IT Business Analysis For A Business Website †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Business Analysis For A Business Website. Answer: Objective The objectives of this report are to deliver the project brief of building a new website for Hosted Desktop Solutions (HDS) to enhance their business of open source IT solutions. Even though HDS has built many websites for their clients their own site has not been managed and updated from a long amount of time. It the lacks the modern templates and content that is essential for an IT company website. Company Background Jeff and Bob are the founders of HDS. They start this business with a laptop each and devoted their time and effort to meeting their client expectations and IT needs. That time they are using a 4-year-old server for storage, file sharing, network as well as some legacy hosted application for clients. It lacks sufficient processing power and the server set up has been unstable over the years. They had also poor infrastructure such as using Email through Google apps, using paper-based excel files from the companys beginning. Company current status Hosted desktop Solutions is currently a small IT solution company directly deals with their client of medium and small businesses. It is a full-service company situated in the Sydney IT hub of North Ryde. They mainly deal with software bugs, hardware, websites and also configure and manage systems. Most of their clients come from the design companies and other individuals who cannot manage or configure their own sites. This company is providing hosted services along with the open source solution to their clients. Recently they are started to deploy and develop their own applications to enhance their business. Recently, they identified significant opportunities to expand the depth of its cloud computing services, particularly into the education system. While many of the hosting services supplied to customers are externally hosted, older clients are still managed using the companies own IT; and most client IT system monitoring and maintenance is still undertaken through internal IT. Internal and External Analysis Currently, the procedure and informal policies of HDS is not helping them to increase growth. The old website especially lacked key result area for business and not been updated for a long amount of time. Resulting, an outdated communication information and key marketing. Additionally, backdated project and client documentation impacting client invoicing and the administrative response turn-abounds are getting longer and becoming inaccurate. Therefore project margins are declining. Till now the founders Bob and Jeff ware managing all arising issues directly but now they are incapable of dealing with numerous issues as the company is growing rapidly. HDS still operates under a small family business culture. They are increasing their service fields to grow their business and increase market share. However, they have other well-known competitors in hosted service and IT solution markets. These competitors do not provide the same level of high-quality customer services but they can offer very competitive pricing. Stakeholders Previously, HDS is concern only about their customers and consider their needs to grow their business. For only focusing on customers the relationship between stakeholders has undermined mainly internal stakeholders are affected. That is also affecting innovation, value creation and primary productivity across the company (Paul, Yeates and Cadle 2014). Till now founders are rarely are focusing on requirement analysis and formal stakeholders. However for the increasing amount of clients and their projects requirement management and stakeholders is becoming crucially important to ensure successful production (Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini 2015). Another problem is occurring due to the diverse views of internal stakeholders reliant on their role and area (Sekaran and Bougie 2016 ). Some staffs are concern about job losses or reduced hours cause of business being carried out online. Other staffs are not realizing any need for a major website, satisfy with their old website. Although recognizing the need for a new site, are concerned about the increased resourcing requirements and maintenance overheads that a website with more capability would involve, it is already difficult keeping the current site up to date and well maintained. Strategies After analysing internal and external strategies, operational responsibilities and tactics HDS needs to focus on some key points to enable the growth sustainably. Important key points are: Contributing to IT deployment into larger companies Managing internal operations across all areas Assisting the founders with strategic planning Contributing to application development Alleviating some of Bob's and Jeff's tactical and operational decision making Plan of business activities Task Name Duration Start Finish Resource Names Business analysis of HDS New Website 60 days Fri 2/16/18 Thu 5/10/18 CIO Requirements Analysis 9 days Fri 2/16/18 Wed 2/28/18 Project Manager Enterprise Analysis 5 days Thu 3/1/18 Wed 3/7/18 Stakeholders Solution Assessment and Validation 12 days Thu 3/8/18 Fri 3/23/18 Board Executive Committee Market Analysis 8 days Mon 3/26/18 Wed 4/4/18 Marketing Committee Quality Analysis 6 days Thu 4/5/18 Thu 4/12/18 IT technician Cost Estimation 2 days Fri 4/13/18 Mon 4/16/18 Finance Committee Risk Management 3 days Tue 4/17/18 Thu 4/19/18 Board Executive Committee Stakeholders Analysis 6 days Fri 4/20/18 Fri 4/27/18 CIO Generate Publicity 9 days Mon 4/30/18 Thu 5/10/18 IT Staff Stakeholders Stakeholders Responsibilities Business Consultant Ensured the human resources required for the project; Project Manager Ensured the project is completed within allocated budget and time; Sponsor Accounts for the completion of the entire project Director The director verifies and validate the Project Plan Status Report, Budget Report and Training Report. CEO The CEO approves the project budget and schedule. HR Project Sponsor Finance Manager Project Budget control Methods for Distributing Information on Projects To ensure the project stability the right people such as project team member, project sponsors and stakeholders should have the correct information on project status and timetable to make vital decisions for project planning (Zikmund et al. 2013). To reach the right people when required for any kind of decision making, effective distribution of work role in a best-suited manner is must need (Hair 2015). There are many ways HDS can stay connected with their stakeholders. However, mostly they communicate through electronic communications for the easy access to computers. Authority can also keep records of their communication details by keeping soft copy along with the information distribution of the hard copy such as a copy of the memo. HDS has different Stakeholders from many areas so it is not possible for everybody to join a face to face interview. Given the short time and tight budget issues, CIO needs to manage multiple business analysis and Email may work best for brief updates, queries and getting updates. For Communication, updates, distribute and receive information all of the following may need (Shmueli et al. 2017). Ensuring correct information is being delivered to stakeholders Resources allocated for communicating information including time expectations and budget. There should be a list of stakeholders to check their contribution in past. There should be an efficient communication management plan to conduct information and for information flow stability (Anderson 2013). Requirement Repository Requirement management is the method of analyzing, documenting, prioritizing and tracing requirements and afterward controlling change and communicating to relevant stakeholders (Gandomi and Haider 2015). An analysis of requirement is essential to choose the right system for the repository. Repository choices can impact the cost, diversification, quality, customization and stakeholders. It can be maintained by systems staff or a new repository team can be required to maintain (Wixom, Yen and Relich 2013). The requirements management plan (RMP) RMP describes how the business analysis work will be completed. Requirement traceability is about documenting the life of requirements (Wiegers and Beatty 2013). Requirement occurs from different sources such as marketing manager, stakeholders. The implemented features of traceability can trace back individuals or groups who wanted it during requirement elicitation (Davis 2013). It can also be used after deployment when clients studies identified a non-used feature to see why it was in requirement table in the first place. Requirement manage plan can also consist of the subsidiary plan such as business analysis risk plan, business analysis effort and many more. Business Analysis Approach The approach totally depends on the framework, methodology or method to capture requirement (Vera, Colomo and Molloy 2013). To manage requirements the communication between stakeholders and authorities is vital. The approach is the cornerstone of all worker effort and it tracks information like how and from where the requirements are collected and managed (Alegre, Sengupta and Lapiedra 2013). The website business analysis must consist of the customers satisfaction and profit in long term. Customers are not satisfied with the old website as they cannot contact the support staff directly. Also, old clients are expecting to acknowledge when contacting HDS for some new projects. There old server and database on the website cannot track such information. The most important thing is to focus on strategies to grow the business opportunities while maintaining supportive and caring culture. Requirements change management This website is very important for HDS to evolve their business strategies. The company has no tagline, vision statement and mission statement. The process of dealing with the clients is also backdated. These are the main aspects need to be changed immediately. The new website is made to change the management and constraint identification process of the company. Also, service emails need to acknowledged as quickly as possible to respond quickly. There need some changes in staff selection as the clients would like to assign younger staffs to manage their social media activities. Metrics to measure the Business analyst work Metrics Explanation % Business objectives met Track whether overall value is delivered as an indicator that Business Analyst understand the Business objectives and align scope accordingly. % clients adoption Track the percentage of user that adopt the new website is moving towards 100% as an indicator that Business analyst are working with project to build something acceptable to the actual end clients. Average missed requirements as a % of total requirements by phase Track when missed requirements are identified, looking for a reduction in later phases as an indicator of overall BA skills. Number of out of scope requirements added as % total Track scope creep beyond the original scope as an indicator that Business analyst is tracing to business objectives. Effort Metrics Activity Actual Effort Planned Effort Deviation (%) Requirements Gathering 75 80 -6.25 Enterprise Analysis 85 100 -15 Solution Assessment and Validation 97 110 -11.81 Market Analysis 180 220 -18.18 Quality Analysis 450 500 -10 Cost and Risk Estimation 150 100 50 Stakeholder analysis 200 150 33.33 Total 1237 1260 22.09 Performance Report Activities Performance Percent completed (%) Days to complete Requirements Gathering GOOD 60 3 Enterprise Analysis VERY GOOD 40 4 Market Analysis VERY GOOD 30 6 Quality Analysis GOOD 20 3 Cost and Risk Estimation GOOD 80 2 Stakeholder analysis GOOD 90 4 Problems Whenever a project initiated, even though the business analysis is exercised some problems could occur. Different stakeholders have different needs as they represent different interests within the business that could lead to conflict requirements. As a hosted service provider HDS is implementing their business plan to enhance their business and connect with more clients. While the implementation of the project is in the process some problems could occur in the management area. Internally some stakeholders ware against the idea of building a new website. As result, they could have anxiety and would be less committed to the company. External stakeholders may stop financing the project in a worst case. Another problem could occur when dealing with client expectation. The main purpose of building this website is to attract clients and satisfy their needs through giving them a pleasant experience. Uncertainty, clients do not like the interface of the website that would turn to total proje ct failure. Preventative or corrective actions There is certain aspect to focus when starting with a new project to prevent the outcome problems. The main problems can be categories as a resource misalignment, requirements misalignment and schedule misalignment (Stark 2015). Resource misalignment can occur if the project was late, incomplete or over budget. This problem can be avoided by proper planning. Requirement misalignment can occur for insufficient requirement gathering and separation between business and IT staffs (Hillary 2017). Schedule management is vital to complete the website by given time limit. The Business analyst and project manager should work closely together in the beginning to prevent this type of problems (Snyder 2015). References Alegre, J., Sengupta, K. and Lapiedra, R., 2013. Knowledge management and innovation performance in a high-tech SMEs industry.International Small Business Journal,31(4), pp.454-470. Anderson, V., 2013.Research methods in human resource management: investigating a business issue. Kogan Page Publishers. Davis, A., 2013.Just enough requirements management: where software development meets marketing. Addison-Wesley.(RMP) Gandomi, A. and Haider, M., 2015. Beyond the hype: Big data concepts, methods, and analytics.International Journal of Information Management,35(2), pp.137-144. 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