Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
regulations in our daily lives. The same federal rule may be implemented differ-
ently by the local municipal or state governments. Then the same rule may be
implemented differently or not implemented at all by the local governing body. For
instance, pollution control certification is required for all vehicles in India in all
states and municipalities. But in New Delhi the traffic police never bother about
this certificate. They never check whether any vehicle has a current pollution con-
trol certificate, though they check other certificates for validity.
10.. Case Study: Electronics Retailer
For instance, there was a supply chain management application implemented for
a global electronic goods distributor. The application consisted of EDI integration,
inventory organization (retail stores, warehouses, products, manual/automatic replen-
ishment), order management, and supplier database modules. This electronic distrib-
utor had many customers who are basically electronic goods retailers. In the scheme
of things, this electronic goods distributor was the supplier and would use the EDI
integration and inventory organization modules. Customers of this electronic goods
distributor would use order management and inventory organization modules.
When the requirement-gathering team visited customer sites and met end users
of the customer, they could get most of the requirements for the electronic goods
distributor. But getting requirements from their customers was difficult. First of
all, which of their customers will be using this system was not known at the time
of requirement gathering. Second, getting requirements from all the customers
would be difficult, as the electronic goods distributor was expecting that more than
70% of its customers will use the system (that meant more than 1000 customers).
Getting requirements from such a huge number of customers was impossible.
The best approach in such cases is the incremental iteration development pro-
cess. Whenever new requirements come, they can be integrated with existing
requirements and the system is designed accordingly. This kind of development is
possible only when an open architecture is adopted from the beginning so that new
features can be added from time to time. These can be incorporated in new releases
of the software.
10.. Customer Expectation Management Strategies
10...1
Customer Involvement
It is a psychological fact that if you have to deliver something to somebody, then
the other person will never understand the difficulties you face in delivering. Once
he has agreed with you for delivery, he assumes that the delivery will be made at the
promised time. If for some reason you face difficulties, then he will not cooperate
