A&D High Tech Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

A&D HIGH TECH CASE

Introduction and Problem Statement

A&D is a technology company that manufactured or sold computer products, accessories, and services to consumers and small businesses. With an increase in adoption of internet and online media by the competitors of A&D, A&D was losing a significant target market to them. For this purpose, the company needed to switch or add to its sales channel in order to to reacquire its customers.

a&d high tech case solution

Chris Johnson, who had a track record of completing the project on time and on budget was called to take over the project of going online and the given target for the completion of this project was before Christmas holidays.

Here, he had two major options, either to build or buy the software that would help them to handle the customers through online media. The company did not want the features of usual commercial programs because it wanted the services from all sales channel to be the same. Therefore, the company settled for the build option. A custom-developed program would allow A&D the opportunity to build exactly what it needed.

What is the projected completion date? (Assume there are no holidays and ignore sunk cost of planning team’s effort.)

The project started in early May 2004. Assuming that by early May, the case authors meant the start of the month that is 1^st May 2003. The project had to be completed before the Christmas holidays that is by at least mid of December so that it can be made fully operational by the time of holidays.

This Web-based online ordering system project was required by sales and marketing before the fall of Christmas holiday season. If the project missed this window, then the firm would lose substantial market share to competitors.

With the detailed WBS information, and the required time for each activity, it can be found that the total days needed for the project; if every single activity was dependent on the other activity would have been 1061.1 days.

However, since some tasks can be simultaneously performed, so the activities got overlapped. Even then some of the activities remained dependent on the completion of the other activity because of the nature of the work or resource constraint. Hence, the project completion date is found to be 21-Dec-04.

Since the planning team’s efforts are not the predecessors of any activity, hence, they can be easily ignored. Even then, the time elapsed by the project is very high. The different phases added to the project because of the build decision can be eradicated if the company choses to switch to the buy decision.

What is the total cost? How much of the total costs are labour costs? Capital costs?

According to the case exhibit 7, most of the resources, labor is hired at a flat rate of $75 per hour. Taking this as a standard charge, the labor costs are calculated to be $376,500, assuming a standard 8 hour working day. The overtime charges also differ significantly but they are not taken into consideration for the purpose of calculation. Along with that, the capital cost for 12 Windows 2000 workstations and 5 Windows 2000 servers is calculated to be $98,500.

Hence, the total cost of the project can be estimated to be $475,000.

What is the critical path (s) in the project? How will you assess the level of risk in the project?

The critical path of the project is the longest distance to be covered. If there is any disturbance in the schedule of the critical path, then the completion dates of the whole project will be disturbed.

From the calculations, it can be observed that as soon as the task ID 5, that is Gather Business Requirements ends, the task ID 6, that is Design Business Process Flows begins. Hence, these activities lie on the critical path. If any of these activities get delayed, then the whole project gets delayed and vice versa.

The level of risk is very high because the ending date of the project is very near to the expected date by which the project should be completed. Hence, the management should try its best to complete the project before time and reduce some of the activities on the critical path.

It can be seen that the testing and deployment phase is taking a lot of time. If by chance, the testing phase does not produce the desired outcomes and there is a necessity to go back in the designing phase for correcting the errors, then the deadline will be missed and the whole efforts of the management team will be wasted.

Hence, this project can be marked as a high risk project because of the high chances of delay and the severe consequences arising from this delay.

What is your opinion on the potential for the project to be completed on time?

The project has the potential to be completed ................................

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