Course work

for

„Technology entrepreneurship”

Businesses planof

«Project management system»

your agile IT solution

02. 2010

1. Executive summary

Every manager and core management wants to have a full control, monitoring and daily actual information about there business and online, distance information, through mobile telephone. The objects this system is to march reporting information of the all section/ units (Finances, Marketing, Sales, Production/Planning, Logistics, Supply Chain, Human Resources Management and IT sector) and capture manufacture, budgeting, Document management, grants and certain programmatic components. This problem can decide the Information/ERP system.

Product description

Project Management System – PMS is an web application, based on market research and detailed analysis of needs, desires and their criteria for quality products/services in Bulgaria. PMS is intended for smaller and middle businesses, because they have a more flexible structure and react more quickly to changes in short-term than large producers. Project Management System (PMS) is for control and support the key functions - Financial Management Processes, including: General Ledger Management, Funds Management, Payment Management, Receipt Management, Cost Management, Financial Reporting, Workflow Management and Budget Management processes, including several key stages: Planning, Registering, Executing, Reporting and Final Reconciliation

This system implement following function:

Automatically introduce on the data; General data base of the all section/branch and group; Short time for processing of the inquiry and custom order; full control of the

implementation; Unlimited possibility for reports, analysis;

Adequate and flexibility of the system toward changing condition of market Effective management of the all availability recourses; Possibility for answer/meet the needs of company from software decision for optimize

recourses and productivity; Management decision by full control over financial; The PMS give opportunity flexibility decision of the new European challenge, standards and

enterprising;

PMS-facilitating development of small and medium enterprises, like capture manufacture, budgeting, financial, SCH, Human Resources Management inventory control solutions, Marketing, Sales, Document management, logistics, grants and certain programmatic components. The PMS will allow the user community to follow features:

Proper division of responsibilities Preventing duplication of information Eliminating data re-keying Automating routine functions Multi-level control through roles-based functionality Standardized documents Opportunity for remote work in the system Reduces manual labor and errors Automated integration with accounting system

Based on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) - PMS system is the integration of all data and processes in a common, unified platform. A typical ERP system uses multiple components (software modules and / or hardware) to achieve the necessary integration of data. Essential component of most ERP systems is a common database for all processes. It contains the operations, structures and description of processes in the enterprise. Standard modules all data stored in that database is complete and the information form for the operation of the enterprise. Each piece of data is linked to all others and itself not a source of information. The term ERP has occurred to identify systems that are designed to manage, plan and optimize the resources of the enterprise. In original form these systems were used mainly for tracking production, but over time have expanded their functions and cover almost every process in the modern enterprise, regardless of the type and activity. To be assigned a system such as ERP, it must be able to carry out automation of two or more separate reporting systems, such as stocks, production, finance, budgeting and more. In the modern concept of ERP systems extends to the entire system of corporate governance, consisting of basic modules such as: manufacture, budgeting, financial, SCH, Human Resources Management inventory control solutions, Marketing, Sales, Document management, logistics, grants and certain programmatic components.

Advantages of using the PMS systemThe advantages of using an PMS system are many and the impact in the enterprise is

highly positive. Can generally be listed the following key advantages:

Resource planning and operations; Full control over all units of the enterprise; Unification of process control and easier decision-making; Monitoring of all factors of business processes, such as whether there are sufficient funds; Opportunities for Management of the business cycle to work - receipts and payments,

stocks, income and expenses, profit;analysis of results and achievement of best business practice;

Problem definitionDoing any kind of business, nowadays, is impossible without using software solutions. A lot of

the companies have several kinds of programs and information systems to organize there work. There are many different small software solutions for invoicing, warehousing, finance, HR, stock exchange, etc. There are also a large number of very customized solutions that solve different specific problems.

The companies can choose either to solve there problems one by one and buy several small programs, or try to find a complete solution in the form of an ERP and/or CRM and pay the high price for it. Sometimes specific solutions are also needed for the business.

Buying an ERP/CRM solution is a serious investment, which many companies not only in Bulgaria, cannot afford to make. Instead they buy different small programs when they are needed. As the company grows, so does the complexity of the processes in it. So more software solutions are needed. And yet another small program is installed.

These different programs almost never can communicate with each other. Usually the information is copied on two, three or more places. In order to complete a business process several programs have to be used and the information has to transformed from one format to another by hand. This costs time and money.

The work of the managers can be very complicated. It is very hard to see the “big picture” of the company, because the information is spread across many databases and the reports have to unified by hand. This can be done only once a month or even lesser. In order for a manager to receive current information, he or she has to call the person that is responsible and ask him directly. Again all this costs time and money.

Even if a company grows more, and now can afford a complete solution, it is still a big step to move from a set of small programs into an large ERP system. The information has to be transferred, the people have to be trained. This could take months or years. Usually this is done by a “big bang” i.e. the transition is made within a few days or weeks. This could be a big stress for the company. And what is worse, once the solution have been chosen, the company managers, can only pray that all will pass well, and everything will work smoothly. Most of the times – it doesn't.

What the managers want is an agile system, than can grow with the company. A system that they can easily adapt for there needs. A system that can respond to the changing market. They would like to be able to see all the information, from the different databases of the different small programs, organized in one place. In order to have the information always available it should be on the web. They need something that will organize all there processes, so they can be easily tracked and managed. They need a mix of their already used programs, a set of specific for company solutions and a system that can unify and optimize all together.

Business model

In this overview, the Business/Funding model for the integrated process is presented in three “views”: Process Flow, Implementation, and End Result, to give a summary understanding of how the Business model achieves its goals. Diagram 1 shows the Strategic Planning and Performance Management processes in the context of general strategy and IT management.

A key goal for successful implementation of Business Model - Strategic Planning and Performance Management processes is integration PMS with existing planning and IT management which will assist in effective institutionalization. To that end, the Strategic Planning and Performance Management processes are anchored to the Enterprise Architecture Framework through use of the Performance Reference Model (PRM) tailored to the PMS architecture, and to the Bugeting/Fanancil framework through linkage with processes at the Pre-Select, Select, Control and Evaluate stages as shown figure 1.

Internal Driving Forces include:PMS-Strategic Plan, Business Needs, Customere/Stakeholders, Office management and Budget.

External Driving Forces Include: Reports,Audit;

Mission & Vision statement, rationale, and justification.

Software PMS is specialized in development of web-based, business-logic-intensive applications. Based of the technologies system control make the world better and company client’s business more efficient.

The Mission will include annual business objectives, which must to update each year, or when the need arises.

Transform the Management System in the small and middle business Strategically Manage Human Capital Advance Market Research Improve Financial Performance Expand Electronic connection between staff/team in the small and middle business Improve Budget and Performance Integration Implement the Real Property Asset Management Program Promote Quality, Relevance and Performance of Research and Development Activities Improve Project Management Operation and Control Consolidate Management Functions and Streamline Administrative Operations Eliminate Improper Payments

Enterprise Architecture Framework

Layers of the Enterprise Architecture included :

Business processes and activities Applications such as custom or off-the-shelf software tools Data that must be collected, organized, safeguarded, and distributed Technology such as computer systems and telephone networks

Business processes and activities

Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model.Enterprise architecture describes enterprise applications and systems with their relationships to enterprise business goals.

There are three types of business processes:

Management processes, the processes that govern the operation of a system. Typical management processes include "Corporate Governance" and "Strategic Management". Operational processes, processes that constitute the core business and create the primary value stream. Typical operational processes are Purchasing, Manufacturing, Marketing and Sales. Supporting processes, which support the core processes. Examples include Accounting, Recruitment, and Technical support.

Performance Reference Model

The Performance Reference Model (PRM) - is a framework to measure the performanceof major IT initiatives and their contribution to program performance. The PRM will helpagencies produce enhanced performance information; improve the alignment and better articulate the contribution of inputs, such as technology, to outputs and outcomes; and identify improvement opportunities that span traditional organizational boundaries.PRM as a tool to help COMPANY/NGO-s more clearly justify and better manage their proposed IT

investments.The PRM does not create new management processes, but rather reinforces and informsthose that exist, including the planning and reporting process and IT budget process.

Program Scope

The Project Management Plan categorizes and discusses the Strategic Plan’s PMS goals and corresponding key initiatives within three primary IT investment categories.

IT Management and Control. This includes all categories of IT investment that are employed in the process of IT management and control, including: Enterprise Architecture, IT Human Capital Planning, Capital Planning and Investment Control, Information Technology Investment Management Maturity, Training, Policy Development and Monitoring, and Performance Measurement.

IT Infrastructure and Enterprise Initiatives. This category includes IT infrastructure investment from the perspective of common, shared IT services including the traditional view of infrastructure such as networks and shared services. However, this category applies a broader definition to infrastructure to include shared infrastructure such as help desks and support processes, shared (or common) services (operating system, security, infrastructure, information, application), and the infrastructure needed to deliver shared, federated services to consumers. This category also includes planning for Departmental enterprise initiatives which are intended to provide core or essential IT services in support of (e.g. Enterprise eMail).

Mission Specific Initiatives. This section of the Project Management Plan will provide coverage of IT investment specific to PMS mission areas. This will generally include planning for key IT initiatives including acquisition of systems/applications that support the mission areas, and will focus on key IT priorities that align with PMS goals .The Project Management Plan includes projected completion timelines for the investments in these categories, as well as budgetary data on an SQL basis.

What value can the company offer?

As an IT company, our main job is to deliver software solutions to our clients. We want to create and sell an extendable project management system (PMS) which will be the core of all future components, internal subsystems and any third-party programs. In the ideal customer environment, our information system will be the tool used to organize, optimize and control all business processes.

Managers will be able to make quick and well organized reports to any legacy software in the company, as well as all the integrated modules. They will be able to manage the privileges of their employees and see all the work any of them has done. This will help them see the “big picture” and easily optimize the processes – so that the company will do more with less.

By using a single centralized information system the employees will not have to repeat their work in many different programs – it will happen automatically and thus reducing errors and saving time.

Because our company will work with different clients, we will accumulate knowledge of their business best practices and solutions. We will be able to extrapolate better solutions combining these practices i.e. 1+1 equals at least 3. This will benefit all our costumers, as we will be able to offer them more shortcuts for their own problems. At some point our company will be able to deliver not only better software solutions, but also a variety of consultancy services.

As well as common modules of the system and third-party legacy systems, we will be able to develop and integrate very specific for each client software solutions in our PMS. We understand that each business is unique, and our costumers must be able to change the software to match their way of work, not the opposite.

Who are our costumers?

Our costumers are small and middle business companies which cannot afford to pay the money and integration time for a large ERP solution. Also some big companies that want an agile system which can change with the tempo of their market.

Our costumers are companies that understand how much a complete software solution can affect and optimize their work.

Our costumers are those managers that refuse to accept the boundaries of their existing software and believe that creating software is a two way process – a communication between developers and business.

Our costumers don't believe in the motto: “if ain't broken, don't changed it”, but in Kaizen philosophy that everything can be improved.

Our plan is to open the source the core of the system, as well as one or two simple modules, like email, for example. This will improve the quality of the system, because more users will use it for free. Together with the help of the open-source community the bugs will be easier to detect and new ideas will be available to our business client as well. We rely on the hot feedback from both open source users and clients that use commercial modules and solutions.

How do we deliver the business value?

Our team consists of experienced developers, who are familiar with open source tools and frameworks. This would help them to suggest agile and inexpensive solutions to the clients. Using modern web frameworks and programming languages that allow flexible development. Our core information system will use modern databases, that can easy be scaled if the client needs more

performance and capacity.The managers of our firm have experience in designing, developing and integrating complex

ERP systems. But we also expect our costumers to work together with us in order to deliver the best solutions for them.

Having a flexible information system and using modern technologies does not guarantee success. As a company created mostly by software developers we understand the need of using outside business consultants.

We hope that as more problems are faced, the firm will accumulate more and more knowledge of the processes of our customers.

We know that we cannot create one perfect software that will “fit all”. Our system is designed to flexible and scalable, but we hope that we will have the opportunity to specialize in small number of areas and create very specific and very quality modules there together with our clients.

What relationships do we try to establish with the costumers?

We see out customer not as “a deserted island”, which one can visit, take a picture and say good-bye. Our plan is to establish long term relations with our clients. We don't want to simply sell them a software product. The software is just a tool to improve and optimize their business – a means to make them work simpler, with less errors and to provide better service for their costumers. We believe that we should work together and that it is a win-win strategy.

What will the company make money from?

This is probably the most import question for a company. Any business must ensure its own survival in order to have a stable ground. Then it can focus on creating state of art services and solutions to the clients.

We plan three streams of income the our firm:

◦ SolutionsIn short terms we will focus mainly on integrating our core information system in the IT

infrastructure of our clients and organizing the information they already have across all their legacy systems. We will also offer them to solve specific problems they experience.

We want to have the opportunity to implement entirely new modules for our clients as well. This will increase our portfolio and we will be able to offer these modules to our future clients.

◦ Online servicesOnce we have created some modules we want to make them available with the basic

functionality online, in the form of a web service in return for a month or year fees. This will cover these clients that don't need complexity and want a ready solution now. We hope that in time, as they see the benefits, some of them will want an integrated system that they can adapt more to their specific needs.

Consultancy servicesIn long terms we hope to be able to provide consultancy services to the clients as well. We think

that we will be able to show them the best practices on the market for solving their problems. We hope to have a professional team of consultants who have business education and the knowledge, so they can offer the best solution for each customer in at least several specific areas.

Market research and competitionEnterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions are designed to improve key back office business activities such as human resources, finance and accounting, and supply chain management.  Customer relationship management (CRM) applications, on the other hand, were created to enhance front-office functions including sales, marketing, and service and support. So, it’s only logical that the major ERP vendors, in an effort to further extend the value of their suites and deliver a positive impact on operations across an entire company, would make the move into the CRM market. As a result, a whole variety of ERP CRM solutions have been introduced over the last several years. The following is a list of the most popular providers of ERP CRM packages today. SAP Founded in 1972, SAP is considered the pioneer of ERP. With close to 40,000 employees serving 38,000 customers across the globe, SAP has been commanding a huge chunk of market share since ERP solutions first came to prominence. The company’s ERP CRM suite rounds out its broad portfolio of business applications, claiming that are enabling companies to improve various aspects of their operations.  SAP CRM Software for Enterprises is used by more than 3,200 customers world-wide, mySAP Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) includes features and functions to support core business processes in the following areas:

Marketing - Improve the effectiveness of marketing activities, maximize resource efficiencies, and empower marketers to acquire and develop long-term customer relationships.

Sales - Eliminate productivity barriers, enforce consistency across selling channels, and increase overall performance within sales organization.

Service - Transform service into a line of business with a broad range of functionality to enable customer service and support, field service, e-service, and other.

E-commerce - Turn the Internet into a profitable sales and interaction channel for business customers and consumers.

Channel management - Optimize indirect channels with support for partner and channel management.mySAP CRM also supports several industry-specific processes with functionality designed to meet the individual needs of diverse industry groups. The main disadvantages of mySAP CRM however are as follows:

Expensive - This entails software, hardware, implementation, consultants, training, etc. Flexibility – Troublesome implementation and changes in the infrastructure. Not particularly user friendly, although customer support is above average.

OracleOracle was founded more than 30 years ago, and has been providing business software solutions since. In recent years, the software giant has extended its portfolio of ERP solutions through the acquisition of companies such as PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards. These mergers, as well as Oracle’s take-over of Telephony@Work, a leading call center solutions provider, have given the company a solid edge – and a broad portfolio of offerings – in the ERP CRM market.  Today, Oracle’s ERP CRM solutions are used by over 4.6 million end users across a variety of industry sectors.The company's hosted software, CRM On Demand, competes with Salesforce.com. CRM On Demand offers relatively low-cost, hosted CRM solution with little up-front IT investment. With CRM On Demand, it claims to accelerate sales, improve marketing and deliver consistent

customer service.Several industry-specific versions are available. On-premise solutions are also available. As are complete analytics solution. Functionality varies across product lines:

Business analytics Contact center and service Customer data integration Customer order management Enterprise marketing Partner relationship management Sales force automation

Self-service and eBilling Revenue management Service management Mobile sales Case management Advanced pricin

However, CRM On Demand also has a couple of inherent disadvantages that are in some cases a direct side-effect of the advantages: security, support for complex business processes and lack of control on performance, stability and reliability.

NetSuiteSince 1998, NetSuite has been providing fully integrated enterprise-quality technology solutions to small and mid-sized businesses. The NetSuite family of applications includes packages for accounting and ERP, CRM, and e-commerce. The company’s ERP CRM offering, as well as its other solutions, are designed to provide capabilities in an relatively affordable, easy-to-use environment.NetSuite's software solutions include:

NetSuite Small Business - CRM for small businesses NetSuite CRM - traditional CRM NetSuite CRM+ - Total CRM solution NETERP - Web-based accounting/ERP NetCommerce - eCommerce solution NetFlex - thiird-party software integration

Netsuite key disadvantages include: A difficult to use system. Troublesome customer support. High customer support costs. Poor company reputation. NetSuite business partners, users and former users are vocal on social

media channels and share their extreme frustrations regarding poor customer support, constant price escalations, system downtime and product instability issues.

High customer turnover. Primarily as a result of the litany of issues previously cited. Difficult customization tools. Product upgrades are notoriously troublesome.

EpicorFounded in 1984, Epicor is an up and coming player in the ERP CRM space. The company offers a broad range of ERP, CRM, and professional services automation (PSA) solutions to mid-market businesses around the globe. 

InforInfor’s suite of solutions includes ERP, CRM, enterprise asset management, product lifecycle management, and performance management.

2. Technology

The system is based on open source projects. That gives us opportunity to lower it’s cost, to make it cheaper for the end customer and to have a product based on fast developing technologies.

The project is divided into two pieces – web-based interface and database. The web-based interface gives the opportunity for easy access over the internet.

The database is MongoDB type. This is new type of database that uses documents instead of the standard sql tables. This gives us the opportunity to easily import data from customers’ old and different as type databases. Our goal is to transfer all the data from those old databases and to store it in our base.

Our database on the other hand as we said shall be accessed through web-based interface. It’s based on php technology. Through this interface we will be able to access all the imported information and make different kinds of reports.

Also the database will be prepared for future project extensions that would not only access the data stored but also to manipulate it. That way we can create number of new modules that could replace the old programs used by our customers.

3. Team

There will be two phases on product development. The first part we will start with us five as main developers. While nobody of us has deep

knowledge of the technology, we will use system core as training base. Each one will donate part of its free time for learning and implementing part of the system. Weekly meetings will keep the team synchronized.

At this stage our main motivation will be learning and to make a product to be proud of. Working in such a provoking field of resource planning will be fun and useful in our careers.

Second phase of the project will start when custom client extensions are required. New tasks will demand full time occupation. At this point each individual should accept its role. Currently following ones are planned – developer, technical support, deployment expert, tester. These roles will not be persistent but will be executed on principle of rotation.

Our target is small business so we must be as quick and as responsive as possible. To do that, we will keep to flat organization structure. Our policy will be to keep developers core intact, and to use external resources for everything else.

Salaries of the personnel will be formed as sum of monthly payment plus equal percent of the net profit.

name Main salary Percent of profitSlav 750€ 20%Mila 750€ 20%Deyan 750€ 20%Stanislav 750€ 20%Plamen 750€ 20%

If at some point we need reinforcement, our first target will be (Bulgarian) ruby community.