Q12

Q37

Hourglass Consulting

Hourglass Consulting places project management and business analysis consultants throughout Europe. It is
headquartered in London and has built its reputation on providing project managers who know how to complete their
projects on time and within budget. Recently they have hired business analysts (BAs) to their group of consultants.

Sofsys. Hourglass was recently purchased by Sofsys, which is a global consulting firm based in Amsterdam,
Netherlands. This new parent company expects every consultant to be "full-stack," that is, they are expected to be
able to walk into any situation and work on any type of project (from Waterfall to Agile), to manage the project, to
elicit and document requirements, to develop the requirements and user stories, to prioritize requirements, to be
involved with the designs, to do quick SQL programs, to develop test cases, acceptance criteria, and to test the
requirements all while bringing the project in on time.

Bon Voyage. Your customer, Bon Voyage, specializes in supplying all manor of clothes and gear for travel, including
such things clothes, handbags and suitcases, accessories, backpacks, etc. They are based in Paris, France and have
been in business for over 50 years, employing 350 people. Bon Voyage hired Hourglass Consulting to create a new
sales promotion system that interfaces with the Order system, the Distribution Center system, and the Retail Store
system so that different items can be sold at different retail stores.

The project is expected to have a consulting team a project manager, you, the BA, five application developers who
look at such things the database conversion requirements, building "bridges" between the old and new software that
will be removed once the new software is up and running, creating any user instructions not provided by the vendor,
and running a parallel test between the old and new system to ensure the new system is operational before removing
the old one. You and the key business stakeholder, Daniel Chardonne, will provide the training on the new system.
There are no other business analysts or business stakeholders assigned.
Key Roles

The sponsor for the project, Albert Tournier, is the VP of Operations at Bon Voyage, who hired your consulting firm
to manage this project. The key business stakeholder is Daniel Chardonne, is an experienced Buyer with the travel
company.

From the Sponsor, Albert Tournier

We need to buy a software package. I've been talking to Logiciel de Voyage. They see no reason why we cannot get
the new software up and running in 6 months. They said that they've done this hundreds of times before. If they have
any questions, they can talk to Daniel. Let's just get going!

From your new boss at Sofsys:

We need to get the project done in 6 months. We have a lot to lose here. We've worked with Albert Tournier before
and he says that if we don't deliver, he assures me that he will find someone who will. Revenues have not been great
this year and we need this business.

From the business stakeholder representative, Daniel Chardonne.

Seems like a good project to me. I'm sure the software will work fine. Honestly, I don't have time right now for this
project. I'm very busy. This is the season where we buy our new merchandise. I'll be more available in about three
months. Until then we'll have to rely on the software company.
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Willow Brook Fitness

Overview
Willow Brook Fitness & Health Center is a privately-owned fitness and health franchise business headquartered in the
suburbs of a metropolitan city. Willow Brook franchises its fitness and health concept to people who want to add
value to people’s lives by offering a casual, yet supportive place to exercise and improve their health and personal
lifestyle. Their initial success led them to build four more fitness centers in the metropolitan area.

Several years ago, they decided to expand by franchising their fitness concept and all their processes. Willow Brook
then hired Greg Smith, an experienced sales and marketing professional in the franchise industry. In the past five
years, Willow Brook has gone from 20 franchises the first year to over 350 franchises, located in 19 states. However,
their growth rate has slowed dramatically the past two years and worse, some franchisees have left the organization.
The owners have sponsored an effort to help stop the decline.

The following table shows the growth data of franchisees over the past 5 years.

 
The “Family” Connection
At the start of the franchising effort, the owners’ four children joined the company. Lynn is a certified nutritionist
who provides the franchisees or their designated nutritionists with nutritional advice and programs. Courtney is a
certified fitness instructor and in charge of developing fitness programs and training fitness instructors for all the
franchises. Chris became a massage therapist and is now in charge of developing massage services and programs that
can be replicated in the franchises. He is also in charge of leading the training effort of massage therapists in the
services and processes supported by Willow Brook. Finally, their youngest son, Garrett, became their IT director. He
recently graduated from a local University and has assisted the company with all their computer efforts through
graduate school. He has a master’s degree in computer science.

Current Situation/Needs
The current franchise system is not meeting the needs of their franchisees as shown by the following summary
compiled by a business analyst assigned to the project. You have now been asked by the project manager for this
effort to lead the business analysis work as the senior business analyst.

• The current system has inconsistencies and redundancies which causes ongoing frustration for the franchisees, their
employees, and to the corporate trainers who do the system training.
• Adding a new franchisee is a complicated and error-prone process that takes up to a week to perform.
• Calls to the customer service desk have increased by fifteen percent in the past nine months, while customer
satisfaction has decreased by ten percent.
• The sponsors are worried that the unique Willow Brook experience will deteriorate for the franchisees and their
employees and are concerned about public and industry perception.  
Q74

Swift Mortgage is a major provider of mortgage loans and refinancing. They have been in business for over 40 years
and enjoy a reputation as a reliable, inexpensive, and customer-friendly company. They have long-standing processes
that deliver high-quality results with an historical industry-leading error rate of only .05% of all loans produced.

Of late, production delays, complaints, and abandoned loans have all increased. Abandoned loans are applications
that have been initiated but never completed. They are especially costly to Swift since the lost revenue for non-
complete loans is substantial. Any delays in loan processing also reduce profitability for Swift because the company
allows customers to lock in mortgage rates at the time of their loan application. If they are late in producing a loan
and the mortgage rates have gone up, they absorb any rate increases. If rates decrease during this time, they do not
benefit since their policy is to pass those savings on to their customers.

Marge Torturo is the Senior Vice President of Mortgage Production and the executive facing the most pressure to fix
the situation. She believes a mortgage processing software suite would be the best solution to improve processing.
Most of Swift’s software applications have been internally developed and are not easily updated or interfaced
together.

Others in the organization are not so convinced that a mortgage suite is the best approach. They feel that modifying
existing applications can solve their delay problems and would be far less costly and easier to implement. Frederick
Jonasson is the CIO of Swift Mortgage and has a high-level plan for how to modify current systems to provide the
needed improvements using short increments and an exploratory approach.

As the VP consults with a team likely to work on the problem, she is persuaded to take the time to prepare a formal
business case. Jason Davis is the lead business analyst assigned to the team. He quickly assembled the following
summary based on available data.

Case Study Summary provided by Jason: Swift mortgage applications require on average 45 days to process. The
industry average is 30 days. This delay increases the number of abandon loans by 5%, creating a potential loss of
10,000 of revenue per loan for closing costs or 1.2 million per year. Additional costs are incurred if the customer
locked in an interest rate at the time of their application. Now that interest rates are going up, there is an estimated
additional loss of $25,000 interest per 30-year loan, or an estimated $2 million per year.
Marge the VP was happy with the summary referenced above and provided an objective to the team to reduce
processing time for applications to 30 days within a year. To help them in their work, the team conducted some root
cause analysis to help them focus on fixing the right causes. One of the tools they used was a fishbone diagram and
the high-level results are shown below. They discovered through interviews that mortgage verifications were thought
to be problematic and focused on that issue.         
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Overview City to Country (CTC) Realty is a growing realty company that focuses on business properties outside of
major metropolitan areas. It specializes in matching up buyers and sellers of hobby farms, lake resorts, bed &
breakfasts and other types of small businesses located in or around mid to small size towns. CTC Realty has been in
business for several years and has achieved significant growth while interest rates have been low. However, they
know that low interest rates will not always remain, and they want to leverage technology to compete against larger
commercial and residential realty companies. Customers CTC Realty has two types of customers spread throughout
North America: buyers and sellers. Sellers include those who are often downsizing after raising a family or retiring
and want something smaller and easier to manage. Buyers could be any person or business. Buyers and sellers pay for
the services utilized, such as contractual assistance, realtor assistance and then pay the appropriate fees to the
lenders. CTC receives 1% of the total selling price of the property at closing. Business Goals, Objectives, and
Requirements CTC Realty would like to grow substantially to be able to compete with larger national firms. They
want to increase their market share by 15% in the next year and decrease the time for their sale and purchase
process from an average of 20 days down to 10 days. CTC Realty has determined that a self-service website will help
them meet these goals and objectives by providing a communication vehicle for buyers and sellers of real estate to
meet and share information. The applications will support all aspects of a real estate sale and also supply advice and
recommendations. This includes connecting lenders, legal analysts, and financial analysts with buyers and sellers.
The various parties will not need to meet face to face, but will be connected virtually through the app. For brevity
we list only the Selling and Security processes. Selling Process The web site will offer the ability for a seller to
complete the entire property sales process. When a person is ready to sell their property, they will be able to go on-
line to make the necessary arrangements. The seller may choose to select a realtor to help them through the sales
process, represent themselves and have legal counsel create the appropriate documents, or use the standard
document templates found on the website. The seller can list their property on line by selecting the level of service
they desire entering the property specifications and information. The system will then provide a final confirmation
number and make the property available for buyers to peruse. The seller then waits for an offer. The system will
notify both the seller and the seller’s realtor (if applicable) of any offers. At this time, the seller or seller’s realtor
may submit a counter offer. Once the offer is accepted, the process moves to closing, which can be complex. All
final documentation is created for the closing. The buyer and seller (and all selected support staff) review the
contracts and agree to the sale. The buyer and seller request the system to assign pin numbers to electronically
approve of all closing documents. The buyer and seller approve the closing contracts by entering their pin numbers.
The system records the completion of the sale and registers the property in the buyer’s name. Security Each user of
the system will have a password and User ID. The user will use their email address as their user ID and create a
unique 6-8 digit password. The system will also provide electronic pin numbers for the buyer, seller and appropriate
realtors in order to electronically sign the e-documents.
Q110

ABC Transportation is a growing company specializing in shipping and trucking of consumer and industrial goods. They
have recently expanded and have been experiencing issues with their rapid growth. The biggest problem for them
has been their inability to invoice customers quickly, which in turn slows their revenue and causes occasional cash
flow issues.

The problem is compounded by issues related to the integration of two recently acquired shipping companies into
their main finance and accounting system. The separate systems vary in complexity and sophistication. For example,
their most recent and largest acquisition, Overland Trucking, has antiquated systems and processes. It uses paper
forms for: recording drivers' hours, noting packing charges, and documenting insurance coverage. The company would
prefer the systems be integrated.

Root cause analysis has revealed a reluctance among drivers and customers to drop the paper forms, since drivers
can easily see the items loaded onto their trucks and customers can view and approve the shipments quickly.
However, the forms are occasionally lost, which can result in billing delays of one to two days. The additional work
to reconstruct missing forms occupies the bookkeeping staff, delaying both the routing and exception shipments. ABC
is routinely 2-3 weeks late with invoices as a result.

Some other related issues for the Overland systems include:

1. Local Shipments: The paper forms are brought back to the company offices the evening of the move.

2. Non-local Shipments: The paper forms are mailed back to the company offices the day after a move is completed.
This process can delay receipt of required info by up to a week. Overland tried faxing the forms into Accounting for
all non-local moves, but it was unreliable due to unavailability of fax machines in motels where crews stayed.

3. Overland waits until all expenses are received before they can invoice.
4. 3rd-party providers: if a third party is involved in packing or loading shipments, Overland waits until the third
party invoices them before they can invoice the customer. It is more efficient to use this method, but it can add an
additional 1-2 weeks to the time needed to complete the invoicing, depending on how quickly the 3rd party submits
their invoice.

5. Overland provides paper-only copies of bills and sends them in duplicate to customers. The process requires a copy
be returned to Accounting to match payments against the proper invoice and account. Many customers prefer to pay
invoices electronically, and are frustrated. Overland also spends time matching payments when they come in without
invoices to the applicable invoice, further delaying the invoicing process.

You have been assigned as a senior BA to help ABC improve its processes. The sponsor of the initiative has appointed
a member of ABC and one from each of the new subsidiaries to assist you with your work. They are all interested in
improving the business, especially in integrating the three companies.