Executive_Summary

Executive Summary May 24, 2007 Executive Summary As Vice President of Organizational Development, I have been given the task of evaluating the current situation involving a new product being developed and released by August of this year. The purpose of this document is; to evaluate the situation and the problems that have arisen, to summarize the situation and describe key points, discuss conclusions that have been drawn from the information, and make a recommendation of actions to be taken. The current situation involves the production of a new retail product that will improve the iScanner. The plan is to upgrade the current software and operating system in order to transform the product into a new retail oriented system targeting stores for marketing purposes. The intended re-design of the iScanner is to allow retailers to gather information through retinal scans about customers including their movements, needs, wants, and desires. Data from the scan would be gathered to create a report for the retailer to be able to strategically place his or her products and displays for maximum effect. Due to recent budget cuts and downsizing, revenues have decreased and AcuScan’s competitive edge is diminishing without the introduction of a new product. With the right technology, budget, and work force, “Operation Optimize” could be one way to salvage the company and reverse negative employee impact. According to the proposed marketing plan, the ideal situation is to have a working prototype with all options ready for beta testing by August this year. The proposal also indicates that there will be a need for a minimal investment that will reap maximum returns. This concept is optimistic and very aggressive considering the amount of programming and re-engineering the new product will require. Preliminary testing and market surveys have been completed and there is significant retail interest in the product. One retailer has already been retained for the initial launch with the understanding that the new iScanner will still be in the beta testing stage. Obstacles that are hindering the progress of the project have been identified at all levels of input. Despite the proposed minimum budget of $575.000, CEO, Cliff O’Connor has limited the budget to $400,000. The workforce has still not recovered from the 25% reduction that was imposed last year and all available programmers are committed to servicing existing iScanners. The marketing department and the product development department do not agree on the product, approach or release date. The inability to come to an agreement is blurring the approaching deadline. No current protocol for new product development is in place, therefore, there are no guidelines to follow that are repeatable with a proven outcome. Additionally, assumptions, misinformation and illogical arguments are being volleyed back and forth between the two respective departments. There is no mediation or motivation being pursued in an attempt to encourage collaboration and problem solving. Two solutions are proposed with pros and cons of each being considered and discussed. The first solution would involve a meeting where the entire project is re-evaluated. The meeting’s agenda would include responsibilities and expectations to be clearly defined. Additional meetings would be required to evaluate progress and adjust plan where necessary. The meeting would also address instituting a new product development protocol that is easily applied to the current project as well as replicated for future endeavors. This will furthermore guarantee that responsibility and accountability are clearly divided and defined. One draw back to this solution is the negative impact on the established deadline. An alternate solution is to go ahead and follow current specifications and deadline requirements. Release the initial version 1.0 to specified retailers that have agreed to beta testing and solicit their feedback. Set a second launch date for version 1.1 in which all of the bugs and issues are addressed and corrected in response to the testing. This solution would facilitate strategic market positioning and extend the final release date to the public. This would help with testing that is real world applications versus a controlled environment with anticipated outcomes. Two drawbacks of this option are that the initial product quality will not meet AcuScan’s reputation for excellence. The other drawback is the bugs and glitches could be cumbersome and expose the product development team to an additional backend maintenance issue. This in turn would put a strain on the programmers initially intended to work on version 1.1. My recommendation is to use Solution 1 because of AcuScan’s reputation for a high quality security retinal scanner. In order to make the transition to the retail market the product needs to be tested and guaranteed to perform according to marketing claims. The proposed restructuring will not offset the deadline by a substantial amount of time providing that benchmark timelines are set and kept.