Ipads for Success

Hello Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Wolfson,

To arrive at a decision if I-Pads can create a positive impact when used by the sales representatives in comparison to the currently used laptops, Newsy & myself evaluated the various benefits based on the below criterions by having an in-depth discussions with the CIO, CFO, VP of Sales & Marketing, CMO, Sales Managers, and Sales representatives about the process workflow & how they would be affected if laptops are replaced with I-Pads for the detailer. Further we also conducted a test individually on both devices for evaluating technical, operational & financial feasibility.

 No doubt, the laptops are providing everything that the detailers need however in today’s day and age of limited time and short attention spans, where doctors and physicians themselves are turning to the new technology, we should proactively take a step&  start embracing the newer technologies before we realize that most of the detailers in our industry have already taken the advantage through the use of I-Pads.

For evaluating the technical feasibility of using I-Pads in comparison to Laptops, the results that we arrived at was a combination of reviewing the available features served by both I-Pads & Laptops in the open market to understand if the task that the sales representatives are currently doing on laptops can be done on I-pads or not. Based on our analyses, below are the observations: 

• Since the pre-sales call presentation, sales material/manual etc. are prepared virtually anywhere by the sales representatives & also they get assisted by the in-house sales team, we believe that the detailer can do almost all of their work by taking I-Pads to the sales call.
• After the recent move of changing our medical rep software from proprietary system to the web-based (which offered us good amount of cost savings, keeping in mind the confidential information still be kept within the corporate headquarters), this newer web-based software version can be accessed via I-Pad.
• One of the issues of using I-Pads is the security concern. However since most of the confidential information will be kept in-house, we do not see a concern unless there was an oversight by the sales representative which can be controlled by adding a  review process by the sales manager, providing the training & having clear communication. Also I-Pads can use a mobile device manager (MDM) system; this technology helps monitor when I-Pads connect with internal systems. Laptops in comparison do not offer that feature.

For evaluating the organizational feasibility the result we arrived at was by understanding if I-pads will work for our organization. Below were the observations:

• Easy to use: Sales reps would be able to provide marketing materials/manuals from I-Pads itself, thereby avoiding the printing which will create a friendly environment and ultimately lead the detailer to have more time for building rapport with the physicians. They could present themselves without the physical burden of carrying the huge bag and thereby get less stressed & pay attention to the minute details like the photographs on the walls, degrees put up on the wall & have a casual chat to create a personal interest in the sales call meeting.
• Training: There will be a 2 day meet for introducing the functions of I-Pad which can be done in parts across the different regions. This can be done over a weekend to save the time for the weekdays.
• Quick access to Information: The visual charts are an important selling point for a sales representative. Detailers need to be updated with all latest information. I-Pads in addition to WIFI provide Hotspots. This technology adds more internet reliability for our sales reps. Laptops in comparison are mostly restricted to WIFI. 
• Efficiency due to Saving Time:  Amrahp LLC has 2500 sales representatives spread across the country. The current laptops which uses Windows 7 OS which takes about 3-4 minutes to boot up. Based on the limited time to see a doctor we need about 30 seconds to 1 minute per interaction. Though the laptop can be put on sleep mode while waiting for the physician meeting it can still take about 5-8 seconds to resume. It takes approximately 1 seconds to resume. A laptop battery lasts for about 2-3 hours whereas an I-Pad has the ability to last for 10 hours, does not need to be on sleep mode. In addition the I-Pad can run multiple applications at the same time. There are several apps that can be easily downloaded from the app store for organizing their appointments, canceled appointments, search for their region & save time. Sales reps can communicate with the main office through their direct connection feature that includes communicating with their office managers, view provider profiles, etc. All other information, such as daily reports, travel and expense report can be modified through many apps available for pharmaceutical business.

Finally& most importantly the evaluation of financial feasibility of implementing I-pads for our sales representatives, we discussed with the Sales& Marketing head who is going to do the funding and below is the observation: 

• Costs Savings: Laptop costs ranges from $800 to $1200, with an average of $1,000. An iPad can range from $500 to $800 with an average of $650, considering the expenses for the accessories like case, screen guard etc. Our total approx. investment for our 2500 employees when we opted for laptops was $2.5 million considering it will require an upgrade in 2 years time. As discussed with the CMO, since we have purchased the laptops last quarter, we have to initially arrange to sell these laptops so as to get the best possible price & in the meantime once the contract is received we may buy the I-Pads. Considering we get 60% of the purchase value in the worst case scenario, our total approx. investment for iPads would be about a little more than $100,000 only (assuming we get 60% return i.e. $1.5 million by selling the laptops & purchase I-Pads for $1.63 million).

Based on the above observation, I-pads will serve to create a more efficient & effective work-life for a sales representative. If you have any questions, kindly do not hesitate to contact Newsy or myself.

Regards,

Nikita Patel

References:  

http://www.healthcarecommunication.com/Pharma/Articles/3_reasons_pharmaceutical_reps_are_using_iPads_6855.aspx

http://www.pharmacareer.ca/pharmaceutical-selling-skills-chapter-3---sales-call.html

http://www.medicalrepresentative.net/blog/

Reflection Report - P&G Data Capture and Clinical Trial Management

Memorandum

To: Ray D'Alonzo

From: Nikita Patel

Date: June 23,2014

Subject: Re: Reflective Analysis – P&G Data Capture and Clinical Trial Management

 

This memorandum is with regard to the meeting held last Tuesday with the consulting team ‘American “A” Experts’. I believe the consulting team provided some thoughtful insights with regard to implementation of Electronic Data Capture, which can be utilized in arriving at our final decision to solve the three issues we are facing - trial preparation process, data collection & verification and data management & review which will ultimately lead us to a sustainable growth in the health care segment.

After careful analysis of the preparatory notes we had prior to the consultant meeting along with the presentation & data provided by consultants, I see that the consultants discussed most of the benefits of EDC which leads me to consider my initial judgment of moving forward to implement EDC into our system. This is based upon the fact that the virtual world is going to change the future of businesses around the world. P&G should use this opportunity for adapting to new technology and embrace the technical tools available in the market to its capabilities. In addition, the EDC trials were highly successful and proved the system reduces the errors and inaccuracies of human data entry and completely eliminates the double-entry system.  During the trial of the EDC, the duration of time from the final patient visit to data-lock improved from eight weeks to a mere four weeks. There was also an improved quality of patient data, since errors were being corrected throughout the process. 

Also as presented by the consultants in the total weight analysis slide, it proves that of the maximum weighted sum of 123 that can be achieved on the various criterion, the EDC alternative provides a sum total weight of 108 whereas the other 2 alternatives gives a weighted sum of only 81 & 90 on the various criterion. The estimated improvement in the clinical trial phases, particularly in phase 3 shows that the number of years could be considerably reduced from 3.5 to 1.5 which will be a significant achievement for our company compared to other firms operating in the healthcare industry. We could save $ 211,600 per trial as shown in the estimated saving slide which surely is a plus point in considering this decision.  The analysis shows that the savings from CRA monitoring visit itself will be $ 180,000 which is considerable as the CRA can then be involved in other productive work thereby reducing the intake of hiring new employees. It is impressive to see the total savings for P&G if EDC is implemented.

Considering the above facts in reducing the length of time in our clinical trials and achieve cost savings in future, I believe it is worth taking the risk to invest in the implementation of EDC. Improving our current paper-based system is worth discussing in greater detail, while we should rule out the alternative of digital imaging due to the massive investment costs of storage space. EDC seems to be an ideal alternative that addresses the problem and the symptoms we face currently; the other two alternatives seem to address only the symptoms. Once the sites and sponsors are well versed in the EDC system, the entire process will be more efficient and effective.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

1-888-JUNK-VAN Case Preparation



Marcus Kingo, founder of 1-888-JUNK-VAN, started operating its waste collection business in 2008 which rapidly grew in just a year’s time thereby required organizing its business process with a cost-effective IT system that would minimize information handling errors and retain its customer base. He realized the need to implement a fast, simple, reliable & affordable IT system to fit his virtual business model and organize his growing business.

Problem/Issue Statement

The key problem in this case is that as the business grew, the operational complexity, inefficiency & errors became a routine which led to decrease in customer satisfaction. Some of the symptoms negatively impacting the operations were due to the time consuming process of fixing the database errors by data clerk, contacting helpers and money collection, mistakes in customer contact information, forgotten e-mails, manual calculations of staff payroll and billing errors which lead to low customer service quality and loss of customers.

 

The scope of the problem includes every aspect of its business operations considering his virtual business model that does not allow for any physical office space, a flawed IT support system negatively impacts all processes and employees. Due to the company’s poor design of the IT infrastructure system and its inadequacies, personnel cannot efficiently devote their time to their daily tasks.

 

Situations Assessment

The context of the problem is looking at the inefficiencies that are apparent within JUNK VAN’s current virtual business model. Currently, the business runs in a structured manner with two call center operators, one data clerk, three drivers, and three helpers. The customer’s job requests come in via phone and later the information would be entered into a custom-built MS-Works database. From there, information would be communicated via e-mail to the morning and evening operators and ultimately to the drivers. Mr. Kingo wanted to maintain this virtual business and eventually move into franchising and growing. However he would like to have a central database and eliminate the manual process of e-mailing internal information.

 

The decision criteria to consider include the cost of the various alternatives to their current business model with MS-Work & the flexibility and ease of using the new IT infrastructure to be implemented as Kingo & his staff do not possess high level of IT knowledge and are not adaptable to changes within the industry. Other criterions discussed in the case are having vendor support and ability to implement this change at the earliest.

List of Plausible Alternative Courses of Action & Evaluation of Alternatives:

The possible alternatives mentioned in the case along with its evaluation are as follows:

1.  Microsoft Access Database: Upgrading from MS-Works to MS-Access would be affordable with each license costing $179 per computer.  A Microsoft Access platform would create one unified database that would replace the need for a data clerk to send out accurate details to morning operators as well as the task of drivers using templates to send information to the data clerk.  This solution would most likely be cost effective, depending on which option was selected, and could probably be implemented in a short time period. 

If Access was installed locally in several computers, Kingo could complete the installation himself within a few weeks however without allowing any remote access.  It could be installed on a shared server so the database could be accessed remotely, but Kingo would need to study the technical information in detail which would be time consuming or take professional assistance separately which would add a cost element in its operation.  The number of licenses in this situation would depend on the number of users working on the program concurrently. Hence this was not really an ideal solution in the future if the business kept expanding rapidly.

2. Custom application:  This web-based system is built as a completely customized application for the business. It would meet requirements of a central database and provide remote access as well as provide some basic functionality. It could be built within 4 weeks at an upfront cost of $2,000 and maintenance cost of $60 per hour, however with no exact knowledge of how much maintenance would be required.

A customized application would have the benefit of ideally solving all of the company’s IT requirements, such as automating e-mails and provide a central database that could be remotely accessed. However implementation of this option would be time consuming & the total cost would be difficult to estimate due to inability to predict how much maintenance would be required. Also quotes provided to JUNKVAN do not include data migration. Although this web based option would allow for remote access and meet functionality requirements, Kingo would not be able to assess whether the developer understood the business needs and whether the application is user friendly. Since there is a high potential for misalignment of requirements, future rework and support can become costly making this option a questionable choice. 

3. Google Docs:  The online application allows quick creation and sharing of documents. It allows up to 10 free user accounts to create text documents, spreadsheets, and slide-based presentations.  Many individuals can simultaneously work in one file in a collaborative environment. This option is low in cost, easy to use, supports different user profiles, and could be implemented quickly.

While the implementation of this option is inexpensive and timely (considering if the company opts to use the small business option for $5 a month), and the collaboration and functionality would accommodate most of business requirements, it would not eliminate the problems accompanying management of a large database in a single excel spreadsheet. The database function could not be cross-referenced and all employees would still need to use one large spreadsheet with all data visible to all users.  Additionally, Google Docs does not have a formal customer support structure & has a potential security and sustainability concerns which need to be considered carefully. Hence this option is not that feasible for JUNK-VAN's business needs.

4. Platform as a Service:  This option, very similar to Google Docs, is delivered on a cloud-computing infrastructure and would provide network capacity as well as some basic functionality on demand through the Internet. Users could utilize common applications, build their own unique applications using a shared computing platform that is provided and hosted by a third party. The application is relatively easy to use and requires only three days to implement. Service package ranges from $300 to $600 per month depending on how much storage space and how many user licenses and applications are needed. Long term contracts are not required and service can be canceled or expanded at any time with a one month’s notice.
 

Platform as a Service could most likely meet all of the company’s IT needs and be available to do so within a timeframe as short as under a week. However this solution would require more hands-on IT knowledge to build forms and connect tables, which Kingo himself may not be knowledgeable enough to handle however he could use external IT services to overcome this obstacle. Before making a decision, Kingo needs to understand how much of a platform he wants and how much he is willing to pay. Any further customization to be done in the future to meet the company’s needs could cost $180/hour fee, therefore it is in his benefit to have a very good plan and design the requirements based on the easiness in the trial he observed with the sales representative.

5. Enterprise Resource Planning System: The ERP system is built around a central database that could be accessed remotely and integrate every aspect of the business processes like purchasing, sales, customer service, etc. The implementation cost is extremely high as licenses cost about $2500 per user per year with start-up fees being approximately the same as the complete annual license charge. License fees might even be higher considering that the estimates were for larger firms.

 

This option would potentially address the IT problems suffered by the company through a central database, though it is not completely clear that an ERP system could be applicable to the company itself.  Furthermore, the ERP system had finance & manufacturing modules which may not be useful to JUNK-VAN’s specific business needs as well as any future needs as the company and industry grew. The excessive costs and rigidity of the system indicates that an ERP system would not likely address the company’s key problem.

Recommendation

Based on the above alternatives, a logical and quality recommendation is that JUNK-VAN upgrade from MS-Works to a Platform as a Service as it will help in the best resolution of its current problems in IT system.  Using a Platform as a Service model would allow the company to meet all of Kingo’s desires for a new IT system such as automated e-mailing and a remotely accessible central database.  Although the new system would require more IT knowledge than an already established system like MS Access, Kingo was fairly certain based on the demonstration from one of the vendors that he would be able to perform the requisite setup tasks himself.  The option is slightly more expensive than some of the other alternatives, but its viability in the long run by being fully customizable will save the company any fund needed to update from an outdated system.  Vendor support for PaaS is much better than other options like Google Docs and as the firm expands to other areas through franchising this customer support will be very helpful in accommodating new employees.  The PaaS architecture should minimize errors, mitigate time delays, and allow for the custom needs that the company’s situation demands. 

Presentation

For the purpose of presentation, I would highlight the current problem faced by JUNK-VAN & further provide a balanced perspective of all the alternatives and give equal weight to each of the choices. In this case I would use a tabular format to explain the pros & cons for each of the alternatives along with the weights for the different criterion useful to the company as per Kingo’s ideal IT solution. The consulting group should determine which factor, whether it be cost, ease of implementation, or product flexibility, which is the most important aspect in the decision making process.  Only by choosing one or two variables as the most significant factor can the consulting team evaluate which solution would best meet 1-888-JUNK-VAN’s needs. This type of presentation will ease the decision making process. I would also highlight, when making the IT system choice, that while it is great to have control of one’s business, Mr. Kingo will benefit from relying more on a robust business solution so that he can focus his efforts on applying his entrepreneurial skills and grow the waste collection business.

Business Impact Of Visio

To: Cathy Miller
From: Nikita Patel

Date: June 16, 2014
Subject: Business Impact of Microsoft Visio - Memorandum

Hello Cathy,

This memorandum is regarding the business impact that Microsoft Visio tool can create on our firm. As a reputed financial service company, we are always looking for efficient ways to keep the business operations expand rapidly. As per our discussion last week with regards to increasing efficiency and saving time of employees across the departments, I was exploring the various benefits Microsoft Visio can add to our work environment. After meeting the various department heads in our company, we noticed that a professional visual presentation makes a significant impact in planning, executing, controlling, and organizing a business to grow. It allows company personnel to prepare flow charts, diagrams and tables, which can be incorporated into presentations, training slides or company wide meetings in a simplistic manner.

No doubt we have charts created manually on Excel or Word, however they do not always create a similar look that Visio does. The workflow charts created through Visio makes the process much easier for a new employee to interpret rather than just hearing about the process flow from their fellow colleagues which in turn results in not being able to understand the entire business operation. Understanding a client's flow of information makes Visio a value add for our enterprise & ultimately help to shape a view of how the decision making process might flow through the organization; however keeping track of this detail in different excels & word documents can become quite cumbersome at one point.

The important features that we need for our company is creating live trading dashboards using data-linked diagrams from the spreadsheets connected to Bloomberg terminal. This will help the product analyst in developing effective financial models to evaluate new product on real-time basis.  The benefit of having Visio is a significant increase in return on investment (ROI). We currently require eight hours each to familiarize with the latest version of Visio, and the work that can be completed by Visio Process Template generate an average of 80 hours of billable time, per project. In the first year itself, we can achieve a nine times return on our investment in training, adjusted for inflation.  Another benefit is increase in revenues by letting clients know about refining their business processes. The easier it is for clients to use and collaborate on Visio diagrams, the more likely they are to come back to our firm for further business. It can add value to selling our products because institutional clients can easily collaborate their diagrams after they have been published on SharePoint. This gets the interaction going and soon they will be coming to us for help in process automation and to build additional SharePoint workflows. It is estimated that as each engagement with a Visio component will increase the billable revenue by more than 40 percent.

We have used Visio in the past to create the organizational hierarchy based on a spreadsheet of data pertaining to client contact list, and by doing so we have identified the geographic blocks in the clients decision making process based on the outdated practices and an executive movement due to new assignments. As soon as there was an executive movement, we were able to quickly update the organizational charts and decision making chart based on the changes. The ability to produce real-time charts and better understand the flow of information through the client's decision making process increases not only the number of opportunities that we come across, but also improves our working relationship with client executives because we bring them the information that is applicable to them at the appropriate stage of the process which makes everyone's job easy. Having information like the organizational hierarchy, and or business process diagrams readily available is critical to our firm's ability to effectively sell and position for new opportunities with our clients. After discussing the above benefits with several department heads, the suggested course of action we came up is to buy Visio which will cost us a $500 additional expense, however it will add a professional touch to our presentations and the data available on our company website which cannot be quantified in monetary terms as of now since it will be an ongoing quality benefit a company can have.

Please advise if you would like to discuss on this memorandum in detail; we can set up a meeting at a convenient time this week.

References:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/microsoft-visio-professional-2013-create-advanced-versatile-diagrams-FX103791824.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-Visio-2013/IOZ/Consulting-Firm-Achieves-Nine-Times-ROI-in-First-Year-with-Latest-Diagramming-Solution/710000002815

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio-help/develop-effective-financial-models-to-evaluate-new-products-HA001226515.aspx

 

P & G Case Preparation

Case Study: P & G – Electronic Data Capture and Clinical Trial Management

 

Problem/Issue Statement

Proctor & Gamble’s Health care division faces significant delays within its clinical trial management process. P&G needs to identify a strategy to its existing paper based process to reduce the length of time it takes to complete clinical trials for prescription drugs. The FDA requirement for clinical trials can take several months to years to complete. The faster the prescription drug can be put on the market, the quicker P&G can begin to earn a profit. It has been mentioned that for each day the drug is delayed, it causes the sponsor about $1 million in lost sales. Therefore, the problem statement for P&G is

How to effectively reduce the time it takes to get the prescription drug through trials while ensuring an accurate data collection process and satisfy all parties involved in the workflow process?

 

The problem is that the existing paper based data collection process is lengthy and the symptoms of the problem is the current process which is time consuming & involves the double entry of data, as well as an additional review of entries if discrepancies are found in original entries by the CDMs, which leads to the significant lag time in sending and receiving the data that is associated with using a paper based approach.

 

The scope of the problem is to find the exact reasons for time lags in clinical trial methodology.  This process needs to be reviewed from start to finish for reducing the length of time and inefficiencies with the data.

 

Situation Assessment

The context of the issue is the paper-based system of clinical trial management, where all the patient information is kept in hard copy format. This current process is slow due to double-entry for each page which costs $6 to $9 per CRF form (consist of 50 pages per patient) & ultimately causing significant delays in the prescription drug before entering the market.  

 

P&G decision criteria is to assess alternatives that reduce the time it takes to enter patient information into the database in the most cost efficient way, so as to avoid double entry and also consider the duration of time from the final patient visit to the data-lock. If there are less inconsistencies and errors, the time would be reduced.  Paper form documents move slowly through the departments which also causes delays. P&G can utilize the Web-enabled electronic data capture (EDC) to address the reduction of data entry time.  However, P&G needs to assess the cost of implementing this process including the long term benefits of a significant learning curve to operate the system and ensure cooperation by the investigator sites where the trials are conducted.

 

List of Plausible Alternative Courses of Action

P&G has three options in addressing the reduction of time to data lock and the inefficiency in its current process:

 

Improving the paper-based process: This option will allow P&G to use express mail shipments from investigator sites which address the time delays in receiving the hard copy forms from the investigator sites.

 

Digital imaging process: It uses the same paper-based system but transmits the data from the sites to sponsors via faxes. The faxes are stored in the system and double-entry clerks, use digital images to prepare the CRFs. This is in addition to maintaining hard copy forms in patient binders. This alternative also reduces the amount of time in receiving the hard copy forms from the sites. However, this is solely dependent on the sites ability to fax the documents to the sponsor in a timely manner.

 

Web-enabled EDC: It allows data to be entered into the data management system directly from the investigator site via the Internet. EDC has pre-defined validation rules in place to immediately identify potential errors. The EDC system is accessible by the sponsor who can view data immediately after it is entered.

 

EDC process addresses most of the problems P&G faces; the paper-based system, the errors and inaccuracy when entering data from hard copy forms, the double-entry process, the movement of physical forms from sites to sponsor and ultimately the reduction in time needed to enter the data-lock phase.

 

Evaluation of Alternatives

The three options have advantages as well as potential costs that need to be evaluated.

 

To improve the paper-based process by using express mail on a daily basis, it will increase the head count for site monitoring and source-data verification, thereby increasing the cost to the company.   These costs need to be considered because the sites can be in geographically located across the globe; hence employee costs like salary, benefits and overtime will increase for the company. There is no learning curve associated with this alternative as everyone is familiar with the paper-based system. However, this process still does not address the human errors and data entry inaccuracy.
 

The digital imaging process will require additional storage space on servers for over 10,000 patients digital forms, which can lead to increasing the amount of memory and capacity & in turn additional cost on a regular basis. This process is only as efficient as the sites ability to transmit the digital images to P&G. If the site is experiencing delays, P&G will be delayed. The only learning curve will be for the sites’ employees to transmit the data via fax.

 

The EDC system would aid in expediting the data verification process to the data-lock phase & enables a significant learning curve by both P&G employees and the sites employees. The employees will need to be well accustomed in operating a computer and navigating the Internet. The data gets filtered by pre-defined validation rules thereby eliminating the double entry system & alleviating errors. However an additional issue with EDC implementation is slow connectivity when entering the data. The immediate accuracy checks in place will slow the process since they need to be addressed prior to moving on. CRA's were able to reduce the number of physical visits to the sites as they could access information from EDC and inform the errors at investigator sites.  

P&G can be imaginative in its decision making process however it needs to be realistic of the situation. P&G should not choose an alternative that addresses one issue within the clinical data management process; the alternative should address the majority of the issues or all of them. P&G should look at the long-run and future, not just the present situation.

 

Recommendation

A logical recommendation would be to choose the alternative that would cut the most time since that is the biggest problem here, but the quality recommendation would also include the actual costs associated with each alternative.

 

Based upon the facts of the case study, the recommendation for P&G would be to implement the EDC system. This is the only system that addresses the problem and the symptoms; the other two alternatives only address symptoms. Once the sites and sponsors are well accustomed to the EDC system, the entire process will be more efficient and effective.

 

As described in the trial, the EDC system greatly reduces the errors and inaccuracies of human data entry and completely eliminates the double-entry system.  During the first few trial of the EDC, the duration of time from the final patient visit to data-lock improved from eight weeks to a mere four weeks. There was also an improved quality of patient data, since errors were being addressed throughout the process.

  

P&G also could reduce the frequency of site visits by CRAs which will significantly reduce travel costs.  In addition, the CRAs and CDMs responsibilities made them more interactive, which helped P&G employees have a better understanding of the EDC functions.

  

Presentation

The best way to present the case is to go through the clinical trial process and why it was taking P&G so long to complete a trial.  Some good visual aids may show the actual millions of dollars that are being lost during the process.  Selling the recommendation will rely on proving the best alternative that saves time and does not add significant costs to the process, as for every day the drug is not available on the market, it is estimated to cost the sponsor $1 million per day. The process is not only faster and cheaper in the long term, but it is also very secure and precise. This could be related to the visual aid showing the amount of money being lost with a comparison showing how much more money the company could be earning when cutting time in half.

 

Visual aids to be used in presentation are:

·         PowerPoint presentation explaining the advantages and drawbacks of three alternatives;

·         Cost analysis of the current paper-based system versus the cost analysis of the EDC system.

·         Develop flow charts for each of the alternatives to show how efficient is the web-based EDC.

 

Finally, other delivery consideration to keep in mind is the facts/evidence of using EDC in the initial phase; i.e. obstacles which include employee training, the site’s access to computers, slow connectivity issues etc. and most importantly the cost to implement EDC should be considered along with the calculating the sum of present value of future cash flows to implement the project.

Business impact of Ubuntu

To: Scott Schmitz
From: Nikita Patel
CC/BCC: IT team, FINC team, Mark Anderson
Date: June 9, 2014
Subject: Business impact of Ubuntu - Memorandum

Scott,
 

It seems that the existing infrastructure based on Windows is not delivering the efficiency that our business demands due to which we are facing network performance issues. As per our discussion last week, the next step we plan was to examine if implementing an open source ‘Ubuntu Operating system (OS)’ can be an alternative to upgrading to ‘Windows 8 OS’. Being into financial service industry, we must ensure that our business-critical processes run without interruption as with real money at stake, completing and recording trade agreements is central to our firm’s success & hence we need to make sure that the IT infrastructure can support its day-to-day processes as efficiently as possible. Our company’s IT team is responsible for maintaining and managing 200 servers which is becoming a time-consuming process that needs an IT administrator to perform frequent manual system upgrades. I conducted a brief examination of Ubuntu along with our technology team & different business division heads & as per our analyses we definitely see positive advantages of implementing Ubuntu OS. The initial reaction in the meets was if it would require training as all the employees are accustomed to the Windows environment. However while comparing Windows 8’s modern interface which poses a challenge for users to go through a significant learning curve, whereas on the other hand using Ubuntu OS felt lot more similar to the Windows older versions alleviating the training issue raised by most of us.

The various benefits noticed are comprehensive software updates leading to a more secured environment, an integrated application store where all the application are free of charge, customization, support of multiple workload that lets the user run up to four different desktops  thereby  reducing the number of servers from 200 to 60 (a 70% savings), & ultimately see a dramatic hardware, space and energy saving of approx $1000 per year per server. Currently we have 20000 employees having Windows 7 & the older versions. Upgrading to Windows 8 will cost $150 per employee after receiving company discount which will cost to the company a total of $ 3 million, whereas implementing Ubuntu OS is free of charge which gives a direct cost savings of $ 3 million on installation itself. 

While reviewing the companies migrating to Ubuntu, one of our competitor in the financial services industry has publicly cited the positive impact they have incurred by moving on to the virtual world. The firm was running its proprietary trading software on 400 Windows-based servers, we run a similar proprietary trading software at our firm too. After experiencing a series of performance issues, they decided to upgrade to Ubuntu. Currently the firm can run its entire workload on just 120 Ubuntu-based servers, which equates to a dramatic hardware, space and power saving of 70 per cent for the same performance. Additionally, the competitor has experienced significant reduction in systems management overheads, running its critical common workloads and its trading system with a minimum outage & maintenance. They are seeing a real reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of its IT infrastructure through switching its servers to Ubuntu. 

As per the various benefits mentioned, we can initially plan that the traders keep their familiar Windows desktop and tools, while half of the company’s software development team runs Ubuntu, and half run Windows thereby not disrupting the daily operational processes. Once the employees are used to working in the virtual world, we can move to Ubuntu as our OS. We are now witnesses of an important shift in the IT industry & definitely such new technologies are having a huge impact on the economy and our lifestyles. Open sources related business models will widely replace the old fashioned, proprietary business models in the coming years saving millions of dollars for the corporate world.

If you have any further questions regarding migration to Ubuntu, I am available to speak with you in person on Tuesday at a convenient time.