UMUC Haircuts Stage 3

The implementation of a new scheduling web-based application, Schedulicity, will bring customer scheduling into the 21st century. The web based program will simply require internet service and a computer in order to access the online application from within the store. From the store computer, call in customers can be manually entered into the online scheduling application or the customer may schedule themselves from their own personal computer or mobile phone application. This technology system was specifically chosen for UMUC Haircuts because the cost for implementation and maintenance is very low and requires minimal resources aside from a computer and local internet connection. Myra will finally have customer scheduling linked to her employees schedules via the Schedulicity calendar her business will utilize for customer appointment times. This calendar will display the times Mya’s employees will be working in order for customers to select their desires hairstylist and time.

Generic Strategy: Differentiation
Strategic business area: Operations Management
Process to be improved: Customer and employee scheduling

| High/Medium/Low Importance or Relevance or Not Applicable (N/A) | Explanation for Ranking(minimum 2 sentences for each, linked to specific technology solution proposed) | Usability | High | The web application has to be easy to use because although customers may receive services without utilizing the new system, the employees and Myra will need to use it every day. The rating of High was given because while a customer may call in to schedule an appointment, someone from UMUC haircuts will still be inputting the appointment into the web application. | Maintainability | N/A | The Schedulicity web application is a third party hosted application and therefore all the maintenance and coding is performed by the third party. N/A was given as a rating because Myra, her employees, and customers do not have to maintain any of the system coding and all modifications would be performed by the third party. | Scalability | N/A | Scedulicity is a web-based application that is already used by many other businesses and many of which are much bigger in size than UMUC haircuts. There is a lot of room for growth using the application which will make the addition of more employees and managing of scheduling easy even if Myra’s business grows much larger or even if she were to open additional locations. | Reliability/ Availability | Low | UMUC haircuts will need the system to stay up and running for as long as possible in order for its customers to schedule appointments at any time during any day. Myra relies on the application to be up and running in case any schedule modifications are needed and for the manual addition of call in appointments. I gave the relevance low because although all the downtimes and updates are managed by a third party company, Myra needs to be aware of scheduled outages and to track any downtimes that occur in order to engage Schedulicitiy’s support center if any unplanned outages occur. | Extensibility | High | The application has, built within it, numerous ways to make changes to the information and data nodes for scheduling changes. Additions to the page, including general information, uploading of pictures and addition of schedule times and employees will be modified regularly by Myra. A high rating was given due to the high number of changes Myra will be making to the web-based application and the need for the changes to be easily performed by Myra. | Portability | medium | The web-based application needs to be highly portable because UMUC haircuts has a very diverse clientele. The app runs on multiple browsers (google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer) and also is accessible via phone and tablet apps. This wide variety makes the application accessible by most all clients and also the employees and Myra as well. Medium was assigned because if a customer cannot get UMUC Haircuts through their normal browsing methods there is a potential for a loss of business or even customer loss. | Security | Medium | Customers will create accounts for themselves using Schedulicitiy’s secure server in order to protect their personal information. The account security will be managed by the third party but it is important to note that no transactions are performed using Schedulicity which minimizes credit and debit card fraud chances. The page owners within Schedulicity will have an admin role or their own page and will act as content stewards. I gave the security as Medium because personal information is important to protect and security threats are very common when utilizing the web. | Data Quality | Low | Myra will be responsible for all the data that is on her page, but the accuracy and quality should not be too much concern which is why this category receives a low rating. She will simply be inputting the schedules she already has for the employees currently, onto the web application. The majority of the data will be time and day data. | Authentication | Low | Schedulicty authenticates via a user account that users create in order to use the service. The user groups are normal users (customers) and admin (content owners). These two groups will be authenticated by their logon credentials and checked against a database. This is not important because the third party takes care of all the handling of authentication. | Encryption | N/A | Encryption will not be a concern for UMUC Haircuts because Schedulicity will be responsible for all the encryption of data. The third party site will be responsible for finding and eliminating all loopholes and securing the application for all of the businesses that utilize its services. | Cloud Computing | High | Cloud computing is highly relevant for UMUC Haircuts. Schedulicity is an example of cloud computing. Myra’s business along with many others will be plugging into and modifying pages along with storing their data that is housed at the third party site. | Enterprise Systems (ERP, CRM, SCM) | High | The Schedulicity application will effectively automate customer service interaction with its customers. While certain areas of traditional ES systems are not a part of the web application (actual sales, inventory and distribution), the planning portion and ability to forecast employee resources is. Because the customer resources will be greatly affected and improved through the use of Schedulicity, the importance is high. | Communications | Medium | Myra’s business relies heavily on its ability to stay connected to the scheduling of clients and managing of employee schedules. This requires an ISP and a router connection that is dependable with minimum downtime to connect to the Schedulicity application. Medium importance has been assigned due to the ability to connect to the application via mobile phone which serves as a useful backup if the primary router becomes non-functioning. | Database, Data Warehouse, Data Mining | N/A | UMUC Haircuts is a small business with limited resources to analyze customer data and profit from it. In the future Myra may be able to start integrating data mining for customers in order to sell more products and services in the future. For this reason data mining is N/A at the present time. | Business Intelligence | N/A | In Myra’s business there is not enough raw data being collected in order to utilize business intelligence. Business intelligence is the handling voluminous amounts of raw data and putting the data into intelligible form. Additionally Myra would additional systems/software in order to perform business intelligence activities. | Transaction Processing | Low | Transaction processing for UMUC Haircuts will be a lower priority. All customers will be handled via the point of sale system at the front desk in the store. Myra will also be ordering from suppliers and will be utilizing a method of book keeping to keep on top of supplier orders and transactions. Because there are only customers and suppliers to worry about on a small scale (small business) the importance is low. | Decision Support | N/A | Myra hires all part time employees and therefore has no hierarchy of managers to lean on for support in making decisions. Myra is the strategic, managerial and operational manager of her business. She may want to implement managers in the future but because she has none at the moment, the n/a rating applies. | Executive Information | High | Executive information is very important to Myra in order to keep the costs of operating and buying supplies down. Myra has to fine tune a balance of having workers on shift vs when not to because it will be slow. Supplier prices change and with that Myra will need to have knowledge of prices differences and how that will effect overall revenue. Sometimes she will have to make the decision to switch suppliers. | Business-to-Business eCommerce | N/A | UMUC Haircuts sells services and products to customers who are not businesses. The N/A rating has been chosen because UMUC Haircuts is a business that makes its revenue off selling to consumers. | Business-to-Consumer eCommerce | High | This is the way UMUC makes its revenue. UMUC Haircuts sells products and services to consumers. |