IT Business Analysis for a Business Website - Desklib

This report discusses the project brief of building a new website for Hosted Desktop Solutions (HDS) to enhance their business of open source IT solutions. It covers the company background, current status, internal and external analysis, stakeholders, strategies, plan of business activities, requirement repository, business analysis approach, requirements change management, metrics to measure the business analyst work, effort metrics, performance report, problems and preventative or corrective actions. Subject: IT Business Analysis, Course Code: NA, Course Name: NA, College/University: NA.

Running head: IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Table of Contents
Objective..........................................................................................................................................2
Company Background.....................................................................................................................2
Company current status...................................................................................................................2
Internal and External Analysis.........................................................................................................3
Stakeholders.....................................................................................................................................3
Strategies..........................................................................................................................................4
Plan of business activities................................................................................................................5
Stakeholders.....................................................................................................................................6
Requirement Repository..................................................................................................................8
Business Analysis Approach...........................................................................................................9
Requirements change management...............................................................................................10
Metrics to measure the Business analyst work..............................................................................10
Effort Metrics.................................................................................................................................11
Performance Report.......................................................................................................................11
Problems........................................................................................................................................12
Preventative or corrective actions..................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................14

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Objective
The objectives of this report are to deliver the project brief of building a new website for
Hosted Desktop Solutions (HDS) to enhance their business of open source IT solutions. Even
though HDS has built many websites for their clients their own site has not been managed and
updated from a long amount of time. It the lacks the modern templates and content that is
essential for an IT company website.
Company Background
Jeff and Bob are the founders of HDS. They start this business with a laptop each and
devoted their time and effort to meeting their client expectations and IT needs. That time they are
using a 4-year-old server for storage, file sharing, network as well as some legacy hosted
application for clients. It lacks sufficient processing power and the server set up has been
unstable over the years. They had also poor infrastructure such as using Email through Google
apps, using paper-based excel files from the company’s beginning.
Company current status
Hosted desktop Solutions is currently a small IT solution company directly deals with
their client of medium and small businesses. It is a full-service company situated in the Sydney
IT hub of North Ryde. They mainly deal with software bugs, hardware, websites and also
configure and manage systems. Most of their clients come from the design companies and other
individuals who cannot manage or configure their own sites. This company is providing hosted
services along with the open source solution to their clients. Recently they are started to deploy
and develop their own applications to enhance their business. Recently, they identified
significant opportunities to expand the depth of its cloud computing services, particularly into the
education system. While many of the hosting services supplied to customers are externally

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
hosted, older clients are still managed using the companies own IT; and most client IT system
monitoring and maintenance is still undertaken through internal IT.
Internal and External Analysis
Currently, the procedure and informal policies of HDS is not helping them to increase
growth. The old website especially lacked key result area for business and not been updated for a
long amount of time. Resulting, an outdated communication information and key marketing.
Additionally, backdated project and client documentation impacting client invoicing and the
administrative response turn-abounds are getting longer and becoming inaccurate. Therefore
project margins are declining. Till now the founders Bob and Jeff ware managing all arising
issues directly but now they are incapable of dealing with numerous issues as the company is
growing rapidly.
HDS still operates under a small family business culture. They are increasing their
service fields to grow their business and increase market share. However, they have other well-
known competitors in hosted service and IT solution markets. These competitors do not provide
the same level of high-quality customer services but they can offer very competitive pricing.
Stakeholders
Previously, HDS is concern only about their customers and consider their needs to grow
their business. For only focusing on customers the relationship between stakeholders has
undermined mainly internal stakeholders are affected. That is also affecting innovation, value
creation and primary productivity across the company (Paul, Yeates and Cadle 2014). Till now
founders are rarely are focusing on requirement analysis and formal stakeholders. However for
the increasing amount of clients and their projects requirement management and stakeholders is

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
becoming crucially important to ensure successful production (Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini
2015).
Another problem is occurring due to the diverse views of internal stakeholders reliant on their
role and area (Sekaran and Bougie 2016 ). Some staffs are concern about job losses or reduced
hours cause of business being carried out online. Other staffs are not realizing any need for a
major website, satisfy with their old website. Although recognizing the need for a new site, are
concerned about the increased resourcing requirements and maintenance overheads that a
website with more capability would involve, it is already difficult keeping the current site up to
date and well maintained.
Strategies
After analysing internal and external strategies, operational responsibilities and tactics
HDS needs to focus on some key points to enable the growth sustainably. Important key points
are:
 Contributing to IT deployment into larger companies
 Managing internal operations across all areas
 Assisting the founders with strategic planning
 Contributing to application development
 Alleviating some of Bob's and Jeff's tactical and operational decision making

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Plan of business activities
Task Name Duration Start Finish Resource Names
Business analysis
of HDS New
Website
60 days
Fri
2/16/18
Thu
5/10/18
CIO
Requirements
Analysis
9 days
Fri
2/16/18
Wed
2/28/18
Project Manager
Enterprise Analysis 5 days
Thu
3/1/18
Wed
3/7/18
Stakeholders
Solution
Assessment and
Validation
12 days
Thu
3/8/18
Fri
3/23/18
Board Executive
Committee
Market Analysis 8 days
Mon
3/26/18
Wed
4/4/18
Marketing
Committee
Quality Analysis 6 days
Thu
4/5/18
Thu
4/12/18
IT technician
Cost Estimation 2 days
Fri
4/13/18
Mon
4/16/18
Finance
Committee
Risk Management 3 days Tue Thu Board Executive

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
4/17/18 4/19/18 Committee
Stakeholders
Analysis
6 days
Fri
4/20/18
Fri
4/27/18
CIO
Generate Publicity 9 days
Mon
4/30/18
Thu
5/10/18
IT Staff
Stakeholders
Stakeholders Responsibilities
Business Consultant Ensured the human resources required for the project;
Project Manager Ensured the project is completed within allocated budget and time;
Sponsor Accounts for the completion of the entire project
Director The director verifies and validate the Project Plan Status Report,
Budget Report and Training Report.
CEO The CEO approves the project budget and schedule.
HR Project Sponsor
Finance Manager Project Budget control

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Methods for Distributing Information on Projects
To ensure the project stability the right people such as project team member, project
sponsors and stakeholders should have the correct information on project status and timetable to
make vital decisions for project planning (Zikmund et al. 2013). To reach the right people when
required for any kind of decision making, effective distribution of work role in a best-suited
manner is must need (Hair 2015).
There are many ways HDS can stay connected with their stakeholders. However, mostly
they communicate through electronic communications for the easy access to computers.
Authority can also keep records of their communication details by keeping soft copy along with
the information distribution of the hard copy such as a copy of the memo. HDS has different
Stakeholders from many areas so it is not possible for everybody to join a face to face interview.
Given the short time and tight budget issues, CIO needs to manage multiple business analysis
and Email may work best for brief updates, queries and getting updates. For Communication,
updates, distribute and receive information all of the following may need (Shmueli et al. 2017).
 Ensuring correct information is being delivered to stakeholders
 Resources allocated for communicating information including time expectations and
budget.
 There should be a list of stakeholders to check their contribution in past.

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
 There should be an efficient communication management plan to conduct information
and for information flow stability (Anderson 2013).
Requirement Repository
Requirement management is the method of analyzing, documenting, prioritizing and
tracing requirements and afterward controlling change and communicating to relevant
stakeholders (Gandomi and Haider 2015). An analysis of requirement is essential to choose the
right system for the repository. Repository choices can impact the cost, diversification, quality,
customization and stakeholders. It can be maintained by systems staff or a new repository team
can be required to maintain (Wixom, Yen and Relich 2013).
The requirements management plan (RMP)
RMP describes how the business analysis work will be completed. Requirement
traceability is about documenting the life of requirements (Wiegers and Beatty 2013).
Requirement occurs from different sources such as marketing manager, stakeholders. The
implemented features of traceability can trace back individuals or groups who wanted it during
requirement elicitation (Davis 2013). It can also be used after deployment when client’s studies
identified a non-used feature to see why it was in requirement table in the first place.
Requirement manage plan can also consist of the subsidiary plan such as business analysis risk
plan, business analysis effort and many more.

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PROJECT LIFECYCLE
DeployTestChanges
Approved
App DesignReq.
Baseline
Business Objectives Project Objectives
IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Figure 1: Backwards Traceability
Business Analysis Approach
The approach totally depends on the framework, methodology or method to capture
requirement (Vera, Colomo and Molloy 2013). To manage requirements the communication
between stakeholders and authorities is vital. The approach is the cornerstone of all worker effort
and it tracks information like how and from where the requirements are collected and managed
(Alegre, Sengupta and Lapiedra 2013). The website business analysis must consist of the
customer’s satisfaction and profit in long term. Customers are not satisfied with the old website
as they cannot contact the support staff directly. Also, old clients are expecting to acknowledge
when contacting HDS for some new projects. There old server and database on the website
cannot track such information. The most important thing is to focus on strategies to grow the
business opportunities while maintaining supportive and caring culture.

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Requirements change management
This website is very important for HDS to evolve their business strategies. The company
has no tagline, vision statement and mission statement. The process of dealing with the clients is
also backdated. These are the main aspects need to be changed immediately. The new website is
made to change the management and constraint identification process of the company. Also,
service emails need to acknowledged as quickly as possible to respond quickly. There need some
changes in staff selection as the clients would like to assign younger staffs to manage their social
media activities.
Metrics to measure the Business analyst work
Metrics Explanation
% Business objectives met Track whether overall value is delivered as an
indicator that Business Analyst understand the
Business objectives and align scope
accordingly.
% clients adoption Track the percentage of user that adopt the
new website is moving towards 100% as an
indicator that Business analyst are working
with project to build something acceptable to
the actual end clients.
Average missed requirements as a % of total
requirements by phase
Track when missed requirements are
identified, looking for a reduction in later
phases as an indicator of overall BA skills.
Number of out of scope requirements added Track scope creep beyond the original scope

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
as % total as an indicator that Business analyst is tracing
to business objectives.
Effort Metrics
Activity
Actual
Effort
Planned
Effort
Deviation
(%)
Requirements Gathering 75 80 -6.25
Enterprise Analysis 85 100 -15
Solution Assessment
and Validation
97 110 -11.81
Market Analysis 180 220 -18.18
Quality Analysis 450 500 -10
Cost and Risk
Estimation
150 100 50
Stakeholder analysis 200 150 33.33
Total 1237 1260 22.09
Performance Report
Activities Performance Percent completed (%) Days to complete
Requirements
Gathering
GOOD 60 3
Enterprise Analysis VERY GOOD 40 4

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IT BUSINESS ANALYSIS FOR A BUSINESS WEBSITE
Market Analysis VERY GOOD 30 6
Quality Analysis GOOD 20 3
Cost and Risk
Estimation
GOOD 80 2
Stakeholder analysis GOOD 90 4
Problems
Whenever a project initiated, even though the business analysis is exercised some
problems could occur. Different stakeholders have different needs as they represent different
interests within the business that could lead to conflict requirements. As a hosted service
provider HDS is implementing their business plan to enhance their business and connect with
more clients. While the implementation of the project is in the process some problems could
occur in the management area. Internally some stakeholders ware against the idea of building a
new website. As result, they could have anxiety and would be less committed to the company.
External stakeholders may stop financing the project in a worst case. Another problem could
occur when dealing with client expectation. The main purpose of building this website is to
attract clients and satisfy their needs through giving them a pleasant experience. Uncertainty,
clients do not like the interface of the website that would turn to total project failure.
Preventative or corrective actions
There is certain aspect to focus when starting with a new project to prevent the outcome
problems. The main problems can be categories as a resource misalignment, requirements
misalignment and schedule misalignment (Stark 2015). Resource misalignment can occur if the
project was late, incomplete or over budget. This problem can be avoided by proper planning.

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Requirement misalignment can occur for insufficient requirement gathering and separation
between business and IT staffs (Hillary 2017). Schedule management is vital to complete the
website by given time limit. The Business analyst and project manager should work closely
together in the beginning to prevent this type of problems (Snyder 2015).

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References
Alegre, J., Sengupta, K. and Lapiedra, R., 2013. Knowledge management and innovation
performance in a high-tech SMEs industry. International Small Business Journal, 31(4), pp.454-
470.
Anderson, V., 2013. Research methods in human resource management: investigating a
business issue. Kogan Page Publishers.
Davis, A., 2013. Just enough requirements management: where software development meets
marketing. Addison-Wesley.(RMP)
Gandomi, A. and Haider, M., 2015. Beyond the hype: Big data concepts, methods, and
analytics. International Journal of Information Management, 35(2), pp.137-144.
Hair, J.F., 2015. Essentials of business research methods. ME Sharpe.
Hillary, R. ed., 2017. Small and medium-sized enterprises and the environment: business
imperatives. Routledge.
Paul, D., Yeates, D. and Cadle, J. eds., 2014. Business analysis. British Computer Society.
Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach.
John Wiley & Sons.
Shmueli, G., Bruce, P.C., Yahav, I., Patel, N.R. and Lichtendahl Jr, K.C., 2017. Data Mining for
Business Analytics: Concepts, Techniques, and Applications in R. John Wiley & Sons.
Snyder, C.S., 2014. A guide to the project management body of knowledge: PMBOK (®)
guide. Project Management Institute: Newtown Square, PA, USA.

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Stark, J., 2015. Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (Volume
1) (pp. 1-29). Springer, Cham.
Tarhini, A., Ammar, H. and Tarhini, T., 2015. Analysis of the critical success factors for
enterprise resource planning implementation from stakeholders’ perspective: A systematic
review. International Business Research, 8(4), p.25.
Vera-Baquero, A., Colomo-Palacios, R. and Molloy, O., 2013. Business process analytics using
a big data approach. IT Professional, 15(6), pp.29-35.
Wiegers, K. and Beatty, J., 2013. Software requirements. Pearson Education.
Wixom, B.H., Yen, B. and Relich, M., 2013. Maximizing Value from Business Analytics. MIS
Quarterly Executive, 12(2).
Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. and Griffin, M., 2013. Business research methods.
Cengage Learning.