Scenario:

Your team has been contracted to provide systems planning, analysis, and design for a client called Awesome Dog Walkers (ADW). The client requires completion of the project within 4 weeks.

ADW is a successful and expanding dog-walking service provider in the Northern and Western suburbs of Adelaide and has been in business since 2003, when it was a small business run by a married couple: Janet Juniper and Magnus Mitchell. Janet and Magnus manage their business using mostly paper systems, except for PAYG taxes, which are managed through the ATO's system. Today, there are 7 employees: Karamjit, Rupinder, Mark, Ann, Sorana, Allan, and Haneen, however the employees frequently move on, and new employees join the team.

When a new employee commences work at ADW, their contact details and Tax File Number are added into a spreadsheet. These details are highly sensitive and protected by various legislation. Janet worries that the spreadsheet is a big risk and, sensibly, she worries that ADW will be fined if ever the data is breached. She would prefer to keep staff data in a secure database.

Separately from the risky and sensitive staff data, Janet keeps a Word document she calls the Weekly Walk List. The Weekly Walk List has a section for each dog walker. Each section has a heading for each day of the week and each heading has the names, addresses, and access details of the dogs to be walked on that day. She emails the Walk List to the staff every Friday evening, so they know which dogs they're going to walk for the next week. Everyone, including Janet and Magnus, walks dogs on weekdays. ADW does not walk dogs on weekends.

With such a small team of employees, Janet and Magnus like to provide a lot of flexibility with respect to scheduling, however all dogs must be back in their homes before 3pm. If a staff member wants to take a vacation or needs to isolate or needs a day off, Janet handles it manually by reallocating that person's dog walks to another staff member. Sometimes she must make a few phone calls to find a staff member willing to take the extra dogs. Janet would like a system that can handle staff absences and walk reallocations automatically. Once a week, Janet calculates the payroll. She would prefer this was handled automatically by the new system. Staff are paid by the hour and of course, the hourly rate of pay goes up a little each year, in line with the minimum wage. Magnus and Janet pay their staff 5% above minimum wage so that their people are committed and positive and make superannuation contributions, in line with Australian workplace legislation.

New customers frequently sign up with ADW. When that happens, Magnus asks for their name, address, email address, and mobile number, and then he asks them to follow Awesome Dog Walkers on Facebook and Instagram. He knows there are many other dog walking businesses in Adelaide, and he likes to keep his customers engaged by making sure regular photos of their dogs are posted while they're out on their walks and looking happy. If a customer does not use social media, he texts the photos to them.

However, before a new customer's dog is added to the walk list, Magnus talks to the customer about their dog. He needs to know the dog's name and if the dog is OK to be walked in a group (cheaper) or on its own (more expensive); for 15 (cheapest), 30, 45 or 60 (most expensive) minutes; on the beach, in human parks, in doggy parks (if doggy parks are OK, can the dog run off the leash or must it stay on the leash?), on footpaths, some or all of these; and 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 days a week. Magnus also needs to know how to access the dogs that are going to be walked and he usually writes this down as a short sentence, eg, "Side gate will be unlocked" or "Use security code 3472 to get the dogs out." Finally, but most importantly, Magnus also needs to know how often the dog shows aggression towards other dogs (daily, weekly, monthly, rarely, never) and humans (daily, weekly, monthly, rarely, never).

Some customers have more than one dog signed up with ADW, in which case Magnus keeps a record of each dog's walking arrangements and their aggression type and frequency.

After talking to a customer about their dog (or dogs), Magnus checks his pricing spreadsheet to look up a quote to send to the customer via email. If the customer accepts the quote, they provide a bank account number for direct debit of their payments to ADW. If the customer does not accept the quote, Magnus follows up with a call to talk about more affordable options, eg, walking only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, or walking only on the footpaths, or walking in a group with other dogs. If necessary, a second quote is provided. Most customers accept the first quote. Some customers accept the second quote. Very few customers accept neither quote. Magnus wants to be able to update his pricing list with one click whenever he wants to, and he would love a system to calculate the quotes and send the emails to customers.

Magnus and Janet would like to commence a new service (obedience training) and any new system would have to be adaptable in terms of new services being added, existing services being changed, and old services being archived.

Of course, sometimes customers move house, and their information becomes inaccurate. Usually, they call Magnus to update their information. He would like a system that supports customers in updating their own information. Sometimes, staff move house too. And not just addresses, but phone numbers too. Magnus also wonders if there's a way to change a customer's profile so that he knows which ones are no longer using ADW and which ones are. Janet wants to be able to archive staff information if they stop working for ADW.

It would be extremely good if a future system kept track of each dog's details, and everyone would like to be able to share information about the dogs. For example, Rupinder often walks one dog called Snowy who loves liver treats but gets sick every time she gives him a chicken treat. If she has a day off, how will she know who to tell this information to? They all agree it's better if information like that is kept with the dog's profile on the system. They also agree it would be good to be able to delete any information which is no longer relevant and to update information if it changes.

Task:

Write at least three paragraphs advising your clients on how to conduct a cost-benefit analysis.