Essay On Technology

Request for proposal

Summary
Automated data collection is the trend that businesses have opted for in a bid to facilitate the collection of large amounts of data. Over the years demands for products have led to large amounts of data that has created necessity for an automated system that can easily assist in the collection of this data. Despite the size of the companies and organizations, the need for data collection is dire because it assists in the management of the market trends and possibilities for their businesses to explore. With this regard, Boffo requires an automated system of data collection due to the fact that the data collection in the current system has been overwhelmed by the frequent and large amounts data that it is bound to receive. The perfect solution for the Boffo organization is to use compatible virtualization solutions to automate the system.

Purpose

The installation of an automated system implies that a procedure is followed in order to ensure that the system is perfectly incorporated with the organization. First and foremost, an automated data collection system implies several automated tools that work together in a coordinated manner in order to achieve data collection over a network. Data collection is indeed a procedural step and it involves the usage of several instruments that would collect the data fast and accurately. The collection of the data online involves, first and foremost the collection of the data involves the use of several instruments that are connected via networks and into the databases within the organization systems. There is also the extraction of the data form online databases through the use of specialized programs that would enter the data into the systems within the organization.

Description and objectives

The purpose of this proposal is to simply provide a feasible estimate for the automation of the data collection of the Boffo organization in the sense that it needs to be improved. Boffo collects data for its research in the market behaviors so that it can be able to know the perfect technique to indulge the market. It also uses the information for understanding and keeping up with the trends in the technology that the customers really want. However, the collection of the data from the sites of selling technology and form the online surveys published online is proving to be overwhelming for this organization. On the other hand, the analysts employ manual data entry techniques in the sense that they key in manually into the computers. This has proven to be a difficult scenario considering that market demands have increased considerably and so has the data amounts.
Therefore, I as the IT consultant, seek to ease the burden that this organization is currently facing by automating all the data collection procedures of this organization. As mentioned earlier, data collected is from the various selling points of the technologies and from the online through the use of surveys. Therefore, the main objective here is to automate all the collection procedures from the point sources and the internet. In addition, the data entry procedure, that is entry into the computer databases and spreadsheets, should also be automated in conjunction with the data collection. In other words, I seek to employ computer virtualization solutions to the overwhelming data collection and data entry procedures of the Boffo organization. This will in turn assist in the easy manipulation of the data to learn the market trends of the various technologies.

Requirement specification

The requirements of the system being proposed are of two types of requirements and they include functional requirements and the performance requirements. The functional specifications involve those required aspects that must exist for the system to function in accordance to the guidelines. The functional requirements are the basic needs for a system for it to perform in a basic manner. However, there are additional needs that a system might have in order to perform better and they are usually termed the additional functional requirements. The performance requirements on the other hand involve those specifications that ensure a desirable performance of the system with regards to speed and accessibility of the data. The performance of the system ought to be high considering that there will be large amounts of data that is being processed.
The automated system requires to have several electronic and even digital computers that have the ability to accept the data inputs via networks and can store the data volumes that will be input. In addition, these computer machines should be able to allow for the manipulation of the various data that has been input into the systems. The system also requires that all the peripheral and non-peripheral devices that are for inputting and outputting the data be acquired or selected. Some of the peripheral devices include the printers that are connected to the computers and allow for the output process of data. Some of the non-peripheral devices include the scanners and portable computers that are required to enter data into the computers. In addition, data transmission equipment is necessary for the purpose of transmitting the data to the computers for manipulation.
The computers selected for the project should be able to support a variety of software and programs including the browsers from which data extraction will be done. Therefore, the computers need to be availed to the organization while fully packed with the required browsing software from which the data extraction teams will use to access the online data. Apart from browsing software, the computers need to arrive with fully installed office software including the databases that can be used to store and organize data carefully and ease the retrieval process. Such include the Access database that provides unlimited tables to store data in an organized format and has relationships that makes the retrieval easier. In addition, e-mail retrieval software such as the Outlook is also a necessity as some data can be sent via emails to the organization and to be able to view and log these entries, such software comes in handy.

Timeline

This Request For Proposal is dated for March 29, 2015 and all the proposers may get a copy of the same sent to them via email at the following email address, . The proposals are due on April 2, 2015 at exactly 2.00 p.m. This is because at this specific time, the proposal evaluation will commence and during this evaluation process, an interview with the interview panel will be required on April 3, 2015. Form this interviews and the proposal evaluation, the candidate worthy for the contract will be selected on April 10, 2015. The negotiation for the contract will thereby commence with the successful candidate and they will be concluded, latest April 10, 2015. The other candidates of the contracts will also be notified of the resulting negotiations by April 15, 2015. The feasible study of the automation of the data collection will be completed by May 3o, 2015.

Budget

The proposers should enlist the various prices for every outsourced material that they wish to supply to the Boffo organization. This is a requirement for a proposal to be considered during the evaluation process. This is because; the budget gives us the picture of the amount of money that is required to be allocated to that particular project if that candidate is selected. In the automation of the data collection system of this organization, the provision of fully set computers with the required specifications declared above should be budgeted for in every regard from the selected out-source. In a matter of consideration, the enlisted data transmission equipment such as the networking cables and the peripheral and non-peripheral devices should also be budgeted for in that regard.

Flow of data after collection

SWOT analysis
Among the strengths of the Boffo organization, the availability of the various sources of data implies that there is a limitless amount of data that the organization can employ to its benefit in the sense that they can analyze and plan for the anomalies in the markets. In addition, the market data implies that the organization and its products, technology products, have gained market recognition and it only remains to exploit this market. However, the organization weaknesses lie in the manual systems of data collection and entry into the databases. The large volumes of data that are collected from the internet and selling points of the various businesses imply that the data entry is very slow for the Boffo organization and time consuming. Despite being a technology selling company, it needs reforms when it comes to its own advancements in technology.
This particular organization has very distinct and open opportunities that only need to be taken advantage of. For instance, the data that is being collected indeed serves to provide leverage for a strategic planning that would boost the organization’s performance in the markets. The company itself has the technological know-how that when used in combination with other outsourced technologies, the research institute will have a competitive advantage that no other research institute can beat. Despite the great opportunities that the Boffo Research is in grasp of, the business is threatened by incompetence of the research employees. This aspect is in fact what might hinder further growth in terms of business and in so doing, incompetent employees that might not be able to operate the company in the appropriate way with regards to the upcoming advancement that my team is indeed prospecting to employ to this research facility.

Risks and rewards of Boffo Research

Upon embracing the new technology that my team of IT analysts is proposing, the Boffo Research will be exploiting risks that might end up giving greater rewards. Risks are said to give a greater income when it is a great risk. This research business seeks to employ newer technology for its data collection. The risk implies that the business is risking to invest in the new technology which is expensive in relative terms to the current data collection techniques. However, despite the fact that the business is risking in this investment, the outcomes prove to be tremendous. This is in the sense that the automated system is more efficient and provides the expected results faster. This therefore results in faster income rates than before.

Stakeholder Requirement Specification

There are several documents that are required by the Business analyst might require in order to analyze a particular project. In the case of the Boffo Research project about the automation of the online data collection, a stakeholder analysis specification, Business Analysis Plan, Current State Analysis and the Scope Statement Specification are some of the very important specifications for the project. With regards to the stakeholder Analysis Specification, the business analysts needs to understand the specific sponsors of the project as well as those who hold the key stakeholder positions. In this case, the stakeholders of the technological project are the experts on my team that basically are planning to employ the new and proposed system. The importance for this aspect to be made clear basically implies that those who will guide the whole procedure need to be known within the business for it to run smoothly.
On the other hand, the business analysis plan which does not include the earlier strategic plan. However, this analysis plan implies the requirement specifications of the whole project, together with the verification of the organization’s plan. In addition, this plan defines the various responsibilities and positions of everyone within the project at hand. A current state analysis is a specification aimed to provide a vivid description of the present state of the business in which case the experts can begin their improvement plans. For instance, the current state of Boffo Research is that it is overwhelmed by the exploding volumes of new customers for the electronic products. The scope statement specification implies the coverage of the project including the problems that the project seeks to solve. With Boffo, the problem is the overwhelming data collection and storage of the data from surveys online.
A number of competences, especially generic in nature, are required for the requirement modeling for the Information Systems. For instance, communication and coordination are among the vital skills that are needed by an analyst in which the analyst needs to communicate effectively with the workers within the project. In addition, the IT expert team that would be indulged needs a coordinator who will assign relevant duties to them during the process. The analyst needs also to be problem-specific in terms of competence in the sense that he focuses on a specific matter of the project whereas other members of his team are of varying skills which combined produce the right combination. In addition, the requirement specification describes that the team needs to collaborate with the analyst as a specification for the project to run smoothly (Cegarra, 2012).

Conclusion

Boffo Research is an organization that at the moment is experiencing a very major challenge in with the appropriate collection of the data from various sources, and this case is the online. The major issue that is facing the business is the overwhelming volumes of data that is supposed to be collected from the online sources. The IT consultant office has been charged to find the virtualization solution for the business in the sense that the office has to automate the data extraction from the various online sources including the surveys and emails. In this case, the consultant office designed the Request For Proposal for the various outsources for the business. In addition, an analysis of the market using the SWOT analysis was performed and reported accordingly for the business. Finally, the consultant office designed a Total Cost of Ownership for the new automated system for three years for the organization as well as an explanation of the specification for the Information System (Beaubouef, 2009).

References

Beaubouef, G. B. (2009). Maximize Your Investment: 10 Key Strategies for Effective Packaged Software Implementations. Birmingham: Packt Publishing.
Böhm, A. (2009). The SWOT Analysis. München: GRIN Verlag.
European Conference on Knowledge Management, & Cegarra, J. G. (2012).Proceedings of the 13th European Conference on Knowledge Management: [book of abstract]: Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Spain, 6-7 September 2012. Reading: Academic Publishing.
Porter-Roth, B. (2002). Request for proposal: A guide to effective RFP development. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.