Cost Tracking Process Improvement

The App Development Department is committed to streamlining client communication, improving data integrity of the CRM and developing innovative apps which allow executives to work on multiple programs in one app.

The App Development’s Internal Customer can be defined as the following:

• Budget owners

• Marketing and Sales Team Directors

• Customer Service Directors

The apps that the department is focused on creating are for business executives. This profile includes the following:

• Current Apple Product user

• Current Apple Users who travel for business

  o   Accounts for the customer base who spend 30% more per night on rooms compared to other mobile users

  o   Has arranged travel in last month is up to 50%

• Is part of a of the demographic where 1/3 of customers have a minimum household income of $100K

• Is mostly college-educated and interested in technology news

• Uses Apple products for productivity / professional reasons

• 2:1 of these customers are men

• Is age 35-44 on average

• Has a higher discretionary income than other mobile users

• Download apps from the Apple Store and help account for $1.5 billion in app downloads from the Store

Customer Solicitation

The App Development team can solicit its customers internally throughout the organization by hosting Informational Conferences and Seminars. The Department can also partner with Marketing and Sales to ensure that in-app purchases and in-app marketing is present in similar apps. This will ensure that executives have the opportunity to purchase more productivity apps as well as enhancements to improve business transactions and documentation done through Apple-developed apps.

Human Resources

The Cost Tracking Improvement Process requires staff additions along with retaining current staff. Though Human Resources (HR) will play an integral role in hiring employees and ensuring that employees are involved in in HR engagement programs, the App Development Department will use Technical Recruiting Companies to ensure that highly qualified candidates are hired on a temporary and permanent basis.

The illustration below is representative of a Management chart using the OODA (observe, orient, decide and act) model. Each step shows how each cross-functional department is involved. For instance, since the request begins with the client, the Client has been tagged with the word “ACT” to show their involvement at this point in time during the process. The PM is tagged with “ORIENT” as they digest this step as information that will be used later as opposed to performing an action. Whereas Finance, App Development, which also includes the Analyst, are simply observing that a request has been submitted in the CRM. This step does not prompt any actions on their end. In the areas where a function has been tasked with “DECIDE,” the function is making a decision to either approve or qualify what they received. Towards the end of the process, the client must approve the app before the PM can close out the project. Similarly the Analyst must qualify and approve the quality of the data received to ensure that the report they create is valid with accurate figures. This works hand-in hand with enhancing client communication with regards to project costs.

The model below illustrates a recognition-primed decision model. This shows the initial project request submittal and the necessary functions which help progress the request from a project all the way through final delivery of the app. This process is repeated for each project. Steps taken are dependent on approvals and rejections. Rejections require that the request be revised in its previous phase and resubmitted again for approval before moving on to the next step.