Day to Day Operation, Business Proposal Example

Introduction

The below paper will be describing the day to day operation of a newly developed business: aiming to offer services for small and medium sized enterprises.  The new business will offer grant proposal and business plan writing service for companies looking for an innovative approach. As the company will employ MBA students who are taking postgraduate courses while working part time, the cost of services offered for clients will be significantly lower than industry rates. The main strength of the new business will be the price advantage, however, it will try to appeal to start-up enterprises that are looking for innovative thinking and advice from freshly qualified professionals, who can utilize their recently acquired knowledge and skills. The office will be operated by students, on a rota basis, and a cost-effective rented office space will be acquired close to the campus building. Further, building on the existing knowledge about online marketing and social media communication, the members of the company will engage in creating an awareness campaign of the service in the local area, targeting new and existing, small or medium size business owners.

Process Flows

Using the most suitable process flow modeling method, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), the authors would like to describe the day to day operation of the new business, in particular focus on monitoring, improvement, and task allocation. Shan et al. (1996, p. 1) describes business process flow management as a tool offering “environment and approach to unifying, automating, and measuring business processes”.

Collaborating processes, described by Weske (2012) are also needed in to be outlined in the service map. Collaborating with colleagues, advisers, and customers, in order to deliver the best possible outcome is essential for process improvement.

According to the Sparx Systems model description (2007, p. 7), every business process model has a goal, specific inputs, specific outputs, it uses resources, has several activities to complete the process, and they have a set order. Business processes can also affect more than one organizational unit. The end result should always be to create value for the customer (internal or external).

Customers would contact the new company via email or in person in the office. The queries would be answered within 24 hours when sent via email or received by phone. Further information would be requested from the client in order to develop a free proposal for the services required. The customer would received the detailed proposal in physical or email (pdf) format within three working days. When the client decides to go through with the order and accepts the price, they would place an order for the services. They would receive the completed draft within five working days. After the draft is received, a consultation would be set up for discussing additional requirements and development areas. Once all the details are clarified, the completed business plan or grant proposal is delivered and the invoice is created.

When companies contact the new proposal and grant writing service, a case owner is assigned. MBA postgraduate students are assigned based on their expertise, experience, industry knowledge, and interest. One person is responsible for the execution and delivery of the complete order. They are the first and last point of contact. There are several guidelines that are in place in order to make the process flow of the services more effective, and to increase customer satisfaction. There is a strict follow-up procedure with templates, and there are deadlines set for the completion of proposals, drafts, follow-up emails, and final delivery. The case worker is responsible for collecting and inputting customer feedback into the system in order to collect information about the industry.

Information and knowledge, however, is not displayed in the business process flow map. As the Enterprise Architect manual (2012, p. 8) confirms: “Information, unlike resources, is not consumed in the process – rather it is used as part of the transformation process. Information may come from external sources, from customers, from internal organizational units and may even be the product of other processes.

Business Development Interfaces

The company will create business development interfaces in order to improve customer service, communication, and outcomes for clients. Apart from seeking feedback on completed services, the organization will also seek information on the value of proposals and drafts for customers. Using the information gathering model, discussed by Itoh (2004. p. 9), the company will set up a business process development interface for feedback and potential risks. The model, featured in Appendix A will include concept generation, product planning, design, service delivery, and marketing elements.

Setting up the business development interface at the point of launching the company is essential in order to match the market’s needs. The company will record the type of queries arriving at the office and will have an advanced follow-up system that will enable the leaders to react to risks and opportunities that arise. As an example, if an industry trend is recorded that there is a need for proposal writing for agricultural activities, the company can make an informed decision; either train consultants to familiarize themselves with ongoing projects, requirements, and industry standards, or to recruit consultants from MBA postgraduate programs whose specialization area is agricultural business services. Weske (2012. p. 217) determines different business events that can happen during the process: start events, intermediate events, and end events. Start events in the current case are determined as customer contact. Intermediate events can be: negotiation, proposal creation, follow-up, and consultation. Finally, the end event is the completion of the order and its delivery for client.

The main business development interface and processing system would be a program developed in Google Docs, in Access type of database. The data input will include the time elapsed from the first customer contact to the delivery of the product, the consultant hours spent on working on the project, and the level of resource use. (information purchase, consultant fees, printing, legal expenses, etc).

Facilities

The newly created company will use Google Drive, Google Docs, and Google Calendar for creating and maintaining documents, client database, marketing documents, and filing proposals, completed orders. Further, the invoicing system will be set up on Google Docs, which enables sharing, collaboration, easy sending, remote printing, and updating functions. Google Calendar will be used to create reminders for follow-ups, and Google Forms will be used to collect feedback about the service. Further, the office rented will have one general help desk position and one meeting area, where consultations are held. Printing facilities will be located on-site. Three laptop computers will be available to show portfolios, presentation, and progress to customers, on site and at their business location.

Kock (2005) states that collaboration through electronic methods (and utilizing the latest innovation: cloud computing) can improve processes and make them faster, more effective.

Quality Control

Quality control is an important aspect of process improvement and development. It does not only involve correcting errors and mistakes before the delivery of the end product or service. Quality control also allows the company to identify risks and shortcomings of the system and improve processes. When a common error is identified, for example a file conversion error when sending out the documents to customers, a pattern can be identified, solutions can be sought, evaluated, compared, and chosen.

Quality control will be completed by the company leadership. Every proposal, draft, and final document will need to be sent to a supervisor for approval. Sharing the documents through Google Drive would make the quality control process faster and more effective. The system would allow training documents to be created, uploaded, and distributed through the shared virtual space. Templates for documents would also need to be stored and made accessible for consultants.

The three stage quality control within the consultancy business would not only allow the company to create better outcomes, but also help the management identify development and risk areas. Apart from the documents created, the supervisor would also evaluate the quality of research that was carried out before the documents were delivered to clients.

Muehlenbrock, Messini, & Segui (2012) recommends that consultancy, business to business firms have specific quality control systems. The authors recommend the development of an effective internal risk management framework. Based on the fact that the new company would not have existing knowledge about activity-specific risks, it is important that the process flow includes methods to record new risks and identify patterns in order to support the management in developing a risk management policy. It is also important that the system records historical error data, in order to create and improve internal controls.

Research and Industry Standards

The US law determines some industry standards for consultancy business. As sensitive company information would be stored, shared with workers, processed, and used, the new enterprise needs to develop a privacy and data protection policy that is compulsory for all consultants and external partners. Muehlenbrock, Messini, &Segui (2012) determine the sources of potential risk events related to data handling as follows: fraud, human error, service or system failure, sabotage, non-compliance, dispute, and process change.

As most of the communication will be completed via cloud computing, email, and other electronic methods, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act ( Chapter 121, § 2701) is relevant. In the business area, it is also important to study the intellectual Property Law (U. S. Small Business Association), and the Online Business Law.

Grolik et al. (2002, p. 3) state that consulting businesses are determined as firms that provide “highly standardized products or services” or deliver “customized solutions to unique problems”. The authors state that those firms that deliver unique and innovative solutions would benefit from higher profit margins, while they would take more time for completing the work. The  overview of the industry, completed by Grolic et al. (2002) defines four determinants of the organization within the business segment: culture, organization, information technology, and human resources. These key determinants all have a great influence on the business processes and customer outcomes alike.

Alpar & Kalmring (2001) described the technical infrastructure of an organization as one that originates from the business model and strategy, branches out into knowledge processes and business processes, and is manifested in technical infrastructure. The complete map of knowledge based service companies’ structure is found in Appendix B. The authors also determine the most useful knowledge management and sharing systems for consultancy businesses, as virtual project spaces (collaboration software, webinar, Google Hangout), administration and distribution shared spaces, know-how and information files, and web file systems, PDA-s.

Conclusion

As the new enterprise would focus on operating at a low cost, while delivering customized documents tailored to customers’ needs, it is essential that service, software, and information technology infrastructure costs are kept low. Further, in order to develop effective processes, it is essential that collaboration is safe, fast, and reliable. Easy document sharing, sending, revision, and checking, as well as training delivery are manageable through Google’s own software, and the cost of a business account would be negotiable.

As the new company would have a democratic approach, it is still important that quality checks are integrated in the business process map. Further, the company will need to comply with privacy and industry law, regulation, protecting not only the customers’ interest, but the new brand’s reputation as well at the same time.

As a conclusion: the main processes within the company would be: customer contact, research, proposal writing, service delivery, and consultancy. The main input from employees would be knowledge, research, and information gathering, as well as professional business writing. The main outcome (goal) that is determined as the end result by the Enterprise Architect (2007) is the completed, ready to send business plan, project application, or tender description.

References

Alpar, P & Kalmring, D (2001), ‘Inter-organizational knowledge management with internet applications’ in Proceedings of the ECIS 2001, Bled, Slovenia, pp. 730-742

Constitution of the United States. “18 U.S. Code § 2701 – Unlawful access to stored communications” Retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2701

Enterprise Architect (2007) The Business Process Model. UML Tutorial. Retrieved from http://www.sparxsystems.com/business_process_model.html

Grolik, S., Kalmring, D., Lehner, D. & Frigerio, C. (2002) Analysis of interrelations between business models and knowledge management strategies in consulting firms. Retrieved from http://www.is-frankfurt.de/publikationenNeu/AnalysisofInterrelationsbetwee.pdf

Itoh, M. (2004) The marketing-product development interface. Information acquisition for product development. Discussion Paper Series No. 148.

Kock, N. (2005) Business process improvement through e-collaboration: Knowledge sharing through the use of virtual groups. Idea Group Inc(Google e-Book)

Muehlenbrock, S., Messini, F. & Segui, B. (2012) Operational risk. KPMG Business Dialogue KPMG Luxembourg, 23^rd May 2012 Proceeding.

Shan, M., Davis, J., Du, W. & Chen, Q. (1996) Business process flow management and its application in the telecommunications management network. Hewlett-Packard Journal 1996 October.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (n.d.) Online Business Law. Retrieved from http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business/starting-business/business-law-regulations/online-business-law
Weske, M. (2012) Business process management. Concepts, languages, architectures. Springer.