This case presents background information and various scenarios related to the s
ID: 386454 • Letter: T
Question
This case presents background information and various scenarios related to the strategic planning of an organization. The purpose of the assignment is to utilize various management and planning tools to determine strategies that will increase competitiveness by leveraging knowledge assets and core competencies.
The Creative Design Group (CDG) designs brochures for companies, trade groups, and associations. Their emphasis on customer service is based on speed, quality, creativity, and value. They want each brochure to “wow” the customer in its design, meet or exceed the preparation deadline, and be of superior quality at a reasonable price. Value is emphasized over price, because the president, Trendy Art, believes that CDG’s experienced staff should emphasize high quality and creativity instead of price. They accomplish their primary objectives 97 percent of the time.
To carry out their objectives, the small company has four designers, a customer service/estimator (CSE), and Trendy, who is the creative director and strategic visionary. The work environment, in a converted garage behind Trendy’s house, features modern (though not always state-of-the-art) computer hardware and software, excellent lighting, and modern communications for sending design documents to clients and printers. Designers generally work independently of each other, consulting with the CSE about requests for status updates or client-initiated changes. They also consult with Trendy, who signs off on the creative design, after consultation with each client. A casual dress code and work policies, and a number of perks for workers, such as health insurance, flextime, generous vacation and sick leave benefits, a 401(k) retirement plan, and competitive wages have, in the past, made it easy to attract and retain talented people. However, with fewer talented people graduating from design schools in the area, and more competitive firms bidding up salaries, turnover has become an issue.
The CSE, Green Ishied, is the contact point for all projects, which may number 10–20 active at any one time. He must ensure that projects are carefully estimated and prepare proposals, track progress of each project, and communicate with clients on status and change requests. He is also responsible for advertising and promotion of the firm.
Trendy’s husband, Hy, is a CPA and part-time accountant for the company. He noticed recently that costs are increasing, the percentage of their bids accepted is decreasing, and the ROI s slipping.
Part a
Using the results of Parts 1 and 2 of the case, Trendy Art decided that, along with improving her recruiting processes for new and replacement hiring, it was time to replace the computer system with state-of-the-art hardware and software. Knowing that no one at CDG had the expertise to design the type of system that they needed, Trendy looked around, analyzed three competing firms’ proposals, and finally settled on Creative Computer Group (CCG) to act as consultants and system integrators. Before signing the contract, Trendy decided to ask Hy and Green Ishied (the CSE) to meet with her and the CEO of CCG to clarify the system design requirements and the wording of the contract.
Trendy, Hy, and Green all agreed that the system needed to be completely integrated, with the capability to gather cost and scheduling data directly from the designers, and to produce all necessary business reports, as well as having graphics capability. Both cost and design information would have to be available to everyone in the firm. Therefore, the network should be capable of interfacing both Macintosh and PC desktops via USB connections, with common printers. It should also provide for high bandwidth Internet access and capability to send and receive graphic and text data files. Charlie Nerd, the president of CCG, said that all of those requirements could be met by the system that he would design. Because it was such an important project for his company, he would personally be the project manager for the installation and testing of the new system. After outlining the plans for the system, Charlie asked if they had any questions. Trendy, Hy, and Green had no immediate questions, but promised to get back to Charlie with a few within three days.
question
a. Given the following information above perform a matrix data analysis to determine if CCG should get the contract to install the computer system.
b. Justify your analysis. What questions would you suggest that Trendy, Hy, and Green get back to Charlie on?
supplier characteristics weights rating ccg rating for cog rating for cow
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system design 0 .3 8 6 5
delivery timelines 0.2 7 4 9
cost 0.2 5 7 6
system service 0.2 9 6 4
experience 01 4 9 6
TOTAL 1.0
Note: Independent ratings on a scale of 1- 10 ( where 10 is best ) were performed by small busineess council of Qualdale , where CDG is located.
Suppliers: CCG= Creative Computer Group
COG= Computer Organizational Group
COW = Computer Operation Workgroup
question
a. Construct a process decision program chart, but closely reflecting CCG’s training needs.
b. What special considerations would need to be included in training graphic designers with little business knowledge and business-oriented people (such as Hy and Green) with little artistic design knowledge, about each other’s areas of work to use an integrated system?
Explanation / Answer
Currently, firms are in the race for reinforcing their ability so as to outlive in the competitions of the brand new century international market. Consequently, organizations are attempting to boost their agility degree with the aid of bettering the selection making procedure to be extra effective and extremely potent to satisfy the successive fluctuations of the market. So that you can achieve this, many modern-day businesses, both mid or huge sized, have concerned with a cycle of modern investments in and adopted new management information techniques add-ons. Throughout last decade, a high percentage of economic businesses on the whole used administration knowledge methods to facilitate the availability of offerings; and that the pace of the adoption is anticipated to grow further because the science expands.
Whitten et al. (2004, p.12.), stated that "understanding is an arrangement of folks, knowledge, approach, and expertise technological know-how that engage to collect, approach, store and provide as output the information wanted to help an organization," which indicates that understanding procedure is an arrangement of agencies, knowledge, tactics and science that act together to build up, system, retailer and furnish information output wanted to enhance and velocity up the process of determination making. In a bank's understanding procedure, there is always a abilities concern which makes the bank suffer an insufficiency; as a result, a complicated know-how system supported by means of a superior mechanism manipulate is required to make exact that an understanding method has executed the specified methods.
If the principal knowledge required in a resolution-making process or an organization planning is not on hand at the appropriate time, then there is a good alternate to be a negative institution planning, inappropriate decision-making, bad priority of wishes, and defective programming or scheduling of movements (Adebayo, 2007).
Understanding is important for the endurance of a monetary institution within the international and competitive market.
The nature of globalization and competitiveness available in the market stress on the significance of developing an group ability by way of higher enhancing MIS.
Thus, the stored information have to then be recalled and allotted for the use of an organization leadership and top management as good as mid-degree managers to take strong long term (strategic) and short term (Tactical) resolution-making. MIS is deemed to be a method which presents corporations top administration and, even lower stage management, with right expertise situated on knowledge from each inner and outside sources, to permit them to make potent and timely choices that pleasant obtain their group ambitions and fulfill stakeholder specifications (Argyris, 1971, p. 291).
The idea of knowledge catches the awareness of exceptional specialists from exceptional fields corresponding to computer science, economics, business and management, political science, records, conversation and information reviews (Newman 2001). Nonetheless, the query is "what type of knowledge"? How know-how management can play an main position within the selection making process? How can the coordination between different departments (interior and/or outside) and sharing knowledge at the actual time accelerate and enhance the system of resolution making and preclude resolution making blunders?
This paper makes a speciality of how understanding management is required to generate right planning after which decisions at both strategic and tactical phases within the two selected fiscal businesses.
The system of coping with the financial institutions was tainted by way of quite a few sensitivity, considering of the refusal of those associations to disclose their selection-making mechanism because of their Disclosure rules. So we decided to name the first selected institutions case one and case two relating to the 2d chosen companies.
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