Systems Operations Plan - WeLoveVideo Inc

Systems Operations Plan – WeLoveVideo Inc

Executive Summary

WeLoveVideo Inc. is a fast-growing global entertainment company that intends to substitute its outdated customer management tools with a full-fledged CRM system. The company’s increase in revenues and employees presents evidence that the tools presently in use within the company are inefficient in conveying a true picture of customer demographics and preferences, thus hindering the efficiency of sales and marketing teams. Operations will be smoothed, customer information will be unified, the customer experience will be enhanced, and valuable knowledge of how customers behave will be provided. The outcome of this will be market share gain. This systems operation plan outlines the steps required to achieve the successful implementation of the CRM system with a minimum level of disruption, manage the change, and develop operational and maintenance standards for sustained success.

Overview of the Systems Operations Plan

This Systems Operation Plan is designed to implement, manage, and maintain the CRM system in WeLoveVideo Inc. through a defined roadmap. The plan addresses the life cycle of the system, from deployment to ongoing maintenance. The system will be kept effective and safe while changing at the pace needed for the company. The key focuses of the solution will be the plan for implementation, risk management strategy, change management process, and roles and responsibilities of important stakeholders in the operation and maintenance of the systems.

The CRM system is considered to be a critical investment in the company, as it will integrate customer information, streamline workflows, and provide the company with more functionality in terms of data-driven decision-making. This operations plan has been designed to align the CRM implementation with the company’s operational goals, regulatory requirements, and the technical needs of multiple departments.

Goals and Scope of the Systems Operations Plan

The overall aim of this Systems Operations Plan is thus to ensure that WeLoveVideo Inc.’s CRM system is implemented successfully, adopted by users, and maintained in a manner that supports business growth over time. The specific objectives of the plan are:

Successful CRM Implementation: Ensure the implementation of the CRM system is done in due time and without budget overruns with minimal disruption to daily operations.
Seamless Integration: Allow the integration of the CRM system with other existing systems, such as Adaptive Insights for Finance, to provide one approach to taking care of customer and financial data.
User Adoption: Foster top-of-the-class user adoption by ensuring comprehensive change management and training programs are provided within each department to make sure employees can support the system.
Ongoing Maintenance: Design robust procedures to operate and maintain the system so that the CRM system remains secure, working, and agile for any future requirements.

The scope of this plan includes:

Defining the documentation requirements and implementation strategy.
Managing risks and mitigation strategies during the deployment phase.
Outlining the change management plan, including communication strategies and training plans.
Establishing the roles and responsibilities for system operation and maintenance.
Creating procedures for incident management, system updates, and escalation paths.

Standards or Requirements, Potential Adjustments Post-Implementation, and Project Closing

Standards and Requirements

WeLoveVideo Inc. needs to adhere to numerous standards of the industry as well as regulatory requirements while implementing and operating the CRM. Some major standards include:

Standards on Data Security: The data in question is sensitive to the customer, so the CRM system must always implement data security standards. This refers to the General Data Protection Regulation required for customers across Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act for the U.S. clientele (Taylor et al., 2021). The same ought to be consistent with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard requirements relating to financial information.
Integration Standards: The CRM system must be integrated with the company’s existing systems, especially Adaptive Insights for Finance. It must, therefore, support open APIs to allow integration with future software solutions that may be adopted by the organization.
Accessibility standards for users: Ensure that the CRM system includes user accessibility standards such as the WCAG to guarantee access to the system for all employees, irrespective of disability.

Potential Adjustments Post-Implementation

After deployment, some adjustments may be required in the CRM system to further streamline the performance of the system and take care of comments received from users. Some common post-implementation changes include:

Performance Optimization: If the user feels any delay or slowdown in the system, tuning—like growing the capacity of the server or optimization in the structure of the database—may become necessary.
User Interface Enhancement: Based on feedback from the users, minor changes could be needed at the user interface level in order to improve usability and smoothen the workflow.
Data Adjustments: Some mismatches/inaccuracies could appear after data migration, which will need data cleaning or reorganization.

Project Closing

The project will be officially closed when the CRM system has been completely deployed, all departments have been trained, and user adoption of the system is at the required level. A final review will be done in order to assess the performance of the system, obtain feedback from the users, and document lessons learned (Thomas et al., 2018). The following are included in the project closure process:

A final performance review against the project goals
A post-implementation audit to ensure compliance with data security and integration requirements
Archiving of project documentation for future reference

System Implementation Plan

Documentation Required for the System

Proper documentation is key to the successful deployment and long-term operation of the CRM system. The documentation shall include:

User Manuals: Comprehensive user manuals will be developed for the respective end-users, including Sales, HR, and Finance. The user manuals will explain how to best utilize the CRM system in a step-by-step manner with screenshots and some troubleshooting ideas.
Technical Documentation: Technical documentation shall be provided on system architecture, data migration processes, API configurations, and integration protocols proposed for Adaptive Insights to system administrators and developers in Finance.
Data Migration Plan: It will detail the ETL processes of customer data from the legacy systems to the CRM system.
Troubleshooting Guides: In-depth guides regarding troubleshooting for commonly encountered problems in the system will be provided to support staff-slow performance, data inaccessible, or login issues.

Phased Deployment or Cutover Strategy

WeLoveVideo Inc. will be following a gradual deployment strategy. It means the CRM system is implemented in a gradual manner across departments (Langer, 2017). This is highly advisable for a number of reasons:

Minimum Disruption: Since there is a phased rollout, the departments can keep functioning without facing significant disruption. The Sales, Finance, and Operations departments are to be taken on board first, followed by HR and Product Development since they all have a critical requirement for customer data.
Allows for Feedback and Adjustments: The phased approach allows the Implementation Team to get constructive feedback from those business units or companies that go live with the new system first and make any necessary adjustments before full deployment.
Lowers Risks: Since the scope of each phase is contained, the company can handle the associated risks better and ensure that all technical or operational problems that may arise are resolved before the next phase commences.

Risks and Mitigation Plan

Risk 1: Data Migration Failures

Customer data migration across databases and spreadsheets exposes the company to data corruption and/or loss. The inability to work out this migration may result in partial or fake customer profiles, causing operational disruption. The mitigation plan to address this risk involves:

Proper audit of the data before migration for inconsistency identification and cleaning.
Back up all legacy data, then do data migration tests in the controlled environment before actual migration.
Use data validation tools to ensure data integrity after migration.

Risk 2: User Resistance to Change

Users are sure to resist the implementation of the new CRM system if the employees have become too complacent with the utilization of the available tools (Al-Ali et al., 2017). Resistance will be observed due to low engagement, poor use of the system, or outright dislike of the system. The mitigation plan for this risk involves the following:

Instituting a proper change management process: Communicate regularly about how this new CRM system will make their lives easier by highlighting the benefits.
Extensive training sessions tailored to different types of users to make them comfortable and familiar with the system.
Designate “CRM champions” from every department level to promote the system and bring peer support.

Change Management Plan

Statement Explaining the Change

The CRM system has been introduced to address substantial shortcomings in the firm’s present customer data management processes. If this change does not occur, WeLoveVideo Inc. will have to perpetually grapple with fragmentary pieces of customer data, making it difficult for the sales team to determine trends, predict customer needs, and respond accordingly. Moreover, the inefficiency of the current system is causing the loss of revenue opportunities, and responding to market changes slowly impacts the business. This, as presented by Besson and Rowe (2012), implies that every minute spent not deploying the CRM system means missing business opportunities, and responding late to changes happening within the market would impact the company’s ability to retain its competitive edge in a constantly changing entertainment industry.

Fact Sheet: Benefits of the System for End Users

Centralized Data Management: Customer data will be stored on one platform, thereby making it easy for the employee to find and retrieve customer information.

Improved Customer Insights: The CRM system will offer analytics of customers’ preferences, behaviors, and purchasing patterns. Personalized marketing as well as improving the service provided to customers, can thus be enhanced.
Facilitation of Greater Efficiency: The workflow will be aligned with the help of automation of routine operations related to data entry and reporting within the system. Time for strategic work will consequently be saved.
Integration with Financial Systems: Integration with Adaptive Insights for Finance will help connect customer transactions and financial information so that they are fully integrated.
User-Friendly Interface: The CRM system should be designed in an easy-to-use interface manner that enhances productivity on the users’ side and reduces the learning curve.

Training Plan and Delivery Methods

A comprehensive training plan is critical to ensure good user adoption. Training will be delivered through both methods since people have different learning styles and different needs by departments.

Instructor-Led Training (ILT): In order to familiarize the department heads and key users with using the system, training sessions will be conducted by the instructor on the ground. It will act as a departmental function for using the CRM system effectively.
E-Learning Modules: The self-paced online modules of training will be available to all employees so that they can learn how to work with the system because these modules consist of interactive lessons, quizzes, and simulations, so hands-on experience will be gained to work with the system.
User Guides: Copies of the user guides will be provided during the launch training. The users can use the guides for further guidance.
Workshops and Live Q&A Sessions: Workshops and live Q&A sessions will be organized shortly after the launch to answer any questions that may have been raised and to ensure the users feel comfortable with the system.
Continuous Support: It shall be ensured that a helpdesk support system continuously assists the users during and after the implementation phase.

System Operation and Maintenance Plan

Responsibilities of Teams Responsible for System Operation and Maintenance

System Administrators

System administrators are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that the configuration of the system is kept up to date, that there is a record of user access, and that the security of the system is maintained. They would further carry out the task of monitoring system performance, taking backups, and installing patches or updates when required.

Support Staff

The support staff will provide contact personnel for the end-users who report technical problems and those in need of help in relation to the CRM system. Also, they will log problems, help troubleshoot, and refer more complex problems to either the system administrators or developers.

Developers

All system enhancements, bugs, and software upgrades shall be developed. Developers will also offer support in integration efforts and work closely with system administrators on the deployment of new functionality and upgrades.

Procedures for Logging, Categorizing, Prioritizing, and Resolving System Incidents

An incident management system shall be provided to log and categorize the system incidents reported by users. The process will follow these steps:

Logging: All system incidents shall be captured in a single, centralized ticketing system. Users shall raise a ticket that describes the nature of the problem encountered, the impact on the work, and the error messages encountered, if any.
Classification: The support staff will further classify incidents based on the system components involved, which may include data access, user interface, reporting, and many more.
Priority: Incidents will be marked as to priority based on the intensity of the problem and its impact:
- Priority 1: Critical issue causing system-wide outage/downtime or impacting multiple departments. Immediate attention required
- Priority 2: Major issue affecting key functionality but not resulting in total system failure. Resolved within 24 hours
- Priority 3: Minor problem or minimal impact on individual users or secondary system functions. Repaired within three days
Resolution: The support personnel will resolve low-priority incidents, which are Priority 2 and 3, and always refer critical issues, Priority 1, for immediate resolution to the system administrators or developers for resolution.

Escalation Paths for Handling Critical Issues

On the occurrence of a critical issue, the following escalation path shall be taken:

Support Staff: They will try to solve the problem within a time span of 15 minutes from the incident-logged time. If they fail to do so, then they forward the problem to the system administrators.
System Administrators: Take over from the support staff and try to solve the problem within one hour. The problem is forwarded to the developer team for further help if it is unresolved.
Developers: Work towards fixing the problem within four hours of escalation. If the problem cannot be fixed internally, then the problem should be escalated to the CRM vendor for support from outside.

Strategy for Planning and Deploying Software Releases

The CRM system will need periodic updates to keep it safe and in tune with the overall changing priorities of the company (Parra Rodriguez et al., 2022). This strategy regarding the deployment of software releases shall include the following activities:

Scheduled Maintenance Windows: Software updates and patches will be deployed during the scheduled maintenance windows, which are communicated in advance so that regular business activities are not disrupted.
Sandbox Testing: All releases of software shall undergo testing in a sandbox environment before actual deployment to the production environment. This approach ensures that updates and new features added do not tamper with the stability of the system.
Incremental Deployments: Major releases will be released on an incremental basis, starting with a minimal user base that identifies all issues before a full companywide release.
Communication: Users will be informed in advance about the release schedule and system outage. Later on, release notes are given to the users to let them know the changes and added functionalities.

Conclusion

The implementation of the CRM system in WeLoveVideo Inc. is a huge project. It will highly develop the ability of the company to handle customer data, improve efficiency within operations, and give meaningful insights into the behaviour of the customers. This document provides a detailed systems operation plan for the successful implementation, change management, and maintenance of the CRM system.

References

Al-Ali, A. A., Singh, S. K., Al-Nahyan, M., & Sohal, A. S. (2017). Change management through leadership: The mediating role of organizational culture. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 25(4), 723-739.

Besson, P., & Rowe, F. (2012). Strategizing information systems-enabled organizational transformation: A transdisciplinary review and new directions. The journal of strategic information systems, 21(2), 103-124.

Langer, A. M. (2017). Analysis and design of information systems. Springer Science & Business Media.

Parra Rodriguez, C. (2022). Ethical principles in the use of Artificial Intelligence in the financial sector from a European perspective. Studia Prawnicze KUL, (1), 199-221.

Thomas, W. H., Lam, R. W., Nutt, D. J., & Thase, M. E. (2018). The basics of project evaluation and lessons learned. CRC Press.

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Question

As an IS manager working on system implementation, you are expected to demonstrate how system design supports user experience and establish a communication system to support adoption. You must also set up processes for system operation and maintenance after implementation.

Systems Operations Plan – WeLoveVideo Inc

In this assessment, you will prepare a systems operations plan which must include implementation, change management, and what needs to be in place to keep it running and maintained.

Review the WeLoveVideo Inc. Case Study.

Write a 1,400- to 1,750-word system operations plan for the WeLoveVideo Inc. CRM system. Include the following sections in your plan:

Executive Summary
Overview of the systems operations plan
Goals and scope of the systems operations plan
Standards or requirements, potential adjustments post-implementation, and project closing
System implementation plan
Describe the documentation required for the system, including user manuals.
Determine a phased deployment or cutover strategy and explain your decision.
Identify 2 risks to the implementation and describe the mitigation plan for addressing the risks.
Change management plan
Create a statement explaining why the change is happening and the risks of not changing.
Create a fact sheet discussing the benefits of the system for end users.
Outline the training plan and delivery methods for training.
System operation and maintenance plan
Define the responsibilities of teams responsible for system operation and maintenance, including:
System administrators
Support staff
Developers
Create procedures for logging, categorizing, prioritizing, and resolving system incidents.
Describe the escalation paths for handling critical issues.
Develop a strategy for planning and deploying software releases.

Systems Operations Plan – WeLoveVideo Inc