32541 Project Management

By creating online financial system and the Client Services Hub, CommWest aim to secure a 25% increase Thus, the aims of the Client Services Hub project are:in customer numbers after the first year of operation (end of June 2019).  

Provide a learning vehicle and concept prototype for CommWest Finance Incorporated to later expand online banking facilities Australia?wide and potentially internationally.

Reduce operational overheads by consolidating a costly branch infrastructure and over inflated staff numbers;
Open a new market in personalised telephone banking services, reaching out to people in regional Australia that were not technically savvy, who did not have access to internet services themselves or who could not reach a physical branch office during normal business hours due to time or distance constraints.
Provide for credit compliance via voice recording of customer approvals for transactions such as loans,payments and funds transfers, thus reducing bad debt.

The primary objective behind developing this particular document is to generate charter for the Client Services Hub Project undertaken on the behalf of the CommWest Financial Incorporated. The charter would essentially include the following details of the project:

1. A detailed discussion on the background of the project
2. The organizational goals and objectives that the project is aimed at fulfilling
3. The stakeholders associated with the project
4. The Measureable Organizational Value of the project
5. The success criteria of the project
6. The scope of  the project and the  work breakdown structure  of  the project

Thus, it can be said that the purpose of this document is to provide the target audience with a glimpse of the essential elements of the project and to make a “shared understanding” of the entire project available them (). Besides this, the document can be utilized   in form of a contract between the project sponsors, the project team and the key stakeholders associated with the same.

CommWest Finance Incorporated has successfully taken over the well known financial service provider organization Southern Financial Services in February 2016. At present, the board of directors are aimed at reducing the operational costs of Southern Financial Services and  have  expressed  their interest  in  closing down some of the non profitable branches of  the organization. However, the directors  are aware of  the fact  that this step  would  affect their existing customers and have thus decided  to develop a Client Services Hub for  providing telephonic banking services to  the clients.

 The core objectives of the project have been outlined in the following section of the report:

1. To reduce the operational heads of CommWest Financial Incorporated by developing a centralized client service hub, thereby getting rid of the non profitable branches of the organization, along with the employees who are currently working at the branch.
2. To create an innovative initiative in the domain of customized telephone based  banking services,  thereby reaching out  to  those  section  of the target customers who are  neither capable of reaching the nearest branches of the CommWest Financial Incorporated within the normal  banking hours, nor are  capable of using the  internet banking services of the organization.
3. To  develop a voice based credit compliance  system for recording the approvals that customers provide  for making  transactions on their behalf (as for example, making payments,  transferring funds and submitting application for loans), thus reducing the total amount of  bad debt.
4. To develop a concept prototype that CommWest Finance Incorporated can utilize in the future so as to provide customized telephone based banking services to all customers   based throughout the country.  The success model might also be utilized in the international market in case its implementation is found to be successful at providing better services to the existing customers.

 Project Stakeholders 

The stakeholders associated with this project, as identified up till now, are being outlined in the table below:

The Measureable Organizational Value

 The measurable organizational value of the project are being enlisted below: 

1. The implementation of the project should allow CommWest Financial Incorporated to gradually get rid of all their non-profitable centers, thus reducing the operational costs of the organization by at least 20 percent.
2. The successful implementation of the Client Services Hub would allow the organization to provide service to their clients for an extended period of time (apart from the regular banking hours). Thus, at least 40 percent of the existing employees should utilize the services of the organization within 6 months of its implementation.
3. The services to be provide through the Client Services Hub are indeed unique in nature and at presently, no other organization has  introduced client services that can match those initiated by the  CommWest Financial Incorporated.   As  the  Client Services Hub  is being developed keeping  in mind  the  need of the not-so-tech savvy   section of the target customers, it  is expected that  service of  the hub would result  in an increase in the number of  client by at least 15 percent.

 5. Project Success Criteria

 The success criteria of the Client Services Hub include the following: 

1. Theprimary   objective of the   Client Services Hub is toget rid of the non profitable branches of CommWest Financial Incorporated (needless to say, the majority of the employees currently working at the branch would  also be retrenched), which would essentially reduce the operational heads of CommWest Financial Incorporated. 

 Therefore, one of the key success criteria of the project would be that the implementation of same should reduce the operational costs of CommWest Financial Incorporated to a significant extent. 

1. The normal working hours of the Client Services Hub has been determined to be much larger than the normal office hours of  CommWest Financial Incorporated:  thus the project should be considered to be successful only when the  clients acknowledge this particular initiative as value  added service provides by the organization.
2. The employees working at the Client Services Hub should be capable of providing services to the customers smoothly.
3.   High level of customer satisfaction is reported.
4. Increased employee efficiency is reported. 

6. The Project Scope

  In the following section of the report, discussions would be made on the identification of the identification of the in-scope items of the project along with the identifications of the constraints that the project team might experience while working on the same.

7.1In Scope Items

1. The development of the IT architecture plan including the software and data requirements of the hub, the communication and network protocols, the computer hardware and other security infrastructure and essentially lies  within the scope of the project.
2. The software and data requirements of the hub, the communication and network protocols, the computer hardware and other security infrastructure identified and included within the IT architecture plan has to be procured from vendors.
3. The customized software modules required for the implementation of the telephone based customer service have to be outsourced to WealthPac Software.
4. The Lismore based corporate headquarters of SFS has to be refurbished, along  with the installation of all hardware infrastructure.
5. The employees have to be provided with appropriate training.
6. The entire system has to be developed along with a new database.

 7.1Constraints

1. A present, the Lismore based corporate headquarters of SFS would be utilized for running the Client Services Hub. However, the current lease would expire within the next 3 years, after which the entire setup would have to be developed at yet another location.
2. The newly developed system would be  interfaced with  the legacy  compute system currently possessed by the  organization, thus  limiting its functionality

 The work breakdown structure of the project is as follows:

 Recommendation(s)

1. The existing clients should be informed of the benefits and services to be  provided  to  the customers through the Client Services Hub.
2. The schedule and budgetary plans should be developed before commencing with the project.
3. The risks associated with the project have to be identified, along with their appropriate mitigation plans, before the project team starts working on it.

 9.2 Approval(s)

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