Marys Electrical Supplies and Services

Mary owns a small shop that sells electrical supplies and employs one electrician, Mike. The shop owns a pickup truck and a van.

Mary runs the shop and is responsible for opening and closing. She takes purchase and service orders in person or by phone. She then processes payments, if the orders can be fulfilled.

For purchase orders, she will arrange delivery or pick-up. In case of pick-up, the payment is processed at the time of pick-up. Payments for delivering supplies are processed upfront. For deliveries, if Mike is available, he will deliver the items using the truck. If not, Mary orders delivery from one of the three delivery services available to them.

For service orders, she will schedule a time with the customer and add it to Mikes calendar. Mike is then responsible for coordinating with the customer to identify what supplies and the amount of time needed to perform the service. Mike must update his calendar if follow up appointments are needed. Mike normally takes the supplies from the shop. If some item is not available, he adds it to Marys purchase list with a date by which it is needed. Mike uses the van to carry his equipment and the necessary supplies.

Mary monitors the inventory of the shop and adds items to her purchase list with dates by which she anticipates they will run out. Using this list, she orders supplies from their suppliers and picks them up with the truck before or after the shop hours. Her suppliers do not deliver.

Mary does the accounting for the shop and keeps track of sales and profit. She pays Mike hourly.

Business issue: Mary and Mike regularly run into problems when adding items to the purchase list. Sometimes Mike adds items to the list while they are already available in the shop. Currently, Mike creates a temporary list of items when meeting with a customer. He then goes to the shop at the end of the day and crosses off any item that is in stock. He then adds the remaining items to the purchase list with their required dates, based on the service appointments he has with the customers. Since he is only visually checking the availability of the items, he sometimes misses them and adds them to the list. Mary ends up with items on the list that she cannot determine whether they already have in stock or not. This error sometimes results in overstocking specific items. In addition, it is time-consuming for Mary and Mike to visually check for their available stock.

Potential solution: Mary is considering purchasing a software that manages their inventory, purchase list and sales. She wants the electronic purchase list to support a due date for each item. In addition, she wants every item to be assigned a barcode. The software must support remote access through a smartphone app and a tablet app that can scan barcodes with the devices cameras. This way, Mike can add items to the list while he is with the customer and Mary can carry a tablet and scan items anywhere in the shop. For this software, Mary is considering a local software company called Moon Microsystems. You are an independent analyst and your task is to analyze and mange stakeholders.

1. List the stakeholders of the project along with their stake at the project. You should give reason(s) why you have included a stakeholder, in terms of their interest or influence.

2. Complete the power-interest grid for the stakeholders identified above (fill the table with your answers)

High power/influence
Some power/influence
Low power/influence
	No interest	Some interest	High interest

3. List your responses to the stakeholders. Follow the approaches discussed in class: ignore, keep informed, keep onside, watch, keep satisfied and constant active management. Give at least one reason for each response. Your reasons should be in terms of the stakeholders power or interest

Example: Stakeholder A should be kept satisfied, because they have the power to obstruct the project. However, they are not directly affected by it.