1. Project Prizm: Database and Analysis of Prizm Software Services

2. Table of Contents Executive Summary of the Project E-R Diagram Schema Script Implementation Documentation Discussion of Learning and Conceptual Difficulties Encountered during Project

3. Executive Summary Our mission in SalesScope, Inc is to analyze multibillion dollar business contracts that have been won or lost by its clients. SalesScope’s clients submit a request for proposal from another firm and were one of many companies to bid for the project. After responding to the proposal and then giving a number of orals, the client either won or lost the business deal. Over time, companies start to develop trends, losing or winning a number of consecutive deals. Our job begins when clients such as yourself hire us to investigate behind the scenes of each contract. As an impartial third party, SalesScope interviews employees from its clients, the company who submitted the Request for Proposal (RFP) and the competition. We use this information to analyze strategies and communication, and to provide you with positive and negative feedback. After only a few weeks, SalesScope’s clients receive a detailed report of interview results, a complete analysis of the deal, and suggestions of what can be done in the future to win or continue winning business. This process is known as win/loss analysis and serves a very specific niche in business to business sales. Our job begins when clients such as yourself hire us to investigate behind the scenes of each contract. As an impartial third party, SalesScope interviews employees from its clients, the company who submitted the Request for Proposal (RFP) and the competition. We use this information to analyze strategies and communication, and to provide you with positive and negative feedback. After only a few weeks, SalesScope’s clients receive a detailed report of interview results, a complete analysis of the deal, and suggestions of what can be done in the future to win or continue winning business. This process is known as win/loss analysis and serves a very specific niche in business to business sales. Project Statement: The purpose of Project Prizm was to research several recent deals that Prizm Software Services was involved in and to analyze why these deals had the results that they did. The database that we have created incorporates the information that resulted from our research and was used as a to analyze the project. We have also created several tables and reports that will help demonstrate the processes of our analysis.

4. E-R Diagram

5. Schema Script

6. Implementation Documentation The database for Prizm Software Services was created from five tables; company, RFP, Client, Proposal, and Outcome. The following five slides are a documentation of the SQL language used to create the tables and insert the information that was generated during research.

7. Implementation Documentation 1. Company Table Create table Company (Company_id number(10,0) NOT NULL, Company_name varchar (20) NOT NULL, Industry varchar (20), Yearly_revenue varchar (20), constraint Company_pk Primary key(Company_id)); The following line is the information for the first company inserted into the database. (The information for the other 17 company’s can be found in notepad, which has a link that can be found on our final project website.) Insert into Company (Company_id, Company_name, Industry, Yearly_revenue) values (1, 'EM Inc', 'Energy', '35 billion');

8. In Access, this is part of the form that was created for the Company table. These are the names of all the companies that have requested project proposals from Prizm.

9. Implementation Documentation 2. RFP Table Create table RFP (RFP_id number (10,0) NOT NULL, Project_name varchar (50) NOT NULL, Company_id number (10,0) NOT NULL, Timeline varchar (25), Weeks_to_orals varchar (20), Business_objective varchar (100), Number_competitors number (2,0), value_contract varchar (25), constraint RFP_pk primary key (RFP_id), constraint RFP_FK foreign key (Company_id) references Company(Company_id)); The following line is the RFP information for the first company inserted into the database. (The information for the other 17 RFP’s can be found in notepad, which has a link that can be found on our final project website.) Insert into RFP(RFP_ID, Project_name, Company_ID, Timeline, Weeks_to_orals, Business_objective, Number_competitors, value_contract )values (122,'Global HR Systems using SAP', 1, '4 weeks', '1 week', 'Deploy HR SAP in US using similar tools as being used internationaly, Data warehouse', 7, '25 million');

10. This is an exerp from the RFP table, it displays all of the information about the Requests for Proposals that have been submitted to Prizm from other companies

11. Implementation Documentation 3. Client Table Create table Client (Client_id number (10,0) NOT NULL, Client_name varchar (20) NOT NULL, Industry varchar (25), constraint Client_PK primary key (Client_id)); The following line is the information for Prizm Software Inc. inserted into the database. Insert into client (Client_id, Client_name, Industry) values (1, 'Cust 1', 'Sales');

12. This is the form created from the client information. Because of confidentiality restrictions, the client names are not included. This form is used by SalesScope to keep track of all the different clients they are doing win/loss reviews for.

13. Implementation Documentation 4. Proposal Table Create table Proposal (Proposal_id number (10,0) NOT NULL, RFP_id number (10,0) NOT NULL, Client_id number (10,0) NOT NULL, Access_to_selection_team varchar (20), Access_to_execs varchar (20), Position_start_RFP number (2,0), Position_end_RFP number (2,0), Primary_competition varchar(25), constraint Proposal_PK primary key (Proposal_id), constraint Proposal_FK foreign key (RFP_id) references RFP(RFP_id), constraint Proposal_FK2 foreign key (Client_id) references Client(Client_id)); The following line is the for the first proposal by Prizm inserted into the database. (The information for the other 21 proposals can be found in notepad, which has a link that can be found on our final project website.) Insert into Proposal(Proposal_id, RFP_id, Client_id, Access_to_selection_team, Access_to_execs, Primary_competition ) values (200, 122, 1, 'low', 'low', 'CGE and Y' );

14. This is part of the Proposal form. This form shows all of the gathered information about the proposals that SalesScope’s clients have submitted to the requesting companies. Most importantly it shows how clients, like Prizm, ranked at different points in the selection process, as well as their major competitors.

15. Implementation Documentation 5. Outcome Table Create table Outcome (Outcome_ID number (10,0) NOT NULL, Proposal_id number (10,0) NOT NULL, outcome varchar (25), Winner_strat varchar (20), Winner_strat_description varchar (100), Loser_strat varchar (20), Loser_strat_description varchar (100), Decision_maker_real varchar (50), Decision_maker_official varchar (50), Winner_percent_price_diff varchar (30), Importance_price varchar (50), constraint Outcome_PK primary key (Outcome_id), constraint Outcome_FK foreign key (Proposal_id) references Proposal(Proposal_id)); The following line is the for the outcome for the first proposal inserted into the database. (The information for the other 21 outcomes can be found in notepad, which has a link that can be found on our final project website.) Insert into Outcome (outcome_id, proposal_id, outcome, winner_strat, winner_strat_description, loser_strat, loser_strat_description, decision_maker_real, decision_maker_official, winner_percent_price_diff,importance_price) values (300, 200, 'loss', 'flanking', 'they brought an intact team from another global energy company that implemented SAP', 'frontal', 'frontal', 'CIO', 'CIO', -5, 'not in top 3 factors');

16. Since Outcome is such a large table, this is an example of some of the fields in the form. This form organizes all of the information about the outcome of the bid, such as whether or not Prizm won the deal, what strategies were used and also the importance of price in the final decision

17. Implementation Documentation: Queries After creating the database and inserting all of client information we were able run a number of queries. The results of these queries show us the relationships between different proposals under a number of different circumstances.

18. Loss Query and Report This query was designed to show our client’s project name, primary competitor, outcome, the winner’s strategy used and the loser’s strategy used. It shows the information only in the instances that Prizm lost the bid. The results are ordered by the names of the competitors. This allows Prizm to see how often they lost to a particular client.

19. This is the result of the Losses Query in Report form. It can be used to see if there are patterns when Prizm competes against certain companies. They can use this in the future to adapt their strategy depending on who they are competing against.

20. Decision Makers Query and Report This is the query designed to select all of the projects, where the person who ACTUALLY chose which company won the bid is the same person who was supposed to OFFICIALLY make the decision.

21. Decision Maker report This is the resulting report from the previous query. The report shows how important it is to know who is making the final decisions when a company is bidding for a project and how it relates to the outcome.

22. Timeline and Outcome Query and Report This query selects all of the projects, Prizm’s starting and ending RFP positions, and outcomes when Prizm only had two weeks to respond to an RFP. The results are grouped by wins and losses.

23. The resulting report from this query shows how a short preparation time affected the proposing companies rank of Prizm after the proposals were submitted.

24. Price Factor Query and Report This query displays the project name, outcome, value of contract and how the hiring company rated the importance of price for all of the projects that Prizm won, price was an important factor and their price was lower than the competition.

25. This report shows how the price that Prizm chose was important in the outcome of the bid. In all three cases the price was lower than the competition and price was an important factor to the hiring companies.

26. Strategy Query and Report This SQL language query searches the data base for all for the records where the strategy of the winning client is the same as the strategy of the losing client. It shows the importance of price and the price difference between Prizm and the competing clients.

27. These were the only projects were both the winner and loser used the same strategy

28. Access to Selection Team Query and Report This query checks the database for all the projects where Prizm had a great deal of access to the selection team, whether it was through interviews or phone conversations.

29. Although the results of this report may appear simple, it is important for Prizm to know how the amount of interaction they have with the contracting companies affects the outcome of the bid. In these cases, even though the selection team was highly accessible, it did not help Prizm win the bid.

30. Learning and Difficulties We did most of our learning during this project through trial and error, and eventually accomplished everything we set out to do. Even though we started out initially with good data, understanding how it all related caused some problems as we got started. Once we had designed a working schema, we were able to developed a script in SQL that created and inserted data correctly into tables. Later, we formulated queries that we thought would produce the best reports, however, getting the query language to select the right information took was tedious. The only other significant difficulty we encountered was getting the computers set up to link into oracle through access. Thankfully, we found one computer that was configured do it, and monopolized it for a few days. Overall, we learned a great deal from this project. It was interesting to see the progression from starting out with raw data, determining relationships and them using software to manipulate the data. In particular, we realized how crucial it is for companies to be able to use databases to solve problems, highlight trends, relate different sets of data and organize information. They can constantly use this information to make better business decisions.