PREPARING THE FEASIBILITY STUDY - Essay Example

Preparing the Feasibility Study A large chain of retail stores would require an in-house developed management information system for its operations. This is because such a system would be highly customized and it would meet their needs directly and would offer a competitive advantage. The decision criteria to that is used by a business or an organization to decide on whether to develop an in-house software or to purchase a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software depend on several factors. Some of these factors include: the core function of the software, total ownership costs, scale of operation, flexibility to business changes and time needed to implement the software (Ledeen, 2009). All of these factors are critical but sometimes, some of these factors are overshadowed by others because of some considerations that the business or organization might make.
Give supporting evidence and cite sources(300 words)
The organization under focus is a chain of retail stores that needs a software for processing sales transactions and managing its inventory. All the transactions will be backed up in the system’s main server that will be located in the business’ head office. This means that among other requirements for the software, it should be able to handle a huge volume of transactions, have high security levels as well as have high level of efficiency. Since the core function of the business is supply and retail, the system should give the business a competitive advantage by achieving very high levels of efficiency and significant cost reductions in business operations. These strategic reasons necessitate development of an in-house software that will be developed with the organization’s key requirements.
The costs of developing, implementing and maintaining an in-house software can be high as compared to purchasing COTS but it has a longer economic life than a COTS. This is because COTS will require frequent updates from the vendors and this shortens their life. Developing an in-house software application is cost effective as the software will have only the desired features and functionalities. This is not the case in COTS as the business will pay for features they do not need while purchasing the COTS software (Ledeen, 2009). The developers will also have the opportunity to determine the level of software the retail chain needs based on its financial strength. This is usually a consideration made by the developers before they commence developing the software (Emery, 2007) .
An in-house developed software will give the retail business more control over the software and the entire system. This is because the business will have an in-house team of system experts and technicians to carry out maintenance. This will provide enhanced security for the transactions that involve confidential information such as financial transactions.
The planned software will involve large scale operation and transactions between the retail outlets and the head office servers. An in-house developed software will assist in preventing inherent business risks as a result of communications between retail outlets and head office.
The time needed to develop and implement an in-house developed software is long as it involves several time consuming processes and training the staff who will be using the software. However, it has the advantages of lesser upgrades, longer time economic life and highly flexible. This is because the experts have an in-depth knowledge of the system thus it takes shorter time to perform upgrades and makes changes necessitated by business environment (Lo, 2007).
In view of the above considerations, the retail chain business should go for in-house developed software option as it meets both their short term, medium term and long term needs.
References
Emery, P. (2007, January/ February). Beyond Features & Functions: Evaluating RM Software Alternatives in a Real-World Environment. The Information Management Journal, pp. 28-34.
Ledeen, K. S. (2009). Our Knowlegde: White Papers. Retrieved from Nevo Technologies, Inc Website: http://www.nevo.com/our-knowledge/whitepapers/BuildVsBuy.pdf
CS211 (2007). Transition to System Designs. [PPT Presentation]. Retrieved from http://www.peter-lo.com/Teaching/CS211/L06.pdf Read More