Group Members: Beckie Hicks, Dustin Kneese & John Petter ABC Homes

System Request  Project Sponsor: Bill Smith, VP of Operations  Organization: ABC Homes  Phone: 

Business Model & Background  ABC Homes is classified as a LP and was established in 2003  Total revenue for 2007 was $150,000,000.  ABC Homes currently employees 80 people full-time.  ABC Homes specializes in single family production type building to meet the needs of Houston’s ever expanding economy.  In addition to building a quality home, ABC also provides a quality maintenance and warranty program with 24 hour call service.  Houston, TX is the largest single family housing market in the nation.

Hierarchy of ABC Homes President VP of Construction VP of SalesVP of Operations Project Manager Construction Manager Sales Counselor IT Purchasing/ Accounting Certified Warranty Professional Service Upper Management Middle Management Level One Employee

Business Needs  Knowledge of all new sales and sales prospects available for upper management viewing on a real time basis.  Currently, all written contracts and sales prospects are delivered to Corporate by hand on Monday mornings.  Knowledge of all outstanding service requests available for Certified Warranty Professionals remote viewing with laptops and PDAs.  Currently, all newly generated service requests are faxed to the Certified Warranty Professional at a field location bi-daily.  To have all available speculative homes and dirt lots available listed on a public website for prospective buyers and real estate agent to view.  Currently, potential buyers and real estate agents must contact a sales counselor via phone, , or personally in order to retrieve information about what is available.

Business Requirements  Upper management wants to view data pertaining to home sales and possible buyers.  Management needs to search sales by job number, home owner name, date of sale, sales counselor name, construction manger name, and sales community name.  Certified Warranty Professionals want access to all outstanding services they are responsible for completing.  Certified Warranty Professionals need to search service calls by job number, home owner name, and outstanding or closed service calls using date range as a filter.  Customers and real estate agents need to be able to easily search for available homes and dirt lots.  Searches will be performed by community name and price range.

Business Value - Tangibles  Decrease Costs  Starting houses sooner will save 10% on construction loans.  Service call initiations sent to Certified Warranty Professional PDAs will decrease gas cost 20%.  Sales counselors will perform less leg work with customers viewing properties online, saving 10% on gas.  Increase Revenues  An increase in exposure via our website will increase sales by up to 25%.  An increase in customer service satisfaction may increase sales another 10% due to referrals.  Having potential buyers put in a database will allow for easier follow up and will increase sales another 10%.

Business Value - Intangibles  Sales Counselor  Receive sales commissions sooner  Construction Manager  Receive House bonuses sooner  Office Staff  Less work organizing, less mistakes  ABC Homes  Increase in employee efficiency, thereby increasing customer satisfaction  Increase relationship between ABC Homes and the realtor community

Special Issues or Constraints  Systems up and running by March 15, 2009 to reap the benefits of selling season.  $150,000 needed to develop the system, purchase the necessary software and hardware for the new system.  Training of employees on the new system by February 1, 2009.

References 

Questions?