Vulnerability and Convergence Issues in DaimlerChrysler - Business Plan Example

PROJECT 5: CASE STUDY 2

High Level Plan

Introduction

This plan is designed purposely to guide the implementation of changes and mitigation of vulnerability and convergence issues in DaimlerChrysler (DC). It is a high-level plan that shows the system development life cycle (SDLC) for the proposed program for implementing the changes as well as for mitigating and solving the convergence issues. In the plan, the implementation solutions are related to Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA). Generally, the plan incorporates people, processes, and technology. It defines, develops, and documents the information policies as well as procedures supporting goals and objectives of the organization. It would as well assist the organization to satisfy its ethical and legal responsibilities during the change implementation and when dealing with vulnerability and convergence issues.

Goals and Objectives

Business Goals and Objectives

DC has been established mainly with a goal of boosting its profits by cutting spending and squeezing costs. This was viewed to be achievable after Daimler-Benz Ag buys Chrysler Corp. The main objective is to gain higher competitiveness and larger market for its car products. The newly established merger aims to boost its revenues and increase the net profits by benefiting from economies of scale.

Project Goals and Objectives

The project is meant to meet some key goals and objectives. While the merger has realized some advantages of economies of scale and profitability, there are issues related to the convergence. The merger has also been subjected to increased vulnerability due to its new scope and success factors. In such a case, criminals are likely to initiate threat to the company through various ways. The project therefore aims to solve the associated issues. One of the main goals is to mitigate such information security vulnerability which is attributed to its growth and the changing global technological advancements. Another goal is to solve the convergence issues that are likely to affect the business. The project objective is therefore to formulate a program that would lead to the achievement of these two goals while ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information under focus.

Scope

The project scope here refers to the work to be accomplished throughout the project life cycle. The scope is highly important in the management of the project and its completion. The project is expected to meet the set deadline with resource restraint. This implies that changes could be initiated to the scope because if not approved, the project may not be completed successfully. Scope creep management would therefore be necessary. Scope creep would involve the expansion of the project scope when changes have to be initiated, and it could lead to an increase in the general project expenses.

Scope Definition

The project will involve a thorough study of the organization’s background including its time before converging with Chrysler Corp. to form DaimlerChrysler. It would be critical to consider Daimler-Benz Ag and Chrysler Corp. separately. The benefits associated with the convergence process will also be analyzed, including the ability to increase profitability, larger market share, cost reduction through economies of scale, and other benefits. Such advantages are then compared with the perceived or realized issues related to security vulnerability and convergence. The projected project expenses would also be evaluated to determine the project feasibility. The time for the project completion is also critical, which together with the financial costs would determine the project milestone in which all the activities requiring special attention are identified.

Items beyond Scope

Items beyond the project scope include the benefits of the business and the proposed project to the society and employees. The project will also have some impact on the national and global economies.

Projected Expenses

The projected expenses will include mainly the project cost. The projected expenses will be based on cost projection, which refers to a financial investment statement for the project development, its implementation, and maintenance (McConnell, 2010). The cost involves all expenses to be incurred when establishing the project initiating to make it fully operational. The financial investments will cover all the procurement costs, leases, tax payments, purchases of software and hardware, training programs, internal and external project resources, and installation costs. The financial investment statement would reflect operational costs estimates that include project maintenance costs and operations costs. These would cover the whole project lifecycle (McConnell, 2010).

System Development Life Cycle/Schedule

Cost estimates are best based on each work phase making the system development lifecycle. Each of the various phases makes use of different resources, different timeline, and consequently different expenses. The project would consist of various activities, but only the activities falling within the critical path would be important (Marakas & O'Brien, 2010). Such activities would be the most useful in determining the projected expenses. Some activities may be included, but they may end up being beyond the scope of the project. Cost estimate should thus be based on the project’s critical path and the resulting phases (Marakas & O'Brien, 2010).

Essentially, the system development will be as follows:

Figure 4: The Management Phases Network Diagram

The organization will have a structured way of resolving the vulnerability issues with respect to Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of information/data. The first step is to discover the vulnerability areas by investigating all inventories/information available within the organization. Confidentiality ensures that sensitive information is prevented from being reached by unwanted people. This aspect will be a significant based for the analysis leading to the vulnerability discovery. This will be done with respect to the organization policies regarding confidentiality of information. The possible risks will then be prioritized after categorizing the possible risks based on the information integrity held by the organization. Integrity here ensures consistency, accuracy, as well as trustworthiness when handling data and information. Assessment is then done by determining a baseline risk profile in order to eliminate the risks based on criticality and vulnerability level among other aspects (Gibilisco, 2013). A report is generated by measuring the level of the business risks according to both business objectives and security policies, with respect to information availability. Availability refers to the way the information has been managed (Gibilisco, 2013). Rigorous maintenance of hardware, performance of hardware repairs, provision of redundancy and failure measures, and the existence of adequate communication bandwidth among other requirements should be considered when generating the report (Gibilisco, 2013). Remediation is done by prioritizing and fixing vulnerabilities according to the risks after which controls are established to demonstrate progress. The final step is to verify that the threats have been eliminated accordingly. These steps are shown in a network diagram shown below.

Figure 5: Vulnerability Lifecycle Management Network Diagram

Milestones

Project milestones exist within the management framework and include events that need special attention. The milestones would be marking the beginning and the completion of work packages or the system lifecycle phases. They can be determined for the projected expenses since they are the basis for initiating corrective measures once problems arise.

Assumptions

The assumptions include:

• The time set for the project completion will be adequate
• The financial budget set for the project completion will be sufficient
• Adequate skills are available and there will be no need for extra labor or skills

Constraints

Project Constraints

The project constraints include the following:

• Strict and limited time (short deadline)
• Strict budget
• Limited resources including skills limitation

Critical Project Barriers

The critical project barriers are likely to cause adjustment in the project development lifecycle. One of them is technical barriers in which the existing technology may limit the solution design. This constraint will cause adjustments in the skills, required, the time set, and the budget allocated for the project completion.