##BeginCaseStudy###
Case Study# 1
Corporate Information and Physical Locations
Woodgrove Bank is a national financial services institution that operates in over 30 cities across
the United States. The company offers investment banking services, has over 140,000
employees, and has five departments.
EXISTING ENVIRONMENT
Existing Business Processes
Woodgrove Bank has the strategic goal of eliminating 25 percent of its current list of 40,000
suppliers. The bank has begun eliminating suppliers based on their prices, redundant product or
service offerings, and past supplier performance. The company’s Enterprise Supplier
Management (ESM) group manages the supplier elimination process. The group also directly
manages the bank’s largest suppliers and provides training material and workshops on supplier
management to the company departments.
The Woodgrove Bank ESM group has the following business processes:
The ESM group collects supplier performance data for the 2,000 largest suppliers.
The ESM group’s Supplier Managers use supplier performance data to directly manage the 40
largest suppliers.
The department managers directly manage all other suppliers.
The ESM group provides performance data on other suppliers to the department managers by
request. Raw performance data is organized in spreadsheets that are sent via e-mail.
The ESM group’s Business Analysts collect and store supplier performance data in multiple
spreadsheets. The spreadsheets are stored on the Analysts’ local computers and contain many
different types of supplier performance metrics. Each quarter, the ESM group surverys the
department managers to discover the level of satisfaction they have for each of their suppliers.
Business Analysts distribute the surveys via e-mail then manually consolidate the survey results.
Existing Technology Infrastructure
Woodgrove Bank has the following software deployed on all desktop computers:
Microsoft Office 2003 Professional
Windows XP Professional
Woodgrove Bank has the following software deployed on all network servers:
Windows Server 2008
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Microsoft Office Project Server
The Woodgrove Bank ESM group has the following technology infrastructure:
A single IT Specialist who has minimal database application development experience.
Additional servers available for the deployment of new technology solutions.
Labor Costs
The following table illustrates labor costs for salaried stall.
BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS
Problem Statements
Woodgrove Bank has identified the following business problems:
The process of manually entering data for suppliers in spreadsheets is time-consuming for the
business analysts.
Supplier data is stored in multiple files, formats, and locations.
There is very little sharing of valuable supplier performance data outside of the ESM group.
The ESM group has a fixed number of employees and very limited budget.
Business Goals
Bank executives formed the ESM group to promote best practices in supplier management
throughout the entire company.
The ESM group has the following business goals:
Build a new Supplier Performance Data Management service to distribute supplier performance
informantion across all departments.
Provide documentation to show departments how to best use company-wide supplier
performance information when negotiating individually with suppliers.
Minimize ESM group operating expenses by eliminating the procurement of additional software
licenses.
INTERVIEWEES
ESM Director
The ESM Director is a business decision maker who manages the day-to-day operations of the
ESM group.
The ESM Director best understands how the ESM group fits within the bank’s corporate strategy.
Supplier Managers
The Supplier Manager is a role within the ESM group.
Supplier Managers manage the 40 largest suppliers.
Supplier Managers best understand how supplier performance data is used to manage suppliers.
Business Analysts
Business Analysts collect and store supplier performance data.
Business Analysts query the distributed spreadsheets by request from the Supplier Managers.
Business Analysts provide insight into manual data managemt processes.
Department Managers
Department Mangers are responsible for managing their respective supplier relationships.
Department Managers provide insight into how supplier performance data is used for supplier
management at the dapartment level.
###EndCaseStudy###
You need to document which key technology infrastructure issues prevent the ESM group from
meeting its goals. Which issue should you choose?
A.
Data entry is performed manually.
B.
Static spreadsheet-based are used to capture data
C.
Supplier data is improperly updated in Project Server.
D.
Workflows are undefined in Windows SharePoint Services.
Explanation: