One of the top consulting corporations in Alberta, Marketing Know Alls (MKA), specializes in helping companies evaluate, draft, and update their Marketing strategy and plans (S&Ps). In an environment where marketing competition and practices are changing rapidly, MKA has found a rapidly growing niche, with MKA performing evaluations and updates for 700 different clients on a yearly basis. This is generating $3,850,000 in revenue per year. However, MKA finds that it is struggling to support that growth as effectively as it might. In particular, reading, evaluating, and updating clients Marketing S&Ps requires deep expertise and judgment from senior MKA consultants. For example, out of five consultant seniority levels (the most junior, Level A, through the most senior, Level E), the process requires the top three levels to do more than half the work (see the Pre-enhancements Employee Level grid that follows). This means that MKAs growth is limitedcurrently at 10 percent per yearby the time needed for newly hired junior staff to gain experience and judgment. The cost of these senior consultants is also high, meaning that MKAs profitability is lower than it might be, with an operating margin of 45 percent. Because of these issues, MKA has initiated a systems project to improve systems support for its Marketing S&P services via automation, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence. Based on studies of its business processes, MKA believes that this project would save 10 hours of labor effort per client per year. Further, MKA believes that the project will reduce the amount of work that must be performed by senior staff, with the top three levels only needing to do 30 percent of the work (see the Post-enhancements Employee Level grid that follows). This will allow MKA to lower its blended cost per hour. It will also allow MKA to grow at double the current rate20 percent per year rather than 10 percent per year. Utilize the current state versus future state parameters to generate estimated business benefits at three levels. Utilize the data and templates that follow; using a three-year business benefits planning horizon, estimate the increased business benefits to MKA over a three-year planning period. Known parameters are already filled in in these templates:

Assume that MKA requires a minimum estimated ROI ratio of 2:1, with a preferred estimated ROI ratio of 3:1 (where ROI = Estimated Business Benefits / Estimated System Costs). Discuss the decision regarding approval of the project if the projected system costs are: $2.1 million (7 marks)