Foremostco Case Study
Foremostco Case Study
The decision to change an entire system that the company had been accustomed to was a big challenge to start out with. However the outcome of this incident could have been better if certain decisions were made differently in their process. The first major decision was when they determined to go with building the software from scratch. A solution off the shelf is much cheaper and takes no time compared to in house development. Even though they said the ones they found were unable to perform tasks they require, there should be a very strong indication that the in-house method would be a success to make that choice. They should have also considered adapting their sales force to a potential off-the-shelf product, in other words change their existing business logics and find a middle point with the new product. Of course it’s hard to find a product that will fit all the need of a particular company. But this company had been processing their data based on the old software and their format and order info should be part of the upgrade as well.
Basically, I did not think they thought hard enough the different solutions they could work with existing off-the-shelf products and too easily believed that in-house was their only choice.
It also seemed that they placed too much trust on Diaz at the beginning. With a project of this magnitude, the time and cost estimation should have been a very elaborate research and backed by very through data. These business software are typically built by corporate software companies with experienced programmers dedicated to releasing them and often take numerous cycles and testing to finalize.
Thus, the one year estimate seemed too optimistic for a company not focused on this area. I think the overall problem is that they should not have tried to take on something they are neither strong at nor have any experience in before.
The management made several mistakes throughout the course of this
The decision to change an entire system that the company had been accustomed to was a big challenge to start out with. However the outcome of this incident could have been better if certain decisions were made differently in their process. The first major decision was when they determined to go with building the software from scratch. A solution off the shelf is much cheaper and takes no time compared to in house development. Even though they said the ones they found were unable to perform tasks they require, there should be a very strong indication that the in-house method would be a success to make that choice. They should have also considered adapting their sales force to a potential off-the-shelf product, in other words change their existing business logics and find a middle point with the new product. Of course it’s hard to find a product that will fit all the need of a particular company. But this company had been processing their data based on the old software and their format and order info should be part of the upgrade as well.
Basically, I did not think they thought hard enough the different solutions they could work with existing off-the-shelf products and too easily believed that in-house was their only choice.
It also seemed that they placed too much trust on Diaz at the beginning. With a project of this magnitude, the time and cost estimation should have been a very elaborate research and backed by very through data. These business software are typically built by corporate software companies with experienced programmers dedicated to releasing them and often take numerous cycles and testing to finalize.
Thus, the one year estimate seemed too optimistic for a company not focused on this area. I think the overall problem is that they should not have tried to take on something they are neither strong at nor have any experience in before.
The management made several mistakes throughout the course of this