Business Finance Homework Help

All students will use this week’s case study for this discussion thread. Each student is to start their discussion by addressing Jean Roberge’s opinion of the composition of the project team. Do you agree with his suggestion?  Support your opinion.  

In addition, each student is to respond to at least two other students’ discussion threads by listing at least two viable recommendations that will solve the issues identified, as well as furthering the discussion or presenting an alternative view. 

REPLY TO : 

peer 1

I highly disagree with Jean Roberge that most of the team should be IT Specialist. Half at most. They are planning on using the new system out of the box, without any special programming and customizing if possible. If this holds true, they should need very few IT professionals. Now, their expectations are naive and they will be customizing that system more than they think so having some people on hand who can do those customization or intelligently speak to their third party vendor for the software to get it done is also essential. However, the issue always is processes and procedures, not usually the new system itself. Their biggest challenges will be with the employee moral, identifying the best processes and procedures and making sure that they have good, validated data going into the new system.

peer 2

Aux Bons Soins (ABS) is a Canadian-based general insurance provider. Over the last three years, ABS has acquired two other insurance firms in response to increasing consolidation in the market. To date the firms have continued to function independently, however, six months ago it was announced that the three separate firms would merge into one entity operating as ABS Canada.

Jean Roberge was hired as the Vice-President of Information Technologies Management and set to the task of developing a strategic IT plan. Mr. Roberg formed a team of internal collaborators from the three original companies and received support from consultants, ultimately creating a three-year strategic plan for the development of information systems and technologies.

One of the primary recommendations of Mr. Roberg’s strategic plan is an integrated management system that would link financial management, human resource management as well as sales and marketing between all three entities. The ABC software package was selected.

In order to implement the strategy Mr. Roberg sought to hire a project manager with the following qualifications:

• Mastery of the ABC software package
• Knowledge of existing and legacy systems and their functionalities
• Ability to exercise authority over the project team
• Experience managing large-scale projects and the ability to stay in line with set budgets and schedules

I believe that Mr. Robert selected important criteria for the hiring of the project manager to oversee the implementation of the ERP. If no candidate met all of the listed qualifications then I believe mastery of the ABC software package to be the least important qualification. An ABC consultant could be hired to work with the PM and project team