Question

If you purchased “canned” software, but it must be modified to suit the needs of your company, who should do the modifications – your programmers or the vendor?

“Benchmarking” is recommended as a way of making a purchasing decision among several possible software products for your company. Define “benchmarking” in this context.

I want you to be a highly-valued member of your professional team. What important contributions can you, as an educated accountant with your unique skills, make to an enterprise’s computer acquisition process?

A city with a population of 50,000 was using its in-house programmers to develop needed software. Four years later, only one incomplete and poorly functioning application had been developed and none of software met users’ minimum requirements.

Why do you think the city was unable to produce quality, workable software?

Would the city have been better off purchasing software? Could the city have found software that met its needs? Why or why not?

You are a systems consultant for a large CPA firm. The firm pays for your membership in a country club with the expectation that you will meet and impress potential clients. At your club’s annual golf tournament, Frank Fender, an automobile dealer, describes a proposal from Turnkey Systems and asks for your opinion. The system will handle inventories, receivables, payroll, accounts payable, and general ledger accounting. Turnkey personnel would install the $40,000 system and train Fender’s employees.

Before even getting into a turnkey system specifically, identify the major themes you would touch on in responding to Fender.

Now identify the advantages and disadvantages of using a turnkey system to operate the organization’s accounting system.

PROBLEM 9 about Quickfix and Business Process Management / Redesign

Quickfix is rapidly losing business, and management wants to redesign its computer repair processes and procedures to decrease costs and increase customer service. Currently, a customer needing help calls one of five regional service centers. A customer service representative records the relevant customer information, finds the closest qualified technician, and calls the technician’s cell phone to see whether the repair fits into his or her schedule. If not, the representative finds the next closest technician. When a technician is located, customer repair information is provided over the phone. The technician calls the customer and arranges to pick up the computer and replace it with a loaner. Making these arrangements takes one to two days and sometimes more if technicians are not available or do not promptly return calls.  

         If a broken computer cannot be quickly repaired, it is sent to a repair depot. These repairs take another four to seven days. If problems arise, it can take up to two weeks for an item to be repaired. When a customer calls to see whether the computer is ready, the service representative calls the technician to find out the status and calls the customer back. The repair process usually takes five phone calls between the customer, the service representative, and the technician.

         There are several problems with this process that have led to a significant drop in business: (1) it is time-consuming; (2) it is inconvenient for a customer to have a computer removed, a new one installed, and then the old one reinstalled; and (3) service representatives do not have immediate access to information about items being repaired. Quickfix decides to use BPM principles to redesign its business processes.

What are the 3 or so events involved in the process?

How can the processes be redesigned (using the latest technology) and what benefits would this produce?

Answer 1

Dear student, as per our policy we can answer only 4 questions at a time.

1. 'Canned softwares are called "Off the shelf" softwares. These softwares cannot be altered beyond the original functionality. These softwares are directly downloaded to the company's server or individual's laptop. These are general software packages and  are not specifically designed for someones needs.

Major modifications is not possible for these softwares but it is the responsibility of the vendor from whom license is obtained to provide the support for software installation and attend to the future maintenance querries.

2. Benchmarking is ranking different products for comparison of performance and making effective decisions out of it. To be useful a software product benchmark should meet five important criteria:

• It must be related to customer's business problem.

• Software should involve functionalities the user expects to use most in the system.

• Software should be user friendly and esily understandable.

• The benchmarking procedure should be relatively simple so as the costs including design time, hardware resources, and lost opportunity are optimized.

• It must provide decision making criteria for selecting the best software product among the competitors.

3. Computer acquisition process:

Being an accountant it is important to advice on the following :

a. Understanding the requirement.

b. Creating a proper Benchmark

c. Shortlisting the company's and softwares which meet the benchmark

d. Obtaining quotations

e. Analyising the quotations and budget comparison

f. Otaining reviews of the elected brand.

g. computer acquisition

4. Reason that city was unable to generate quality workable software could be :

a. Lack of experience and expertise to generate the software

b. Lack of communication between developers and users

c. Poor internal control

d. Poor management

e. Lack of proper planning