Information request and resource management assignment

Project Management

Customer Requirements

Being able to offer customization of tablet PCs and laptops to enterprises and small businesses, all configurable online and at low costs, will successfully differentiate Libertad from the many potential competitors it make encounter in the future. Time-to-market and the tight orchestration of the new product development and introduction (NPDI) process is also critically important to the success of Libertad's business model. CRM systems often act as the unifying catalyst across the entire value chain of a business, ensuring customer requirements are accurately captured during the quote phase and then integrated successfully into the production schedules and fulfillment instructions to deliver the final product (Limbasan, Rusu, 2011). Cloud-based CRM systems are providing to be especially adept at managing the wide variation in customer product and service needs while orchestrating internal systems to ensure customers' orders are filled and expectations met (Banerjea, 2011). Where legacy CRM systems that were often designed primarily to accelerate and streamline internal reporting with customer needs considered secondary, today cloud-based CRM systems are redefining the voice of the customer and accentuating their role in the co-creation process of complex products (Harding, Cheifetz, DeAngelo, Ziegler, 2004). This is exactly why it makes sense for Libertad to have a cloud-based CRM system that can scale globally when needed, as it will allow for the voice of the customer and their unique product requirements to stay the priority of the company through each phase of order fulfillment (Limbasan, Rusu, 2011).

Given these customer considerations and constraints of production for build-to-order tablet PCs and laptops, it is imperative that the cloud-based CRM system have the following functional features and performance specifications. These include the following, as each is essential for the proposed CRM system to attain a high level of user adoption in the company:

Easily Configurable User Interface and Application Workflows. This is critically important for customizing the CRM system to the specific needs of Libertad's sales, service, pricing, product management, marketing and IT organizations. One of the most valuable aspects of a cloud-based CRM system is the agility and flexibility it provides in aligning specific screens, workflows, processes and system architectures to the specific and unique needs of a given company's information needs (Harding, Cheifetz, DeAngelo, Ziegler, 2004). This needs to be one of the key factors all potential cloud-based CRM systems are evaluated on.

Configurable Product Catalog, Pricing, And Constraint-based Product Configurator.

Each of these software components is essential for Libertad to have the flexibility of defining with of the tablets and laptop PCs are configurable, what the specific configurations of each are, and also defining the relative level of constraint flexibility a customer has online. The configurable product catalog and pricing integration is often embedded at the data model level within advanced CRM systems (Cunningham, 2010). The data used for defining the product catalog and pricing sections of the online ordering website also need to be available for defining the system of record for the product configurator as well.

The study of constraints and the role of dependences in defining a complex project plan are essential for managing expectations, resources and ensuring successful outcomes (Gido, Clements, 2012). As the Libertad product strategy is predicated on giving customers the flexibility of configuring their own custom tablets and laptop PCs, ensuring the integration of product catalog data, pricing, and constraint-based rules is essential for success of the business model. Creating and sustaining workflows throughout a CRM system to ensure all new products are accurately reflected in the product catalog and the constraints are also accurately reflect in the product configurator requires a series of tasks that are highly dependent on each other yet must be managed as separate actions as well. Managing projects to workflow constraints is essential for ensuring stability and replicability of key processes, yet also necessary from an agility standpoint as well (Gido, Clements, 2012)

New Customer Record Creation, Maintenance and Sales Activity Analysis. These functional requirements are essential for capturing then most vital data regarding enterprise accounts and the many Small & Medium Business (SMBs) that Libertad will be selling to using its unique value proposition of tablet and PC customization. The workflows for creating new customer records and also ensuring the maintenance of records over time must be based on ergonomics and the ability to manage and simplify complex workflows in the software. The reporting and analytics including the sales activity must be accessible over mobile, tablet and laptop devices via browser and also supported directly with HTML5 compatibility as well.

Statement of Work (SOW)

The following are the major tasks or work elements that need to be performed in order for the project deliverables to be attained:

a. Project Plan. The intent of the project plan is to orchestrate the many elements of the overall project, providing insights into how each specific resource will be allocated and used, with attention to costing, timing of resource availability, and definition of the critical path of the project (Gido, Clements, 2012).

b. Functional Requirements Specification. The intent of document is to explain the workflows that must be in the cloud-based CRM application in order for it to meet and exceed the business and system requirements of Libertad. This functional specification also acts as a product definition and direction document that guides the implementation team chosen and their specific approaches to customizing the cloud-based CRM system to the unique needs of Libertad.

c. Cross-functional team structure. The intent of this document is to explain where the roles and responsibilities for the cross-functional team intersect and how resource conflicts will be managed over time.

3. Deliverables

The following are the project deliverables:

Application Roadmap -- The intent of this deliverable is to show how each component of the CRM application will be integrated together to create a unified cloud-based CRM system.