Ict352 Project Management: Tier One Assessment Answers

Case Study: Tier One Suppliers Insurance Group (TOSIG).

Background:

Tier One Suppliers Insurance Group (TOSIG) offers insurance to tier one suppliers primarily on improvements such as buildings, fencing, stock yards, storage silos and machinery.  They also offer insurance for crops.  TOSIG have been in business for approximately 65 years and pride themselves on traditional values and maintaining long-term relationships with clients.  They underwrite insurance on 6.7 billion dollars worth of risk and have 150 agents in the field, maintaining offices in most major regional primary producing areas.  The organisational strategy is to maintain existing customers and increase the number of insurance products offered to clients.  They also want to grow their business by increasing sales of insurance to small and medium enterprises in regional areas.  Currently it is up to each agent to maintain information on their book of clients although information on policies is kept in a central database.  

Approximately every five years a site visit to the client is arranged so that the agent can confirm the details of the items they are currently insuring.  At this site visit the agent remeasures and inspects the property insured and enters the information (including the details of the insured) in a form.  The agent also has a discussion with the insured about changes in policies and any additional insurance products they may be able to assist with.  At the end of the visit the agent must re-enter the information into the TOSIG system and receive a report on the property.

There is concern that TOSIG are missing opportunities to sell more insurance because their agents do not have the ability to receive a report in the field.  Another factor is that currently agents spend a considerable about of time in the office entering information into the system from the site visit form, while TOSIG would prefer that they spent more time out in the field visiting potential and existing clients.  There is also an awareness at the managerial level that the clients could be risk managed better so that higher risk clients received visits more frequently while visits to low risk clients might be made at a longer intervals or by phone.  Currently this risk is managed by individual agents and there is awareness that some agents use these visits as an opportunity to sell more insurance or relationship build rather than managing the insurance risk, for instance they might insure a building for replacement when it is really at the end of its economic life and should be removed from the policy.

TOSIG is also aware of an increased threat from insurance companies who have not traditionally dealt with Tier One Suppliers or have entered the Australian insurance market.  Currently the agents are issued with a vehicle, laptop with wireless dongle and Blackberry telephone.  

They have planned an upgrade to their information systems, starting with a new customer relationship system.  The idea is that the agents will be issued with tablets in which a customer number is entered and a form will be prepopulated with client and policy information.  This is to reduce the amount of time the agents spend entering data.  They will also be issued with laptops and smart phones which will integrate with the TOSIG systems which will be moved to the cloud.  From the company perspective they would prefer that the agents are able to do more work from their vehicle and much less time in the office.  The end goal is to close some physical offices to help minimise overhead costs. The agents have become aware of this plan and there is some bad feeling about the plan to close offices.  The agents are also resistant to the cloud based system as they are aware this will enable TOSIG to track their movements.

You have been requested to prepare a report by the owners, although they have good technical knowledge, this report may be read by associated business people such as investors and bankers.

It is important to achieve well in this assignment that you discuss this ICT project for Performers Cooperative not ICT projects in general.   

This report should address the following issues and you should include the following sections in the main body of the report.  Please note standard report structure must be adhered to.  There are standard templates available on blackboard for some sections.

Prepare a project plan for the above project.  Please include the following sections and follow the instructions contained in chapter 4 of the text.

1. Project Background which includes the following sub-sections
   • Project Background
   • Project goal
   • Project objective
   • Project Deliverable
   • Strategic alignment of project.
2. Project Schedule which includes the following sub-sections
   • Milestones
   • Project requirements
   • Limits and exclusions
   • Work/ process breakdown schedule
3. Time and cost management which includes the following sub-sections
   • Time management
   • Cost management
4. Resource management
5. Risk management
6. Communication management plan

Answer:

Project Background

Project Background

The technological advancement in the ICT technologies influenced organizations to transform their working practices to the new environment and digitization platform. Tier one supplier insurance group (TOSIG) is the insurance organization which wants to use ICT environment for managing database of their customers to know their current improvement in the profit and turnover earned by the enterprise. The organization believes in providing high quality insurance policies on building, fencing equipment, inventory, and machinery to the participating organizations. The use of online software tools helps in minimising the time spend by the employees in the field area. The purpose of this paper is to design an online web application which helps in managing inter-cooperation between working employees and customers.

Project Goal

The transformation of the current working structure to the new cloud model and its services helps in managing the complexities which is faced by the employees and customers. The inconvenience of the customers in placing their request proposal can be effectively resolved with the cloud based service model. The working hours of the employees can be used for the productive work which was wasted in managing field work previously.

Project Objective

The project objectives are classified as below:

• Inclusion of cloud based service model in the working platform of the enterprise
• Helps in overcoming the complexities faced by the customers in placing their request
• Increasing the working efficiency of the employees
• Minimizing the wastage of working hours and maximising the productivity of the organization

Project Deliverables

The project will delivered a working plan for the implementation of the cloud based technologies in the organization to improve the coordination between participating units for increasing the sale of the insurance policies. The work breakdown structure focuses on the scheduling of project activities which helps in implementing the cloud service model effectively. The development of the resource management plan helps in managing the cost according to the role and responsibilities provided to them. The proactive identification of risks and delivery of risk register helps in developing effective risks mitigation policies. The communication management plan focuses on managing the coordination between the working units of the enterprise for managing the flow of data and information to get accurate result of the final outcome of the project.

Strategic alignment of project

The systematic arrangement of project activities are related to the implementation of the cloud based service model helps in accomplishing the project development within the approved cost and time (Otieno, 2014). The following table shows the alignment of activities for the accomplishment of project activities:

Project schedule

Milestones

Project Requirement

Some of the required resources for the project are listed below:

Hardware: The required hardware for the project are

• Black berry mobile phones
• Tablet, Desktop, and Laptops
• Motorcycle
• Wireless networking devices for connection
• Dongles and networking equipment

Software: The required software resources are

• Cloud software
• Big data database management system
• Zigbee, Hadoop file system
• Windows operating system
• Database for storing the information of the customers and organization staff members

Network:

• High broadband connectivity helps in establishing required connection between the participating units.

Limits and Exclusion

The activities which are out of scope management plan of deploying cloud services in the current working structure of the enterprise:

• Monitoring of the working of cloud model program is not developed
• Deployment of training program
• The project should be completed within the budget of $ 130,160
• The project plan should be completed within the period of 150 days.

Work Process Breakdown

Time and Cost Management

Time Management

The time required for completing the project of developing centralised control and automation of services through the cloud service model is 150 days. The project will start on May 30, 2018 and end on 25 December, 2018.

Cost Management

The project cost approved for the implementation of the cloud based model is $ 130,160. The distribution of the cost for different phases of the project is shown below in the table:

Resource Management plan

Risk Management plan

Communication Management plan

References

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Brown, E. (2016). Strategic project Management. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268031840_Strategic_Project_Management_1_Strategic_Project_Management [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Fujitsu. (2013). Cloud Adoption. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://notatanycost.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/senatereport.pdf [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Kharaiweish, M. (2013). Project Monitoring and control measures. International Journal of computer science and information technology, 5(5). Available at: https://airccse.org/journal/jcsit/5513ijcsit03.pdf [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Lindh, C. (2012). How does information technology impact on business relationships? The need for personal meetings. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://www.impgroup.org/uploads/papers/6732.pdf [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Mansfield Community. (2013). Introduction to project management. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://www.mansfield.vic.gov.au/Libraries/Community_Development/Intro_to_Project_Management_Manual.sflb.ashx [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Marks, E. (2017). Designing and implementing cloud governance. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://www.eiseverywhere.com/file_uploads/8d78b669e86b0120d704469d84fbf680_CLF_2011_Governance_Frameworks_Eric_Marks.pdf [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Monnappa. (2017). Project scope management: What it is and why it is important. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://www.simplilearn.com/project-scope-management-importance-rar89-article [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Otieno, F. (2014). The role of monitoring and evaluation in projects. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://www.irbnet.de/daten/iconda/CIB8942.pdf [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Passenheim, O. (2015). Project Management. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://home.hit.no/~hansha/documents/theses/projectmanagement.pdf [Accessed 02 June. 2018].

Patanakul, P. (2010). An Empirical study on the use of project management tools and techniques across project life cycle and their impact on project success. 1st ed. [ebook]. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260059419_An_Empirical_Study_on_the_use_of_Project_Management_Tools_and_Techniques_across_Project_Life-Cycle_and_their_Impact_on_Project_Success [Accessed 02 June. 2018].