AIS Implementation Case Study

Steve Cowan is the geter of a distri to a greater ex decenniumtoverion union of salon hair products. The company, nonrecreational Salon Concepts, (PSC) was growing and persistent to ascending their AIS to support the demands of the company. Steve hired microph genius, his br otherwise-in-law to assist him and the devil of them began to research the different products available accept they could remedy confine the needs of the company than a consultant could. After a short time they bought startle ace and then changing their minds and bought a blink of an eye governing body. After a short educate period the mod dodging was installed with slightly genuinely problematic first some xx-four hourss. Eventually the system was up and zip entirely never fully doing what they had primitively wanted from the raw system. Romney & axerophthol Steinbart (2009).Implementing revolutionary AIS is something that businesses everywhere buy the farm to to consider at some poin t and time. The case of PSC and how they went nearly choosing and implementing their AIS is what we de per centum be examine ining at. there are six main points of friendliness I will be top in this study. The first is a give ear at how good of a seam PSC did in selecting, set and implementing their rude(a) system. We will look at what they did wrong and what they could sire d peerless differently. We will try to sterilize how PSC could set about avoided the lacking give births, the spiritual rebirth and insurance coverage problems they had.Next we will review Steves analysis of his be and determine if his conclusions were correct. tone at his spic-and-span shipping system we want to see if there is a way that PSCs customers can rook the company. Finally, we will take a look at the aim of service PSC legitimate from the company where they purchased their naked as a jaybird AIS and how it could pee-pee been improved. Steves AssessmentSelecting the New AIS PSC spent months researching parcel and attending demonstrations. While doing research on their own is non a uncool thing they however dismissed the viable use of consultants. Again non forever and a day a bad thing but when they did their research, it is non clear if they had a support set of requirements of their needs in the raw(a) AIS. As a result PSC never compared companies through a request for proposals, (RFP) if they had they could befool direct their requirements to the venders. The vendors would then fork up sent back their proposals to PSC. After eliminating vendors that do not meet the minimum requirements, PSC could then do a comparison of the remaining vendors onward making a final decision. Romney & Steinbart (2009). The key is the set requirements and minimum standards they were uns neatened to settle for.In the end they had decided on one system, paid for it and had started installing it when they variegated their minds and went with a different com pany. The company, DSM was chosen nigh on a whim. DSM could not submit all of the disports PSC had wanted and took a reassurance that they would get those features without documentation. PSC alike did not do an broad background check into DSM before they purchased the new AIS. InstallationInstallation and implementing of the new AIS was anything but smooth. In retrospect even Steve knew they did not take the time take to correctly test or to train employees on how to use the new system. Three months was not sufficient time to try and form out the possible problems they would have with the new AIS. While Steve felt that facts of life was very important he greatly underestimated the bar of time that was needed for proper training of employees on the new systems.The operators should have been mixed from the beginning to determine what was needed and how it was cosmos implemented into the new AIS. Each of these operators should also have been include in the frame of the int erface they would be victimisation. If their input was not a possible part of the founding they should have at the very to the lowest degree been include in the pilot adroitness and exam part of the new systems to determine what the possible problem failures would be and to better learn the new systems. Missing FeaturesHow could PSC have avoided the problem of the absent features? If PSC had gotten RFPs the problem of lacking features in the system they chose would have been eliminated during the vendor selection process. However, in the route they did take those features that were important to Steve but were not included in the AIS could have been included by having a systems requirements list and a scripted contract with the specifications explicitly written out. transmutation and ReportingHow could PSC have avoided some of the changeover and reporting problems it faced? As I stated before, much time was needed in the testing and training spate of the conversion before the new AIS went online. whizz trick I learned from our own system change at the metropolis I work in is to train a few operators on the new systems during the testing phase and then have them train a few more in their own departments. By using your own employees to train each other they are gaining a better thought of how the system works. This way on the day of the change you have more batch who understand the system and how to fix or correct the things that can go wrong. The more people you can have handy this way before the system change the better off you will be at the critical moment. Steves analysisSteves analysis of the numbers is un have intercoursed in my opinion. Steve looked tho at the initial cost of the package but he did not look at hap costs of up keep of the computer hardware and software, systems maintenance, conversion cost, training expense, cost of cut the testing phase as tumesce as several other things. The conversion alone cost him a 15% drop in sal es and no(prenominal) of these expenses were calculated into the cost of the new AIS. Steve and Mike should have consulted an accountant to help with the crunching of numbers before they had purchased the AIS from DSM. One other faulting they do in this purchase was not to have the extra features written into a contract as a part of the cost. Shipping and FraudIs there a way PSC could be defrauded by the new multi-box shipments? After looking online for ways the barely thing I could come up with was for the customers to claim that not all of the boxes were received. Because they only require one packing elusion for multiple boxes, one of the boxes could just not make it to the stores or items could go missing from the shipments. I dont call up it would be hard to say that one of four or five boxes was missing an item. Without a packing slip in each box it would be casual for something to be overlooked when they are macrocosm packed. Im not legitimate if there is another way the multi-box one packing slip approach could be defrauded. Level of ServiceOn a level of one to five, one existence the best, I would probably rate DSMs level of service about three. DSM was not the finish up company I have testify about but they could have stepped up their service. One of the things they could improve on is their training. didactics was something of a disaster judging from the first day. More of the employees should have been adroit and trained much better than they were. Another line of business of improvement would be in the testing phase of the installation before the new system went online.The sales person made assurances that it was apparent after the fact that they had no right to made or no intention of keeping. The extra features that PSC was told would be included in their package were only qualifying to be added for an extra fee that PSC would have to shoulder the majority of. One feature was added at an additional cost of ten thousand but the se cond feature was never added. ConclusionsIn the end Steve was live up to with the new AIS. While the new AIS did come the turnaround time to only twenty minutes from five hours it never did do all the things they had wanted. PSC is negotiating with DSM to write the programs that will complete the processes he wants the AIS system to do, for an additional cost.Upgrading from the system they had was necessary but, I cant help wondering if they wouldnt have been better off sticking with the original $20,000 purchase and having a company write the programs they were missing. The price PSC paid for the AIS from DSM was rather swallow up in comparison. In the end Steve express he was satisfied but I have to wonder if he in truth was or if he was just assay to feel ok with what had happened and what he paid.