1.    Title Technology Management Plan 2.    Introduction You have been selected to be the acting CIO for a subsidiary of Largo Corporation called Rustic Americana.  Its primary products include arts and crafts that reflect the history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. It specializes in direct marketing and sales through its call center. Sales are through a web store, a brick and mortar store, and a direct mail catalogue.  All services are housed under one roof that include warehousing, order fulfillment, shipping, corporate management and operations, and the call center. The success of the company hinges on its eye-catching direct mail catalogue and the unique product line. Unfortunately, annual sales have declined over the years due largely due to internal issues. The previous CIO was terminated some say due to incompetence primarily related to the underperforming call center. In addition, speculation swirled around the activities of the CIO. He was often absent from the building. He secluded himself behind the closed door of his office.  Associated rumors mounted, and it was believed that he was running a consulting business on company time. When the Rustic Americana CEO asked him about this during a formal review, the CIO answered that it was a weekend hobby that kept him abreast of emerging technologies. The CEO asked him if one of their competitors was a client and he vehemently denied the accusation. She was certain that the CIO was not being entirely truthful with her. Call Center Operations Managing a call center demands a wide range of skills including managerial, troubleshooting, patience and being cool under pressure. Knowledge of computer and communications skills is helpful but most call centers have a technical support division. The call center manager is Prisha Khan – she has been in the job for about 2 months. The customer service representative (CSR) in the call center responds to a call for product. On the customer management system (CMS ), the CSR collects and directly enters customer information; on a separate inventory management system (IMS ), the CSR looks up the product, and verifies if the warehouse has it in stock. If it does, the order is entered on the CMS, and the CSR decreases the inventory on the IMS. On the CMS, the CSR creates an order fulfillment ticket that is automatically shuttled to the warehouse processing clerk who prints it and then generates the shipping label. The shipping label is prepared through a web-based system through either UPS or USPS, which also produces a tracking number used by both the company and the customer. The processing clerk enters the shipping costs and tracking number into the CMS. The customer is billed when the order ships. The warehouse crew uses bar code scanners to track merchandise; once the order is selected, it moves along a conveyor to a shipping clerk who packages the order, affixes the shipping label, scans the bar code, and places t.

1. 1. Title
Technology Management Plan
2. Introduction
You have been selected to be the acting CIO for a subsidiary of
Largo Corporation called Rustic Americana. Its primary
products include arts and crafts that reflect the history,
geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. It
specializes in direct marketing and sales through its call center.
Sales are through a web store, a brick and mortar store, and a
direct mail catalogue. All services are housed under one roof
that include warehousing, order fulfillment, shipping, corporate
management and operations, and the call center. The success of
the company hinges on its eye-catching direct mail catalogue
and the unique product line.
Unfortunately, annual sales have declined over the years due
largely due to internal issues. The previous CIO was terminated
some say due to incompetence primarily related to the
underperforming call center. In addition, speculation swirled
around the activities of the CIO. He was often absent from the
building. He secluded himself behind the closed door of his
office. Associated rumors mounted, and it was believed that he
was running a consulting business on company time. When the
Rustic Americana CEO asked him about this during a formal
review, the CIO answered that it was a weekend hobby that kept
him abreast of emerging technologies. The CEO asked him if
one of their competitors was a client and he vehemently denied
the accusation. She was certain that the CIO was not being
entirely truthful with her.
Call Center Operations
Managing a call center demands a wide range of skills including
managerial, troubleshooting, patience and being cool under
pressure. Knowledge of computer and communications skills is
helpful but most call centers have a technical support division.

2. The call center manager is Prisha Khan – she has been in the job
for about 2 months.
The customer service representative (CSR) in the call center
responds to a call for product. On the
customer management system (CMS
), the CSR collects and directly enters customer information; on
a separate
inventory management system (IMS
), the CSR looks up the product, and verifies if the warehouse
has it in stock. If it does, the order is entered on the CMS, and
the CSR decreases the inventory on the IMS. On the CMS, the
CSR creates an order fulfillment ticket that is automatically
shuttled to the warehouse processing clerk who prints it and
then generates the shipping label. The shipping label is prepared
through a web-based system through either UPS or USPS, which
also produces a tracking number used by both the company and
the customer. The processing clerk enters the shipping costs and
tracking number into the CMS. The customer is billed when the
order ships.
The warehouse crew uses bar code scanners to track
merchandise; once the order is selected, it moves along a
conveyor to a shipping clerk who packages the order, affixes the
shipping label, scans the bar code, and places the package into a
bin for delivery pick-up. The final scan automatically enters
the dollar amounts into the system for billing.
An old UNIX system is used to manage inventory. Data input
clerks entered information on new merchandise into it, CSRs
referred to it for product data, and if the product was on hand, it
produced an order processing form which was sent to the
warehouse for processing. The CSR could reduce the inventory
through the terminal on their desk.
The problem they experienced was a refresh rate on volatile
inventory. It was a common occurrence that a customer would
be told the product would ship when it was in fact depleted by
other CSRs.
There were conflicting views on the party responsible for

3. upgrading the systems. The former CIO believed the call center
manager needed to take the lead on upgrading operations, while
the call center manager complained that this was an
IT problem and she could not tolerate downtime
. To add to the fray, the Chief Financial Officer balked at the
cost associated with this investment. The CEO did not feel the
urgency and leaned to the CFO for advice.
Staffing the call center is the responsibility of the call center
manager. Ms. Khan uses past volume experience to make sure
there were sufficient CSRs on hand. She kept a list of “on-call”
CSRs for unanticipated business.
Her staffing limit was the number of stations with computer
access to the servers.
The call center uses a Cisco Voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP) phone system. The phone system runs on two standalone
servers -- one for call routing and the other for voicemail. There
is a dedicated toll free number into the center, and the system is
programmed with an auto-attendant to direct calls
. The volume of calls is a problem, and the number of lines is
less than the number of agents available to take calls during
high volume periods.
This is because there is a per-trunk monthly service chargeand
the call center cannot adjust the number of trunks based on
periodic demand. When the caller is placed in queue, the
standard practice is to limit the length of the average call to six
rings.The phone system requires a local coaxial cable Internet
service to supply broadband. Phones are connected to the
network architecture using standard Cat5 copper cabling which
routes phone traffic to the call center.
Under this approach, there have been issues with “quality of
service.” The former CIO was fond of saying “problems with
the cable company” when things went wrong. There was no
effort to track downtime. During these “downtimes” the entire
call center becomes idle and revenue is lost.
Because the Internet is tied to the same cable service, web
services were also down

4. . The Rustic Americana CEO felt that the lack of access
discouraged new customers, but no data was collected to
indicate a correlation between downtimes and sales decline.
Inside the building there is an application server, a server for
Microsoft Outlook email, the web server, and the typical
complement of routers and switches. The former CIO used a
variety of hardware from different vendors. When broadband
cable services are up, bandwidth is not a problem
,
except when the former CIO allowed employees to
stream movies during their breaks to boost morale
. Employees routinely used their workstations to check personal
email, and to manage their social networking accounts. There
was a problem with one employee posting
unflattering comments about the company
that resulted in a severe reprimand.
The data systems for the call center are setup as follows. The
center has two data servers. One data server
has a UNIX operating system, and it runs Oracle database
technology
. The second server is a
Microsoft operating system, and it runs SQL database
technology
. The two data servers are accessed via 40 workstations in the
call center. It is staffed 24/7 but is closed on major holidays.
The call center also contains 10 additional older workstations
,
which are used by data input clerks to update inventory when
ordered and upon arrival this inventory was verified and bar
code tagged with local stock inventory labels.
CSRs use a "homegrown" customer support application
developed in house which uses a generic Oracle Forms
interface. The former CIO did not believe in "bells and
whistles" of modern
Customer Resource Management (CRM) systems
-- besides, the Director of Marketing did not understand the

5. value of CRM, the CFO was not persuaded to make the software
and hardware investments, and the Rustic Americana CEO held
stereotypical, non-strategic views of customers. The inability to
do their required work was a constant complaint of agents.
Moreover, there is no technology infrastructure in place to
support mobile computing such as staff use of tablets or (more
critical) a wireless interface on bar code scanners used in the
warehouse.
Your Role as Acting CIO
You should frame your work around understanding the
mechanics of enterprise technology management beyond the
need to specifically recommend the
replacement of antiquated yet functional systems.
You should strive for an
alignment of technology with the business needs
.
You have been asked by the Corporate CEO to fix the problems
created by the former CIO’s perceived mismanagement of the IT
operations and resources. In particular, you need to address the
numerous complaints about the call center regarding its
poor service such as delayed shipping and failure to notify when
a product is out of stock.
The CEO asked that a plan be prepared and presented for
effectively managing the company’s IT operations – specifically
its call center. Within Rustic Americana, there is a Chief
Financial Officer, a Director of Marketing, a Direct Sales
Director and the usual departments. You are the “acting” CIO,
and as such, you have your own staff of ten which includes an
assistant who handles staff management and equipment orders, a
network engineer for each of the three critical systems, a
systems analyst, a web server programmer, and four desktop
support technicians.
This learning activity focuses what it takes to manage technical
operations. You will learn about creating reliable feedback
mechanisms for difficulties at all levels of enterprise
Information Technology interface. This includes timely

6. discovery of technology related issues, resolution of these
issues, creating a culture of trust and dependence, informing
staff of your activities, and developing strategic plans for
reducing bottlenecks in the future.
Understanding technology management is important to an IT
professional because in this environment, as would be true of
most corporate environments, computer-based information
systems are at the core of an efficient and competitive service
delivery. Effective leadership requires the identification of
problems, the resolution of those problems, an eye on the future
of the corporation and its profit, and transparency through
communication with peers and subordinates.
3. Steps to Completion
1) Analyze the Situation
First review and analyze the business and IT operations of the
call center. Break down the entire process into smaller parts
and analyze these parts. If necessary draw a sketch.
In general, here are some typical questions one should consider
as part of the analysis:
1.
What is the business model for the corporation?
2.
Where is technology strong? Where is it weak?
3.
How do we manage capacity both in terms of our computer
system’s capacity (and response time and fault tolerance) and
our staffing capacity (does the work performed full occupy the
expertise for which it is paid?).
4.
What is our sustainability policy?
5.

7. What is our technology innovation strategy?
6.
What is our level of contract support? How are contracts
evaluated for their full value to the efficiency of the
corporation?
7.
How are problems solved within the corporation?
Next identify key issues and challenges. Beyond technical
concerns, there are also managerial issues that need to be
addressed.
Deliverable: Capture this information in an issue matrix which
is a table that lists, categorizes and prioritizes these problems
(High, Medium, and Low), that assigns responsibility for the
problem to internal staff, to contract support, or to others
(specify these individuals) and contain other information you
feel relevant. This will be shown to management so they will
readily identify and understand the key concerns. Use your
creativity.
2) Identify Best Practices
Research current best practices relating to technology
management practices including operational improvement
approaches. You can start with these U.S. Government
Accountability Office (GAO) information:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-
38/pdf/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-38.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/leading_practices_information_t
echnology_management/issue_summary
http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/663051.pdf

8. Also, key management best practices are listed in Chapter 2 of
this reference:
https://books.google.com/books?id=49OC_fPnOhcC&printsec=f
rontcover&dq=management+best+practices&hl=en&sa=X&ei=N
z5FVZWOGsengwShlIDQBA&ved=0CF8Q6AEwCTge#v=onepa
ge&q=management%20best%20practices&f=false
Also identify people management skills needed to have an
effective operation. You can begin with this link:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2014/06/09/6-tips-
for-managing-people-who-are-hard-to-manage/
Understand ethical requirements for individuals in an
organization. You can review what is in our textbook. Here is
an article about the subject:
https://www.aitp.org/news/93013/How-Ethical-Theories-Apply-
to-IT-Professionals.htm
Deliverable: Prepare a best practices report that addresses the
key findings from this step. This will be shown to corporate
management. Minimum length: 400 words.
3) Select Applicable Operational Improvements
You are to identify what is needed for managing the call center.
You use all of your staff as a team to identify solutions (Note:
you may request for new positions on your staff but you cannot
exceed your current number of slots).
You have a sense of the problems; now document the best
practices which, if implemented, generate a computing
environment more stable, reliable and innovative and help in
resolving the challenges you have set as top priorities facing
your corporation.
Specifically, identify needed operational improvements
applicable to Rustic Americana’s call center with a set of

9. recommendations. Among other approaches, explore the use of
ITIL to provide customer-centric IT services. Here is a good
starting resource:
http://www.best-management-
practice.com/gempdf/itsmf_an_introductory_overview_of_itil_v
3.pdf
Here is an introduction to call centers:
https://books.google.com/books?id=0ZdG1qF2XvYC&printsec=
frontcover&dq=call+center+management&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TU
FFVY_jHomoNvemgAg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=c
all%20center%20management&f=false
Also, be sure to address ethical behavior based on concerns
raised in this learning demonstration. This has been a major
concern in Largo Corporation because of recent unethical
corporate practices that has been in the news recently.
Also address needs for the support, renewal, and sustainability
of a call center technology. Be sure to specify effective day-to-
day practices needed to manage operations.
Deliverable: Develop an operational improvement report that
summaries the key requirements discussed above. Minimum
length: 600 words.
4) Document Findings and Recommendations
Document key findings and recommendations in a presentation
to your executive team (e.g., CEO, CFO, and Director of
Marketing). This presentation should document the issues and
solutions identified earlier.
Deliverable: Final presentation
The presentation should consist of 10-15 slides. It should
include audio narration (directions are found at:
https://support.office.com/en-au/article/Add-narration-to-a-
presentation-0b9502c6-5f6c-40ae-b1e7-e47d8741161c

10. ). The narration should also be captured in the slide notes.
As an alternate method of delivery, you can create a video using
YouTube Capture (
https://www.youtube.com/capture
) or a similar tool.
4. Deliverables
1)
Issue matrix
2)
Best practices report
3)
Operational improvement report
4)
Final presentation
Create a folder to hold all of your deliverables.
Title your files using this protocol: Lastname_FirstInitial_I-
2_AssignmentName_Date.
Please zip (compress) the folder containing all of your files and
submit the zipped file in the Assignments area.
In lieu of submitting the presentation, you may provide a link to
your presentation file.
5. Rubrics
Criteria
Weight
(%)
Score
Identify and analyze issues prevalent in a technical environment
20

11. Create a strategy for the management oversight of enterprise
technology resources including the IT infrastructure reflecting
best practices
30
Identify operational solutions to issues in a technical
environment
30
Apply ethical principles when determining actions
10
Exhibit communication skills
10
Total
100