Process analyse at Amt für Informatik

Amt für Informatik (AfI) des Kanton Thurgaus is a modern IT services enterprise for the administrative authority of the canton Thurgau. It provides services in the followings sectors: running a computer centre, helpdesk, IT project management and user education. The AfI runs under the guidelines of new public management. At the moment 50 employees work for the agency.

The dissertation covers a investigation about actual and rated value of certain internal processes. The job is to figure out discrepancy between actual and related value of processes and work out different solutions.

Structure of internal processes is grown over the years. Business processes like draw up budget and logistics are not documented trough out. The AfI management wants those processes described and proven on sufficient efficiency. ''Hot air, try and error mistakes'' should be recognised and eliminated.

The provided solutions are confidential and not for public use

The goal of this diploma thesis is to support small and medium-sized enterprises in finding a proper way for a system-roll in.

Because of the change in the economy the enterprises are forced to think about their internal processes. The optimization is based on computer assisted systems.

Key words which are used in this context are Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). This systems are mainly integrated in global oriented enterprises.

The target of using CRM is to reach a better customer relationship, an increase of the resale-rates and a higher customer satisfaction. With ERP-systems it is possible to make an exact planning of resources and their distribution within the company. Further internal processes can be optimized. SCM builds a chain which extends from the supplier through the own enterprise up to the customer.

It shows that such systems do not have an existence chance in small and medium-sized enterprises. But on deeper view they can be very useful. Because of that variety of small software companies, which are active in many areas, it can be used for single and industrial sector solutions in a good use related to the costs. These systems are not called mandatory CRM but they can cover partially of it. It is important that the introduction is based on a detailed concept. In addition it is not necessary to roll in the whole system at the same time. It is much more important to concern the entire system step by step. If the implementation is a success the reduction of costs will be eminently.

In small and midsize enterprises the strategic planning of IT is mostly neglected. Lots of today's com-panies face the task to react faster on customer demands. Additionally they have to work more effi-ciently and quality requisitions have permanently to be improved.

In order to fulfill all these tasks it is essential to use an appropriate IT-infrastructure. On one hand such an infrastructure has to be adapted to the company's demands and on the other hand has to help reducing operating costs.

This work offers a solution for an IT-strategy and an IT-planning for a holding company founded as a result of a merger of two companies.

It has been proceeded as follows:

1. Documentation of the actual situation at both enterprises. Analysis of the situation
2. Developing a request for proposal to evaluate a new ERP as a common platform which is able to serve both companies.
3. Creating an IT-strategy for the coming 3 yearsWorking out a budget for the investments in IT to upgrade the IT-environment to a usual in the trade level. Operating budget for a lasting IT-future.

It has been successfully managed to create a fitting IT-strategy which considers the situation of the merging firms and the resulting holding company. One of the most important criteria was to be easy on human resources in both firms. Because of the daily business and the merger preparation which causes more than enough work, staff should only have been burdened if necessary. This work shows that a actual running work in a real business situation is the best case study.

This document has been written within a scope of a dissertation at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur in the curriculum 'Communication and Computer Science'. The focus of the dissertation is the investi-gation of different IT-infrastructures which are applied by small and me-dium-sized enterprises (SME) in the economic area of Winterthur / Eastern Switzerland.

The first task of the authors was to get in touch with SME of different branches and to interview the IT-managers to collect facts about hard- and software-components which are used in their enterprises. Further, the objective was to evaluate and to analyse this information. Finally, the authors got the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about the results and to outline possible trends for the future. This document is structured into seven parts. The first two parts provide additional information and illustrate the description of the project scope. The third chapter points out the proceeding of the authors during the dis-sertation and the fourth chapter shows the results and analyses the infor-mation gained throughout this project. Finally, chapter five risks a predic-tion and evaluates some trends and forecasts about future IT-infrastructure.

The document will be closed with a personal conclusion and several attachments, in which additional information is provided concerning the cor-respondence with the enterprises and the administration of the project.

Quality management is a very useful tool for the continuous improvement of processes in enterprises. This tool has lately not only been implemented in large but also in small and midsized companies.

For the Wave Biotech AG, Tagelswangen, which is active in the biotechnology industry and has a total number of employees of 12, a quality manual was created in the context of the diploma 2001. It follows the standard ISO 9001:2000.

The main task was to find and classifier all existing processes. The difficulty of this work was that many processes were never documented. A large number of loose papers for the production of the goods were already made, however for the management hardly any document existed.

The result of the work is a quality manual, which is divided into the following chapters:

Management, Resources, Order processing, Project handling

For our market analysis we investigated several Swiss switchgear manufacturers.

Our analysis resulted in the following:

• The quality and the price of the clamp are of central importance.
• The popularity of the enterprise must be increased.
• It is inevitable to be represented in the important catalogues.
• The end customer is the breaking point for a new business in this area.
• His main interests are an absolut proper connection.

On these results we developed a new sucessful marketing strategy.

The VT AG has, in coorporation with RigiBahnen AG and the German railway-technology-company Windhoff invented a new rack-railway-switchyard. The switch bends his trackpart to the other direction. Two of these new switches are already installed at the RigiBahnen. With the certification through the federal buero of transportation (BAV), the new switch will be put on the international market.

In our analysis we collected all rack-railway-companies worldwide, included trackwith, rack-system, the maximum steep and the potential of this specific market. Our comparison-calculation shows the saving potential of the new switch to a conventional switch. This calculation will be used in the marketing strategy and it is a model-example showing the saving potential of the new switch and the pay-off-period. As part of the marketing-strategy we investigated the possibilities of an exterior distribution through Tensol Rail SA, a company which produces and distributes rack-rail-switches as their main business.

In our marketing concept we sketched:

• the aspects of a brand containing logo and product name,
• a draft version of an information brochure
• the organisation of an information-day
• the production of a video-spot.

Many smaller and medium-sized Swiss businesses are uncertain after the various e-business failures suffered by many companies. For them, the question is whether an investment in e-business will pay off.

This thesis shows the fundamental potential of e-business for the SME sector and examines specific problem areas. The focus is on electronic market places.

The work is separated into three parts. The first part treats the platforms of e-commerce traffic and explains the need for supply chain management. This can be defined as the control of the industry-wide production and logistics network, which includes the procurement, production, store and transport activities from the raw material supplier up to the customer. Existing electronic market places are analyzed and the factors of success are shown in part two. The analysis has also shown that the lack of transparency of the e-business transactions and the missing confidence in the data security still represent a great problem in the e-business.

The last part is intended to serve as a guideline. The essential issues are discussed from which the potential for SME's can be derived.

This should help management to decide on a strategic new orientation in the e-business area.

The main target of this diploma thesis is to outline and recommend a strategic corporate planning for the startup company PXE specializing in web technology services and to show the potential for development. To structure the work the following steps have become essential:

Situation analysis (actual situation):

• SWOT-analysis
• Market- and environment-SWOT-analysis, competition-analysis
• Corporate-analysis

Strategic targets (Target state):

• Revision of the given strategic goals
• Definition and documentation of the revised strategic goals
• Marketing mix

Actual situation vs. target situation (measures to be taken):

• Definition of the structure
• Measures necessary to implement the strategic targets
• Definition of the required marketing tools (infrastructure)

An analysis of the present situation at PXE shows that there are miscellaneous weaknesses within the company that has to be improved in order to yield a return in future. Since the tasks of the individual staff members are not transparent and their roles have not been well defined yet and are not concise and consistent, it is problematic for the staff and for people outside like customers to address their problems to the right person. Clear organizational and command structures are missing as well as the interaction and communication within the company. Therefore, it is vital to build up a project monitoring to provide the needed support to the individual project manager. In future, it is recommended that decisions are frankly communicated and insights are delivered internally and externally. This will allow an amelioration and creation of a high degree of trust and reliability not only towards staff members but also vis-à-vis the customers. The efficiency of the company should be maintained and augmented; the hours worked against fee should be increased to avoid financial embarrassment and constraint.

This diploma thesis is supposed to provide sunrise with useful informations according to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The intention is to embed the Internet processes in the CRM-System. Moreover, the integration displays the advantages for the company and for the customers.

Most large companies talk about the fact that they are about to use CRM or will use it in the near future. However CRM can not be introduced simply into a company. It is not a system such as a new billing system which can be integrated more easily into an existing IT architecture. The introduction of a CRM-System requires a total restructuring of the entire company. It is not sufficient to reorganise the available IT architecture. In addition the employees have to be convinced by the new IT environment.

In order to deal with CRM, process orientated way of thinking must be existent among all employees. This goal is set by the company. The individual departments must arrange together their in common processes instead of regarding function-oriented processes. Thus the customer needs can be fulfilled optimally. It must be guaranteed that the informations about customers are available at any time wherever they are needed.

Especially in the sector of Internet the processes are missing. They are supposed to run directly from the CRM-System. For this reason it was possible to define exactly these new Internet processes and point out how these processes are handled by the complex IT architecture of sunrise.

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