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Tecpro
5 The Project
5.1 The eBusiness Solution
The company felt that the project would lock in Tecpro’s
technical and commercial relationship to major customers.
In addition, Tecpro would be promoted as a ‘centre
of excellence’ on test engineering products helping
to secure its future in expanding markets.
Facilities to monitor both internal and supplier performance
and responsiveness would be introduced, permitting lower
operational costs. In conjunction, customer service,
in terms of reliability and communication, would improve
substantially, advancing Tecpro’s business model
and revenue streams.
5.2 The Project Team
James Neary himself headed the project from the outset.
To effectively run this project James and a colleague,
Karen McCartney, enrolled themselves on a web management
and web master training course organised by Enterprise
Ireland. The company had little experience with the
Internet and James felt it necessary to arm himself
with a solid information base before selecting vendors
and managing the project’s implementation.
A cross-functional, internal team was assembled in order
to outline the problems and define a set of objectives.
The team consisted of:
- James
Neary –
Managing Director
- Karen
McCartney –
Operations Manager
- Tom
Smyth –
IT
Together with
consultants, Computer Controlled Applications (CCA) based in Dublin, a strategic
ebusiness plan was formulated. Tecpro knew CCA for their training and ebusiness
support capabilities, the MD of CCA being part of an Automated Test Development
team when James worked in Technicon (now Bayer Diagnostics) from 1974 –
1982. In addition CAA was responsible for the installation of Tecpro’s
high-spec security system and for providing training on its use and maintenance.
A number of customers and suppliers were contacted in order to gauge their
interest in working in an ebusiness environment in their dealings with Tecpro.
The buy-in of major customer and suppliers would strengthen James’
strategy. In addition in the early adoption of the system would assist in
helping to lock in further partners. These included:
In order to
integrate all the elements of Tecpro’s systems, and develop a website
strategy, they looked to hire an external consultant with specific web development
experience. They evaluated at least three companies. The first had recently
changed their focus to the mobility business and Tecpro felt they had no
real interest in web development anymore. The second consultants had limited
experience of integrating third party packages to web servers. Their requirement
for assistance from additional third parties increased costs and Tecpro
felt a one-stop shop would be more cost effective and be easier to control
in terms of project deliverables and timescales.
Finally Tecpro selected Intact Software (www.intact.ie)
based in Dundalk. Intact had provided Tecpro’s
original accounting package and so were known to the
company as being both responsive and professional. Tecpro,
along with their ebusiness consultants CCA, assessed
Intact's web strategy proposal and it was agreed that
theirexpertise in the area, along with their ability
to provide integration services to hook up additional
packages, would ensure a timely roll out of the differing
systems. Tecpro looked at interactive website functionality
in order to download CAD files containing detailed customer
design specifications. They evaluated two vendors’
products, but soon realised that file size restrictions
would render these systems inoperable due to extended
down load times. Instead the company identified viewer
software, sourced from a US based corporation, as the
solution allowing them to download smaller CAD files
and display them via the web.
5.3 Implementation
Intact produced the following overall implementation plan:
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