IFSM300 Maryland Technology Consultants Inc Business Strategies Paper Using the case study, assignment instructions, Content readings, and external researc

IFSM300 Maryland Technology Consultants Inc Business Strategies Paper Using the case study, assignment instructions, Content readings, and external research, develop your Section III. Requirements. The case study tells you that the executives and employees at Maryland Technology Consultants (MTC) have identified a need for an effective and efficient applicant tracking or hiring system. As you review the case study, use the assignment instructions to take notes to assist in your analysis. In particular, look for information in the interviews to provide stakeholder interests and needs. Maryland Technology Consultants, Inc.
Maryland Technology Consultants (MTC) is a successful Information Technology consulting
services firm that utilizes proven IT and management methodologies to achieve measurable
results for its customers. Its customer base includes small to mid-tier businesses, non-profit
organizations and governmental agencies at the local, state and federal levels. MTC feels
strongly that its success is dependent on the combination of the talent of its IT consultants, the
best practices MTC employs, and a dedication to delivering truly beneficial IT solutions to their
clients.
Corporate Profile
Corporate Name:
Maryland Technology Consultants, Inc.
Founded:
May 2008
Headquarters:
Baltimore, Maryland
Satellite Locations:
Herndon, Virginia; Bethesda, Maryland
Number of Employees:
450
Total Annual Gross Revenue: $95,000,000
President and
Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Samuel Johnson
Business Areas
MTC provides consulting services in the following areas:
• Business Process Consulting – Business process redesign, process improvement
• IT Consulting – IT strategy, analysis, planning, system development, implementation, and
network support
• IT Outsourcing Consulting – Requirements analysis; vendor evaluation, due diligence,
selection and performance management; Service Level Agreements
Business Strategy
MTC’s business strategy is to provide extraordinary consulting services and recommendations
to its customers by employing highly skilled consultants and staying abreast of new business
concepts and technology and/or developing new business concepts and best practices of its
own.
Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.
MTC Case Study 12/5/2018
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Excerpt from the MTC Strategic Business Plan
While the complete strategic plan touches on many areas, below is an excerpt from MTC’s
latest Strategic Business Plan that identifies a few of MTC’s Goals.
Goal 1: Increase MTC Business Development by winning new contracts in the areas of IT
consulting.
Goal 2: Build a cadre of consultants internationally to provide remote research and analysis
support to MTC’s onsite teams in the U. S.
Goal 3: Continue to increase MTC’s ability to quickly provide high quality consultants to
awarded contracts to best serve the clients’ needs.
Goal 4: Increase MTC’s competitive advantage in the IT consulting marketplace by increasing its
reputation for having IT consultants who are highly skilled in leading edge technologies and
innovative solutions for its clients.
Current Business Environment
MTC provides consultants on-site to work with its clients, delivering a wide variety of IT-related
services. MTC obtains most of its business through competitively bidding on Requests for
Proposals issued by business, government and non-profit organizations. A small but growing
portion of its business is through referrals and follow-on contracts from satisfied clients. MTC
anticipates it will win two large contracts in the near future and is preparing proposals for
several other large projects.
MTC, as a consulting company, relies on the quality and expertise of its employees to provide
the services needed by the clients. When it is awarded a contract, the customer expects MTC
to quickly provide the consultants and begin work on the project. MTC, like other consulting
companies, cannot afford to carry a large number of employees that are not assigned to
contracts. Therefore, they need to determine the likelihood of winning a new contract and
ensure the appropriately skilled consultants are ready to go to work when needed. MTC relies
on its Human Resources (HR) Department to find and hire the personnel that the line managers
need for upcoming contracts. It is very much a “just in time” hiring situation.
The Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, houses approximately 350 employees. Satellite
offices have been opened in the last two years in both Herndon, Virginia and Bethesda,
Maryland to provide close proximity to existing clients. It is anticipated that new pending
contracts would add staff to all locations. The management team believes there is capacity at
all locations, as much of the consultants’ work is done on-site at the customers’ locations.
Strategic Direction
As a small to mid-size business (SMB), MTC recognizes that it needs to carefully plan its future
strategy. Considering the competitive environment that contains many very large IT consulting
firms, such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), and Science Applications
Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.
MTC Case Study 12/5/2018
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International Corporation (SAIC), as well as numerous smaller companies with various skill sets,
market niches, and established customer bases, MTC will be evaluating how best to position
itself for the future and recognizes that its ability to identify its core competencies, move with
agility and flexibility, and deliver consistent high quality service to its clients is critical for
continued success.
One area that is critical to a consulting company is the ability to have employees who possess
the necessary knowledge and skills to fulfill current and future contracts. Given the intense
competition in the IT consulting sector, MTC is planning to incorporate a few consultants in
other countries to provide remote research and analysis support to the on-site U. S.
teams. Since MTC has no experience in the global marketplace, the Director of HR has begun
examining international labor laws to determine where MTC should recruit and hire employees.
Challenges
The two contracts that MTC expects to win very soon will require the hiring of an additional 75
consultants very quickly. The Director of HR is concerned that the current manual process of
recruiting and hiring employees will not allow his department to be responsive to these needs
as well as the demands of future growth and increased hiring requirements. He is looking for a
near-term solution that will automate many of the manual hiring process steps and reduce the
time it takes to hire new staff. He is also looking for a solution that will allow MTC to hire
employees located in other countries around the world.
Management Direction
The management team has been discussing how to ramp up to fill the requirements of the two
new contracts and prepare the company to continue growing as additional contracts are
awarded in the future. The company has been steadily growing and thus far hiring of new
employees has been handled through a process that is largely manual. The HR Director
reported that his staff will be unable to accommodate the hiring of the 75 new employees in
the timeframe required as well as continue to handle the expanded hiring projections. The
Chief Information Officer (CIO) then recommended that the company look for a commercial offthe-shelf software product that can dramatically improve the hiring process and shorten the
time it takes to hire new employees. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) wants to ensure that all
investments are in line with the corporate mission and will achieve the desired return on
investment. She will be looking for clear information that proposals have been well researched,
provide a needed capability for the organization, and can be cost-effectively implemented in a
relatively short period of time to reap the benefits. The CEO has asked the CIO to work with HR
to recommend a solution.
Your Task
As a business analyst in the CIO’s department, you have been assigned to conduct an analysis,
develop a set of system requirements, evaluate a proposed solution, and develop an
implementation plan for an IT solution (applicant tracking system or recruiting system) to
improve the hiring process. The CIO has set up a series of interviews for you to collect
Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.
MTC Case Study 12/5/2018
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information about the current hiring process and the requirements for a system. He has asked
you to produce a Business Analysis and System Recommendation Report (BA&SR) as your final
deliverable.
Interviews
In the interviews you conduct with the organizational leaders, you hear the comments recorded
below.
CEO: Samuel Johnson
“While I trust my HR staff to address the nuts and bolts of the staffing processes, what is
critically important to me is that the right people can be in place to fulfill our current contracts
and additional talented staff can be quickly hired to address needs of future contracts we win. I
can’t be out in the market soliciting new business if we can’t deliver on what we’re selling. Our
reputation is largely dependent on having knowledgeable and capable staff to deliver the
services our clients are paying for and expect from MTC.”
CFO: Evelyn Liu
“So glad we’re talking about this initiative. As CFO, obviously I’m focused on the bottom line. I
also recognize it’s necessary to invest in certain areas to ensure our viability moving forward. I
recognize that the current manual hiring process is inefficient and not cost-effective. Having
technology solutions that improve current processes and enable future functionality is very
important to MTC’s success. We must consider the total cost of ownership of any technology we
adopt. MTC is run as a lean-and-mean organization and support processes must be effective
but not overbuilt. We do want to think towards the future as well and don’t want to invest in
technology with a short shelf-life. Along those lines, we currently have a timekeeping and
payroll system; and to help support our bottom line financially, any new solution should
effectively integrate with, but not replace, that system.
CIO: Raj Patel
“As a member of the IT Department, you have a good understanding of our overall architecture
and strategy; however, let me emphasize a few things I want to be sure we keep in mind for this
project. Any solution needs to be compatible with our existing architecture and systems as
appropriate. Obviously, we have chosen not to maintain a large software development staff so
building a solution from the ground up does not fit our IT strategic plan. Our current strategy
has been to adopt Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions that can be deployed relatively quickly
and leverage industry best practices. In addition, our distributed workforce means we are very
dependent on mobile computing – this brings some challenges in term of portability,
maintenance, and solutions that present well on mobile devices. We’ve been expanding at a
rapid rate and are seeking to expand internationally so any solution will need to be viable
globally And last, but certainly not least, MTC’s success is largely dependent on our ability to
satisfy the requirements of our clients and maintain a reputation of high credibility, reliability
and security. Any security breach of our applicants’ data could have a devastating effect to our
Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.
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ability to compete for new business as well as maintain current clients. I recognize that MTC
can no longer rely on a manual hiring process to meet these needs.”
Director of HR: Joseph Cummings
“Thanks for talking with me today. I see this effort as very important to the success of
MTC. The rapid growth to date and future plans for expansion have pushed our recruiting staff,
and we recognize we can no longer meet the hiring and staffing demands with manual
processes. I’m also interested in solutions that are easy-to-use and can interface with our existing
systems and enhance processes. I’m willing to consider a basic system that can grow as MTC
grows and provide more capabilities in the future. I’m sure Sofia, our Manager of Recruiting,
can provide more specifics.”
Manager of Recruiting: Sofia Perez
“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to begin the process of finding a technology
solution to support our recruiting processes. In addition to myself, there are 2-3 full-time
recruiters who have been very busy keeping up with the increased hiring at MTC. It goes
without saying that a consulting company is dependent on having well-qualified employees to
deliver to our customers. We’re in a competitive market for IT talent and want to be able to
recruit efficiently, process applicants quickly, and move to making a job offer to the best
candidate before the competition snaps him/her up. When I talk with my colleagues in other
companies, they mention applicant tracking systems that have enabled them to reduce their
hiring time by 15-20%. I’m so envious of them and look forward to having our new solution in
place before the next set of contracts are won and we need to hire 75 (to as many as 150) staff
in a 3-month period. I do not think my team can handle such an increase in an efficient and
effective manner. On-going growth at MTC will continue to increase the demands to hire more
consultants quickly. It really seems like there would be a rapid return on investment in a
technology solution to support and improve the hiring process.”
Recruiters: Peter O’Neil (along with Mike Thomas and Jennifer Blackwell)
“This project should have happened 2 years ago but glad it’s finally getting some attention. As
a recruiter, I’m sort of the middleperson in this process. On one hand, we have the job applicant
who is anxious to know the status of his/her application and fit for the advertised position. It’s
important that the recruiters represent MTC well, as we want the best applicants to want to
come to work for us. Then we have the actual hiring manager in one of our business areas who
has issued the job requisition and wants to get the best applicant hired as quickly as
possible. Obviously recruiting is not the hiring manager’s full-time job, so we’re always
competing for time with other job responsibilities, so we can keep things moving as quickly as
possible. They look to us to screen resumes and only forward the best qualified applicants to
them so they can quickly identify their top candidates. Working with Tom, our administrative
assistant, we need interviews to be scheduled to accommodate everyone’s calendars. After the
hiring managers make their final selections of who they would like to hire, it is our task to get
the job offers presented to the candidates – hopefully for their acceptance. Everything is very
time sensitive, and the current process is not nearly as efficient as it could be. Applications and
Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.
MTC Case Study 12/5/2018
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resumes can get lost in interoffice mail or buried in email; and, when a hiring manager calls us,
we often cannot immediately provide the status of where an applicant is in the process. This
can be very frustrating all around. Speaking for myself and the other recruiters, I have high
expectations for this solution. We need to really be able to deliver world-class service to MTC in
the recruiting and hiring areas to meet the business goals.”
Administrative Assistant: Tom Arbuckle
“I support the recruiters in the hiring process. After the recruiters screen the resumes and select
the best candidates for a position, my job is to route those applications and resumes via
interoffice mail to the respective functional/hiring manager, receive his or her feedback on who
to interview and who should be involved in the interviews, schedule the interviews based on
availability of applicants and the interview team members, collect the feedback from the
interview team and inform the assigned recruiter of the status of each candidate who was
interviewed. Then, after a job offer has been made and accepted, I coordinate the paperwork
for the new hire with HR and Payroll to ensure everything is ready to go on the first day. As you
can imagine when hiring volume is up, I’m buried in paperwork and trying to keep all the
applicants and their resumes straight, track their status in the process, and ensure everyone has
what they need is very challenging. Any tool that would help the workflow and enable many
steps in the process to be done electronically would be wonderful.”
Hiring Manager (in functional area; this person would be the supervisor of the new employee
and would likely issue the job requisition to fill a need in his/her department/team):
“While it’s a good problem to have – new business means new hires — the current method for
screening applications, scheduling interviews, identifying the best qualified applicants, and
getting a job offer to them is not working. My team is evaluated on the level of service we
provide our clients, and it is very important that we have well-qualified staff members to fulfill
our contracts. Turnover is common in the IT world and that along with new business
development, makes the need for hiring new staff critical and time-sensitive. I confess that
sometimes I’m not as responsive to HR as I should be, but this is only one of several areas I’m
responsible for. I look to the recruiters to stay on top of this for me. In the ideal world, I’d like
an electronic dashboard from which I can see the status of any job openings in my area,
information on all qualified candidates who have applied and where they are in the
pipeline. Electronic scheduling of interviews on my calendar would be a real time saver. It’s
important that we impress candidates with our technology and efficiency – after all we are an IT
consulting company—and using manual processes makes us look bad. And, this system must be
easy to use – I don’t have time for training or reading a 100-page user’s manual. Just need to
get my job done.”
Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.
MTC Case Study 12/5/2018
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Stage 3: Requirements
Before you begin work on this assignment, be sure you have read the Case Study and reviewed the
feedback received on your Stage 1 and 2 assignments.
Overview
As the business analyst in the CIO’s department of Maryland Technology Consulting (MTC), your next
task in developing your Business Analysis and System Recommendation (BA&SR) Report is to develop a
set of requirements for the hiring system.
Assignment – BA&SR Section III. Requirements
The first step is to review the feedback you received on your Stage 2 assignment, making any needed
corrections or adjustments. Part of the grading criteria for Stage 4 submission includes addressing
previous feedback to improve the final report. For this assignment, you will add Section III of the
Business Analysis and System Recommendation (BA&SR) Report to your corrected Sections I and II. In
this section you will identify requirements for the new hiring system. This analysis leads into Section IV.
System Recommendation of the BA&SR (Stage 4 assignment) that will analyze a proposed IT solution to
ensure it meets MTC’s organizational strategy and fulfills its operational needs.
Using the case study, assignment instructions, Content readings, and external research, develop your
Section III. Requirements. The case study tells you that the executives and employees at Maryland
Technology Consultants (MTC) have identified a need for an effective and efficient applicant tracking or
hiring system. As you review the case study, use the assignment instructions to take notes to assist in
your analysis. In particular, look for information in the interviews to provide stakeholder interests and
needs.
Use the outline format, headings and tables provided and follow all formatting instructions below.
III.
Requirements
A.
Stakeholder Interests – Review the interest or objectives for the new hiring system for
each stakeholder listed below based on his or her organizational role and case stud…
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