Help needed please!

[Computernerd22]

Primary focus is to provide cost effective computer hardware, software, and support solutions. Your team has received a Request for Proposal (RFP) from a company to supply a plan for facilitating the office move. To make life easier for their employees, Company is relocating their office to the other side of town. This company makes $20,000 a week selling various products. Anyways, the move needs to be completed with minimal impact on the day to day business operations.

The office is small, consisting of only 2 employees. I need to provide a solution and I cannot run over budget. Budget is at $60,000.00

So, we need a hardware plan, software plan, cost breakdown, consulting services offered, support fees, hardware costs and software costs. PS; Only Microsoft Office 2010 is running my boss said.

All help is greatly appreciated. PS; I have a few different ideas but I want to what everyone else thinks.

[nihil]

Hi CN22,

Can I have a bit more information?

The company is obviously up and running as they are moving offices.

Only Microsoft Office 2010 is running my boss said.

So they must have at least one computer............ what is the OS? or do they have two computers?

I am guessing that their other systems are currently manual?

There is a sort of implication that they want to computerise things?

My personal experience is that office move time is the worst for major systems changes My approach would be to move what is already there, let it settle, then look at systems changes. Look mate, I have moved office numerous times and it is pretty bloody stressful .......... you have to think about staff welfare and "business impact" (the effect of computerisation on the staff).

I will need to know:

1. How many transactions a week
2. What they want to computerise (if anything) eg: sales order processing, finance, fixed assets, inventory etc.

If I am right, and there is a requirement to computerise an existing manual system, then don't forget a staff training budget, and probable temporary staff whilst you are parallel running.

One of the main things I do here is providing "turnkey" systems for small businesses. This is consultancy, hardware, software, training and support.

Please let me know more details

[wiskic10_4]

Yeah - I don't really see what the "move" is - just to move a couple of computers across town - I'd charge them like $150. But if your budget is $60,000, I'm assuming there is more going on here? It sounds like maybe you need to move while keeping their business online? Hard to say without really understanding what all the move entails...

[nihil]

@ wiskic,

I have it sussed mate................

$150 to move the two computers
$100 for CN22
and $29875 for each of us as consultancy fees to spend on

Seriously though, it does look like two projects, and to attempt to move and computerise at the same time would be suicidal IMO.

I don't know how big the town is, but it isn't a city, so I guess it would take no more that 30 minutes to move a manual system from A to B. That would meet the minimum business disruption requirement?

I would move one of the employees first and get them going, then move the other one. OK you would run at half speed for a little while, but not stop entirely .......... or just do it July4 or Sunday, whatever, We don't know ...... maybe just do it at night?

[Computernerd22]

Sorry about the late response but thank you guys for the response. I have to do a group project our team is a local Information Systems consulting company. Our primary focus is to provide cost effective computer hardware, software, and support solutions. We received a RFP (Request for Proposal). This is where the office move comes in. The office is small consisting of 20 employees. We need to create a viable solution and avoid running over budget. Our budget is set at $60,000

Here’s is where I need some input:

I need a hardware plan For example, what computers to go with?
Software plan?
Make a cost breakdown?
Consulting services offered
All help is greatly appreciated.

PS; this is just a project of ours the work we do is selling 20,000 a week in products.

[nihil]

CN22, you are confusing me:

The office is small, consisting of only 2 employees.

The office is small consisting of 20 employees.

Which is it?

And:

This company makes $20,000 a week selling various products

the work we do is selling 20,000 a week in products

"Make" is a profit concept "selling" is turnover or gross revenue.



1. Does the budget of $60,000 include the office move. If it does then you need a quote from a local commercial removals company unless the task is so small the outfit can handle it internally?

2. Who set the budget at $60,000? People who set budgets don't do it out of thin air..........they have an idea of what they will get for their money......... that information is vital, as without it you will not be able to determine your critical success factors and your project will fail.

3. The company obviously has one computer and probably two? what are they? If they can handle office 2010, then they must be pretty modern and most likely not need replacing. Also, they must have at least one printer, or Office 2010 would be bloody useless! We really do need to know what their existing hardware is, as this should be re-deployed if at all possible, and it sounds as if it certainly could be.

4.

I need a hardware plan For example, what computers to go with?

That will depend entirely on what the customer's expectations and intentions are. If it is business as usual then you won't need any. If they intend to computerise sales order processing, sales ledger (that's accounts receivable to you guys ) and invoicing then you will need a small server. Also, how many people do they envisage having their own desktop machine? You cannot plan or cost anything without knowing the scope of the business requirement.

If the intention is to computerise what I have suggested, you will probably need an industrial strength printer to support it.That is why I asked you the average number of transactions a week in my previous post.
5.

Software plan?

Same as for hardware..........what are they expecting?

6. I would be interested to know how the business operates. Do they hold their own inventory and pick and dispatch it, or do they just take orders and pass them on to third parties for shipping? Also, who raises the invoices and delivery notes?

The answers to these questions will have a considerable impact on hardware and software solutions and their costs.

You need to do some business analysis before diving into the IT requirements because right now it is impossible to define them. You do not seem to have even a high level user requirements specification? Whoever set the $60,000 budget should have, so maybe you should talk to them?


7.

Consulting services offered

There is a hell of a lot more to it than consultancy, depending on what the customer wants.

Business analysis
User requirements specification
Project plan
Project management
Hardware selection
Software selection
Data migration (?)
Training (arranging it)

This is one where you will have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.

EDIT:

On the face of it, this could be important:

Your team has received a Request for Proposal (RFP) from a company to supply a plan for facilitating the office move.

Well, as they only have two computers maximum, and they are only running Office 2010 the solution is simple. Hire a taxi and a technician to wire them up at the new site. You don't need a plan for that, you just do it!

Anything else should be handled by a professional office removals company and is not in the scope of IT consultants. However, moving the computer(s) won't even cost $600, let alone $60,000, so they obviously have something else in mind of an IT nature?

The $64,000 question is "what?"

[Computernerd22]

CN22, you are confusing me:

It is 20 employees.

Who set the budget at $60,000?

My teacher did. This is a school project. This is my main goal to provide cost effective computer hardware, software and support solutions. This company makes about $20,000 a week selling products.

The office is small, consisting of only 20 employees. We need to provide a viable solution and avoid running over budget. In addition to the move cossts your desktop support fees needs to be included, For business Nihil what brand of computers would you go with or recommend? Dell, HP, EMACHINE,SONY ETC...

[thehorse13]

What you really should do is fire the teacher. Or, do a cost analysis for devices that are being used now such as smart phones and then SaaS providers via cloud services for your apps and data storage.

Seriously? MS Office? LOL.

[nihil]

Hubs, routers, switches, wiring, UPS, standby generator (if possible), installation......all are part of the overall cost. The actual kit doesn't really matter so long as it does the job adequately and is not grossly over tech. In my experience most projects get the basic architecture , hardware and software solutions pretty much right.............it is with the peripheral and support costs that they frequently fail.

Staff training?..............hardware and applications won't work if the staff don't know how.............

Or, do a cost analysis for devices that are being used now such as smart phones and then SaaS providers via cloud services for your apps and data storage.

Don't................That won't get you A+ Certification.

[thehorse13]

Don't................That won't get you A+ Certification.

Follow this advice and you'll be like those old mainframe guys who scoffed at people playing with those "PC toys". Meanwhile, their jobs were quickly cut away while they buried their heads in the belief that only mainframes were used for real work.