identified the most appropriate approach in transforming the traditional system into a modern efficient information system.
Already have designs of the project just need to spend little on re-designing as per the specifications in a cost-effective method.
Experienced professionals to execute the project so cannot lose out on finances during the project run.

Weaknesses

Have not tried the proposed system and not aware of the socio-economic implications of executing the project.
Language is also a constraint since technological innuendos may mismatch the current organizational communication culture.

Threats

The project will be run by internal agents hence limited technological know-how may compromise the results.
The finances involved in the proposed play may surpass the company’s strength to fund the project.

Opportunities

The project aims to introduce a modern information system that promises to improve the efficiency of the company.
The company has the potential of customizing the proposed information system for ease of integration with the current organizational communication culture.

Project Cost Estimate and Payback Analysis

The project cost estimate is summarized in the table below.

Item	Cost ($)	Total ($)
Hardware	5,483	5,483
Application software and implementation	10,655	10,655
Providian Trust Effort	1,800	1,800
Training of Staff	600	600
Net Investment	18,539	18,539

From the case study, the net annual return from this project is estimated at $9,201. Therefore, the payback period will be Net Investment divided by the net annual returns. In this case, it is will be;

Net Investment/Net Annual Returns= 18,539/9,201= 2.015

Thus, the payback period is 2.015 years.

Project Justification Analysis

From the payback period analysis above, it will only take two years to recover the investments on the project against returns that are increasing by 10% annually. Therefore, the project should proceed as planned.

Summary of Risk Analysis

The main risks identified include the inability to achieve project goals and misunderstanding among project personnel leading to project failure. This is summarized in the table below.

Risk	Impact	Probability
Inability to achieve project goals	Low The case study is silent on this hence we assume a low risk	Low The case study is silent on this hence we assume a low risk
Misunderstanding among project personnel leading to project failure	High The overruns on teamwork are likely to create a ripple effect in other project implementation categories	Medium Since the project is tightly controlled, the probability will not be high or low

(Source: Self Generated).

From the above classification table, the probability/impact matrix was developed as indicated in the table below.

Probability

	Low	Medium	High
High	Delay	Inability to achieve project goals	Misunderstanding among project personnel leading to project failure

Impact (Source: Self-generated).

Explanation of the Project Probability/Impact Matrix

BLUE	The risks here are classified as ‘occurred’ and the ideal approach would be the avoidance of the risks.
GREEN	The ideal approach would be either risk transfer or mitigation with those in the LP-HI addressed through contingency budgeting. The MP-MI category should be addressed through a critical contingency plan.

(Source: Self-generated).

Recommendations to Avoid the Risks

Risk	Mitigation
Inability to achieve the project milestone and goals	Development of a comprehensive project plan. Regular project progress assessments to ensure all risks are tracked. Initiating an adequate project governance structural framework. Strictly adhering to the critical path scheduling of activities. It shall be ensured that the project sponsors are presented with the full list of the project resources required for the development and implementation of the project. Where there are significant losses to the project because of a lack of skills by the project team members, the project manager, and project sponsor shall discuss whether or not the project should proceed. Using an appropriate test plan that will capture all the important aspects. Providing the project with the necessary flexibility to allow for the extension of the project duration to do a back to backtesting. Putting into place all the relevant controls for monitoring decision-making.
Misunderstandings among the project stakeholders leading to failure of the project to address the specific needs	Establishment of the project charter and outlining all the roles and responsibilities to be played by the various stakeholders. All the stakeholders agreeing to work collaboratively. Performing a thorough analysis of the current system being used and clearly outlining all the benefits expected out of the project. Having a quality assessment manager to ascertain whether or not the developed system meets the required standards before implementation. Conducting a follow-up study to determine the level of satisfaction of the respective users in the new system.

Project Assumptions

The new software application shall function on the software and hardware systems as specified initially.
It is also assumed that there will be sufficient internal information regarding the staffing resources which shall be availed to the project team during the development and implementation phases.
An experienced project manager will be employed to direct the development and implementation of the project until the system is fully functioning.
The project can be fully implemented within the budgetary allocations without exceeding this amount. This project seeks to achieve an efficient system but at the least cost possible.
There will be enough software enhancement facilities and systems to support the development and implementation of the required system.

Problems in the Case

The project budget should be kept as low as possible not to exceed what has been budgeted for. There may be difficulties associated with the freeing up of the required internal staff for the development and implementation of this project since there is an apparent misunderstanding among the project implementation personnel. This is basically because the role they play in the organization may be too critical, hence making it difficult for them to participate in the project while at the same time executing their respective roles as employees of the company. The timeline provided for the project has to be adhered to before any decommissioning of the information system and subsequent stoppage of the project support. Therefore, any delay may be catastrophic in the implementation period.

Applying Project Management Tools

Reflectively, the Gantt project is a success measuring tool for cross-platform review of the entire procedures and stages of project implementation. This tool has an application that monitors the resources of the project, time allocation, and completion tracking. Since it is flexible in creating project tracking charts, this tool is necessary for communication and promotion of the project deliverable variables since it classifies each according to the stages, timeframes, and milestones. Specifically, this tool is relevant in tracking and managing timeframes allocated for each project milestone since it can be modified to address changes that might occur in each stage of the Providian Trust Project.

The other critical tool that may be used in tracking the effectiveness of the Providian Trust Project is the risk register application. This application forms part of the project tracking tool since it provides project risk tracking evaluation from time to time. Through status updates, the risk register application will facilitate the various project management schedule workouts by offering much-needed communication between the potential risks and mitigation strategies for the same. In a practical project management environment, the risk register is applicable in designing an encoding-decoding channel of communicating potential risks and reviewing project dynamics at a minimal risk level. Thus, through the application of the soft skills possessed by the human input in Providian Trust Project management, this tool would offer appropriate progress tracking devices necessary in successful execution.

Persons Responsible

As the new CEO, Stephen Welch would have applied critical leadership skills to spearhead the successful implementation of the project. He would be in charge of ensuring that the risk management plan is implemented as outlined in the document. He would also monitor the status of all risks about the project and deliver regular reports regarding the same to the project sponsor to avoid the risk of derailment as a result of misunderstandings among the project implementation personnel.

Summary Gantt chart

This is attached in appendix 1 on the next page.

Appendix 1: Work Breakdown Structure Diagram

Work Breakdown Structure Diagram