Background of the Company
Virtual Viewing is an IT company headquartered in the United Kingdom that focuses on digital media. The company was established in the mid-1990s. Stewart Bailey is currently the director of the company. It has 20 employees in the United Kingdom, most of who are in management positions. There are over 15 other employees in Slovakia where the production facility of the firm is located. The firm also has some employees in Poland and India.
In total, it has over 45 employees in these four regions. According to the company’s director, Virtual Viewing has experienced 35% growth in the past year. The top executive attributes this massive growth to the commitment that the management and employees of this company have in meeting the needs of the customers in the market. The expansion of its animated products, especially in the real estate industry has benefitted this firm largely. It has diversified its products as a way of expanding its profits. The diversification strategy is one of the ways that the management is using to sustain the growth of the company. The firm expects to achieve 35% growth of its tour business by the end of 2015.
It is a new segment of the company that the management believes has massive potential. Creativity is one of the main strengths of this company. According to the director of this company, Virtual Viewing has been keen on developing new products, which meet the needs of the customers uniquely. This is partly the reason why it has experienced massive growth in the recent past. Although this massive growth is a sign of a prosperous future, the director appreciates that dealing with this growth may pose some challenges. For this reason, it needs software that can help it manage this rapid growth, especially in monitoring the activities of the employees who are in various parts of the world. T-Sheets offer the best software solution as explained in this paper.
Analysis of the Client’s Key Issues and Software Application Requirements
Virtual View is a fast-developing company that needs to understand the market forces and be able to manipulate them to its favour. However, an interview with the two executives identifies a number of issues that may affect the company’s impressive market growth. According to the chief executive of the firm, one of the main problems that this firm is facing in its international relations is a language barrier. This firm is operating in various parts of Europe, with plans to go global.
However, the mode of communication to its clients is in English. This makes it challenging to undertake projects whose sponsors are unable to speak in this language. Language is a challenge even among English-speaking clients, especially when it comes to the accent and tone of some words. This has been problematic when developing animations accompanied by explanations because some clients would complain that they struggle to listen to the explanations.
However, it is important to note that although this is a major problem for the company, it can be solved by hiring the right human resource than installing new software. The company will need to hire an individual or two who are perfect in speaking the languages in the markets in which it operates. Since it was identified as the main barrier, it is not within the purview of this research. We will focus on the problems that can be solved using software applications.
Both directors noted that this firm needed a time management solution to deal with its market growth and the expanding number of employees. Virtual View lacks an effective employee-time management software that can monitor their actions and the time they spend on a given project. Daniel Majek, the chief administrative officer of this firm, noted that the current solution is open to abuse and it is not possible to account for the time taken by the employees to work on a given task.
This means that currently, employees in the virtual centres can spend their time on other personal issues during working hours without the knowledge of the management. They know that they cannot be tracked, and this makes them even more relaxed when undertaking various duties. This explains why one project may take two days, while another similar project takes five days. In the current competitive market, such inconsistencies and inefficiencies should be eliminated. The management should be in a position to monitor the activities of all the employees irrespective of the location (Twyman, Elkins, Burgoon & Nunamaker 2014, p. 202).
They need a solution that can help in addressing this problem. The needed solution should be able to track the time spent on a single project and the specific activities done by every employee in a given timeframe. It should also help to plan for various activities. It must also allow integration of all the stakeholders to make it possible to arrange meetings from remote locations in a virtual conference hall. It should also do the tasks of invoicing. The two executives insisted on having a solution that is simple and easy to use. This is not only meant to eliminate the high cost of training the employees but is also important in its maintenance.
The software should offer more than just tracking of the activities done by the employees. Issues such as recruitment, delivering work on time and decision-making, are some of the major areas that this solution should address. The director identified these issues as the potential areas of challenge that this firm may experience soon. In fact, the director describes their massive growth as catastrophic because he believes that if it is not properly managed, it may lead to serious negative consequences for the company.
The company has been attractive to customers from various parts of the country. It is now expanding to the European market, and it has built its name based on efficiency and reliability. In order to sustain its growth, it must remain efficient and reliable. This means that the issues identified above should be addressed before they turn into serious challenges for this firm.
The software needed by this company should have a realistic cost. It should justify the reason why the task should not be done by human capital. Although the two executives were not clear about the real cost of the software, the director stated that it should not exceed 5000 Euros. In order to prioritise the core issues that need to be addressed by the new software, it is necessary to use MoSoCoW Rule as shown in the table below.
Table 1: Criteria Used in Selecting Appropriate Solution.
As shown in the above table, some criteria must be met by this system in order to be considered appropriate. The table gives the priority of these issues that will be the basis of identifying the right software from the vendors in the market.
Market Scanning Approach
According to (Bishop 2011), market scanning is one of the most important stages when looking for a product in the market. Numerous vendors in the current market offer various solutions in the software industry. One of the main problems that one may face is to determine the credibility of these vendors. Some of them are dubious companies, which cannot deliver the right value. Others are new business entities that are just getting into the market with products whose functionality are yet to be tested. For Virtual Viewing, it is necessary to have a credible vendor, and with the products that have been tested for functionality. Any form of guesswork when choosing the right vendor may have serious consequences (O’Brien & Marakas 2011).
The market scanning approach that should be used by this company should be based on four main pillars. The first pillar is the experience of the firm in a given industry. The management should choose a vendor that has been in this industry for some time. It does not necessarily mean that new vendors in the market lack superior products. The only issue that we are trying to avoid is a situation of having a firm that is making experiments to determine if their products can work. This is one of the ways of eliminating guesswork. The second pillar will be the reputation of the firm in the market. As Joch (2014) says, good names spread easily through viral marketing.
A firm that offers superior products will create a good name for itself in the market. This firm will need a reputable firm known for superior products and effective customer relationship strategies. The third pillar will be the nature of the specific products needed from the company. The product must meet the criteria set in the section above in terms of the services it offers. Finally, the fourth pillar will focus on the price of the product. The product must be realistically priced and within the budget set by the firm.
Evaluation of the Different Vendors
As mentioned before, numerous vendors in the market offer various solutions that this firm can use to address issues identified in the above sections. However, this study will only focus on three major players in this industry before recommending to the manager the best in the group. These three major vendors include the following:
- T-Sheets
- Easy Clocking
- Click Time
T-Sheets
This is one of the widely used software solution companies in the world. The following is a snapshot of some of the services it offers that make it stand out among the rest in this industry.
- It has a mobile application which makes it possible to use it with a Smartphone
- Its GPS location tracking allows the manager to track the location of the employees in real-time.
- Its Payroll Apps make the process of preparing the payrolls very simple
- Collecting reports from various remote locations is enabled in real-time.
- Simple and easy to use interface
- Rated number one time tracking software by apps.com
Employee tracking
Employee tracking is one of the biggest concerns for Virtual Viewing that has its employees spread all over the world. T-sheets allow users to track the employees who are working at any given time irrespective of their locations. The tracker records the amount of time that a given employee takes working on projects and makes it available on demand. This way, the management will be in a position to determine the productivity of every single employee (Lent 2013).
This system works even when the employee is offline. This makes it foolproof when monitoring the employees located in remote locations. The diagram below shows how this software registers those who are at work in different locations.
Project planning
This software can be used to plan for a given project in terms of the human resources and time allocations. Through this system, the user will enter all the variables of a given project and state the desired output. This software will develop a plan in terms of assigning of employees to various tasks, the amount of time that will be taken on every task of the project, and how different employees will coordinate to ensure that they deliver the expected results. It may also be used to determine the overall cost if the individual costs at every stage of project implementation is entered into its system (Rainer 2014). What makes it even more desirable is the fact that it can be used in a Smartphone as shown in the figure below. It means that once such plans are drawn, all the involved stakeholders can share it through their mobile phones.
Billing efficiencies
Many organisations are now shifting away from the traditional payment method of monthly salaries, to a modern method where the employee’s wages is based on the hours he or she spends at work (Gallo 2014). It can be challenging to track the amount of time that hundreds of employees have worked within a month. This software offers a solution to this challenge. It makes it possible for the management to track the dues of an individual employee at the end of the month. The following diagram shows how this system works in tracking the amount of hours worked for individual employees.
Pricing
The price of this product is very competitive. It charges $ 1404 per month for unlimited users, 75 GB storage, 120 active projects, and 70 project temples. This translates to $ 117 per month, which is a reasonable fee for Virtual Viewing.
Easy Clocking
Easy Clocking is another popular time management software that is used to monitor the activities of employees in various parts of the world. The following are some of the features that make it one of the best software vendors in the market today.
- Over 50,000 companies use the software in various parts of the world.
- The system currently tracks time for over one million employees around the world.
- Time and Attendance software makes it possible to track the activities of the employees in remote locations.
- The time clock makes it possible to determine the number of working hours for individual employees.
- Scheduling sheet makes the work of planning for the human resource simple and less time-consuming.
Employee tracking
This vendor offers software that is able to track the current location of an employee during working hours. It records this data and compiles a report about the total amount of time that an employee has worked for a given period (Josh 2012). This data is made available to the management whenever it is needed. The tracking system has a unique feature that allows the management to know when the employees are at the right workstations, but doing irrelevant things. It eliminates the problem where the employees create wrong impressions that they are working while the truth is that they are busy addressing irrelevant personal issues. The system is also able to record the number of people who visit the office on any given day. This way, it is possible to determine if the holder of that office is allowing irrelevant people to that particular office.
Data sharing
Information is a powerful tool in the current society in achieving success. However, McDonald (2013) says that information can only be useful if it reaches the right people in time. With the current dynamic environment, firms are under pressure to ensure that their employees access the latest knowledge in different fields to ensure that their performance meets the required standards. Easy Clocking makes this possible. It allows the employees at different remote locations to share knowledge in real time. The management can also share information and instructions with their employees using this software.
Holiday planning
Many organisations are struggling to find a way of ensuring that they remain operational throughout the year despite some of the major holidays in the calendar (HR Hero Line 2012). This software makes it possible to plan for the holidays for the employees to ensure that their holiday is spread throughout the year to avoid cases where most of the employees go on holiday at the same time.
Pricing
This firm charges $ 1581 for a complete package that can be used by unlimited users per year. It offers free maintenance for the first two years.
Click Time
Click Time is popular time management software that offers various solutions to its clients. The company has been in existence for some time, and it has made a positive footprint in this industry. The following are some of the reasons why this software is considered superior.
- It is a trusted client for some of the top Fortune 50 companies such as IBM, John Hopkins, HP, City Group, Google, and Intel.
- Companies such as Ernst & Young and American Red Cross have endorsed it as an effective software solutions vendor.
- It has an easy to use interface
- It has a friendly cost for its products.
Employee tracking
The vendor offers a solution for tracking of the employees in remote locations. Using this devise, a manager can tell when an employee is at work, and when he is not. This information is available in real time.
Click Time Video Conferencing
According to Oz (2009), the need to share knowledge in order to develop a universally accepted solution is very important to any organisation in the current society. This software, which comes with a webcam, makes it possible for stakeholders in different parts of the world to converge and share their views on various issues.
Resource planning
The software can be used in planning for both human and financial resources for the organisation, especially when undertaking mega projects that need a high number of employees.
Recommendations
These three vendors offer very attractive software that Virtual Viewing may need in one way or the other. However, based on the current needs of this firm, the best alternative is T-sheets. It has more solutions that a very important in managing employees of Virtual Viewing who are based in countries outside the United Kingdom. Its GPS tracking makes it easy to determine the location of the employees during official hours of work. Its mobile application means that employees can use it to plan their work. This simple software will not require specialised training when used in this firm. Its price is also very reasonable. These factors make it superior to the other two alternatives.
List of References
Bishop, T 2011, The Importance of Time and Attendance Employee Tracking. Web.
Cline, T 2014, Timesheets and Expenses Made Simple. Web.
Easy Clocking 2014, Next Generation Time & Attendance Software. Web.
Gallo, A 2014, Wi-Fi fills gap in indoor location tracking market, Computer Weekly. Web.
HR Hero Line 2012, Answers to questions about exempt time records, employee privacy. Web.
Joch, A 2014, Automate employee referrals tracking to get better candidates faster. Web.
Josh, A 2012, Suggestion for Tracking Employee Time. Web.
Lent, J 2013, ‘Dual-track Agile keeps requirements in check’, CIO, vol. 5. no. 2, pp. 1-3. Web.
McDonald, J 2013, The importance of time tracking in IT, Entry. Web.
O’Brien, J & Marakas, G 2011, Management Information Systems: McGraw-Hill, New York.
Oz, E 2009, Management information systems, Thomson Course Technology, Boston, Mass.
Rainer, R 2014, Management information systems, John Wiley, New Jersey.
T-Sheets 2014, Time Tracking Your Employees Will Love. Web.
Twyman, N, Elkins, A, Burgoon, J, & Nunamaker J 2014, A Rigidity Detection System for Automated Credibility Assessment, Journal of Management Information Systems, vol. 31. no. 1, pp. 173-202.