The Family Business Center

The Family Business Center

Version: 1.1

IT Strategic Assessment Report

Date: 17/APR/17

IT Strategic Assessment Report

4/4/2017

Revision History

Date

Version

Description

Author

4/April /17

1.0

First Draft

Ajay Singh

17/April/17

1.1

Final Draft

Ajay Singh

Table of Contents

1.Executive Summary4

2.History and Purpose5

2.1History of the Family Business Center5

2.2Purpose of the Family Business Center5

3.Management and Business Processes6

3.1Providing face to face consulting services7

3.2Build trust among members and community7

3.3Raise funds8

3.4Organize events8

3.5Complete assessments for member businesses9

4.Current IT Environment10

4.1Hardware10

4.2Software11

4.3Staff IT Skills/Training12

4.4IT Budgeting and Spending13

5.Envisioned IT Capabilities13

5.1Leadership’s Vision14

5.2Top 10 Technology Issues15

6.Closing the Gap22

6.1Unified system22

6.2Simplified data entry process23

6.3Ease of use24

6.4Independent system25

6.5Scalabe and Secure26

7.Conclusion27

8.Appendices28

8.1Basis of Analysis28

8.2Technology Inventory32

1     Executive Summary

Family Business Center at college of business is one of the oldest and most-respected Family Business Centers in the nation that represents many strong and reputable family businesses in the region. The nonprofit, member based organization was originally established in 1993 to assist many family businesses by addressing many problems faced by them. The center’s relaunch of 2009 introduced a new thought process to provide new opportunities to learn from a network of business leaders, and industry experts through workshops, roundtables, events, consulting services, and educational forums.

The center aims to expand their member base while providing more personalized time to individual member which is not possible under the current system and business process. The current system works according to the needs of the center but it is not as efficient as the center would like. They would like a system that can resolve the technology issues outlined in this assessment and streamline the process which would allow the center to fulfill the vision of the leadership by making the center more effective and efficient at supporting their community.

Family businesses are the backbone of the community and the new system should allow the Family Business Center to help build thriving communities through exceptional family businesses by building relationships. It should help the center move towards its stated mission to inform, celebrate, and strengthen family-owned firms.

2.    History and Purpose

2.1     History of the Family Business Center

The family business center was established in 1993 to address challenges faced by closely held and family firms. The center is a member-based organization that uses the capabilities and resources of the University of Louisville along with a network of other family owned businesses, professional practitioners, and internationally acclaimed family business experts to provide family firms with the assistance they need to grow and succeed from one generation to the next.

           The family business center was relaunched in 2003 to introduce a new thought process for already established family-owned businesses such as Brown-Forman and introduce more opportunities to learn from peers, business leaders, and industry experts through interactive workshops, roundtables, events, consulting services, educational forums which provides members with access to contemporary solutions grounded in real world experience. The center, under leadership of Kathleen Hoye, has been providing services to all kinds of businesses ranging from small shops to fortune 500 companies.

2.2      Purpose of the Family Business Center

The family business was created to reach out to family businesses to inform, celebrate and strengthen them. The goal of the family business center is to provide any assistance that will make them more effective and help community as a whole because family businesses are the backbones of thriving communities. The assistance is provided in the form of counseling, events hosted by the center such as round tables and seminars, connecting businesses with other local business that can provide a learning experience or other services needed by the family.

The center is currently focused on local family business and would like to expand to focus on the community. They would like to reach a wider number of businesses that will help the community. The center would like to see how the businesses are impacting the community to find out how it can better serve the community. They would like to know which actions help the business and community and which don’t to better plan for future actions.

3.    Management and Business Processes.

The Family business center is led by Kathleen Hoye. She has been the executive director of the center since its relaunch in 2003. She is supported by Brittany Prather as marketing and event coordinator, and Anthony Potts as the website and database administrator. This section will cover the major business processes that are required for the Family Business Center to accomplish their goals.  

3.1     Providing face to face consulting services

The family business center provides 5 hours of consultation services to member service which are very beneficial to the business. These services could range from family mediation to helping with accounting. Kathleen also meets with next in kin for businesses in order to help prepare them for their future responsibilities as a leader. All services following the 5 hours is billed to the member and is a big source of revenue for the center. The center also provides an hour of consulting services to the prospective business which helps the FBC to recruit new members.

            Currently, the center uses Doodle to send emails to members asking them to set up a meeting by selecting one of the available times. This adds an additional step to the duties of staff that are already pressed for time. An ideal solution would sync all of these meeting into a single calendar that can be accessed by any staff member to provide for better planning.

3.2      Build trust among the members and community

The round table events hosted by the FBC is probably the best service provided to the businesses as it allows businesses to interact with each other and learn about the how other successful business are operating. This provides for a great learning experience for attending members. It also allows for the businesses to connect with other to create a strong network which can provide services to each other. Most family businesses are small businesses that must compete with large corporations that they are not equipped for. Although family businesses have their own strengths such as low overhead, better relationship with the customer, they can certainly gain from being part of a network of business that they can rely on when necessary for advice and services.

3.3      Raise funds

The Family Business Center is a nonprofit organization that does not receive any federal funding and is reliant on donations, revenue from member businesses, and compensation for consulting services. These funds allow the center to stay independent and provide services with businesses in mind. These funds are important for the center to stay operational, organize events and round tables, and provide consultation to local family businesses to help them become more productive and successful.

           The center is currently accepting donations and member fees using member clicks where members can pay using credit/debit cards or by writing checks to the college of business. The college is responsible to for bookkeeping and payroll for employees of the center. MemberClicks also maintains data on the payee to help the center create reports to better understand the sources of their revenue. This information is useful when planning their expenditures and ways to generate more revenue.

3.4      Organize events

Events organized by the Family Business center attracts many businesses who generally provide positive reviews. Events can range from round tables for member businesses to seminars with professional speakers. Members are encouraged to bring managers/owners of other family businesses that might benefit from becoming a member of the center. This is the best way for the center to gain new members as the staff prefers for businesses to reach out to them instead of them actively recruiting new members. These events could present many logistical challenges that are currently worsened due to a lack of system to keep everyone updated. Staff has to use different services to organize these events such as MemberClicks to send updates to members, doodle to keep track of members that will be attending, and Matrix to send surveys to attendees in order to measure the success of the event and how to maximize attendance in the future.

A system that can help streamline the process would be beneficial to the center as it would decrease the amount of effort on staff’s side and keep everyone informed. This would result in a better experience for members, increase in the number of attendees, and help with the recruitment of new employees.

3.5      Complete assessments for member businesses

One of the services offered by the Family business center is a complete assessment of the business, that ranges from the financial operational side to list of family members, their traits and family trees. This helps the business and the center get complete picture of the business to better plan for the future. The center needs that information to find who best equipped wot perform specific job in the company and it is good for center to know who the next in line to become the next owner so the center can create a plan to prepare them for their future leadership position.

There are various aspects to a complete assessment which are completed using different software. The personality test is given using the PI index which is administered by the Oliver group, family tree is created using GenPro, proprietary assessment completed by the FBC staff during an interview. These parts are completed separately at separate times in different situations which results in a waste of resources. A system that can assist the member complete most of the assessment on their own and store it in one location would result in a more efficient business process and save time for both the business and the Family Business Center.

4.    Current IT Environment

The following section provides information about the IT system currently in place. Information about hardware, software, IT skills of the staff, and current IT is detailed below.

4.1      Hardware

The Family Business center mainly relies on third party service providers, and University of Louisville IT resources. Most of the member management services are provided by MemberClicks which manages the database with information about all members that can be used to run queries and generate reports to get a better insight in the center’s operations. MemberClicks is responsible for maintain servers necessary for the operation of all services provided. The center uses University of Louisville’s IT resources for back up purposes. Staff does have access to limited hardware resources which is as follows:

· Three desktop computers with two monitors each.

· A laptop dedicated for use during offsite events.

· Each staff member has access to their own landline phone.

· Each staff member has access to their own printer with a special printer in the Ulmer Career Center that can be used to print special orders.

· Staff members also use their own laptops to remote into university’s network.

· Staff also uses their own phone although they are not reimbursed for such use.

4.2      Software

The center uses the applications developed by service provides to access their servers. MemberClicks Website is mainly used to manage member, event, revenue information whereas HootSuite is used for managing social media accounts at once. The center also uses university provided software to access the I drive to complete backup. One desktop is running windows 7 while all other computers have been upgraded to windows 10. All computers come with preloaded software like other computers in the College of Business such as Microsoft Office 2016, VM ware Horizon etc. The center uses GenPro to create family trees for everyone related to the company which allows staff to get basic understanding on what role each family member plays or might play. PI Index is completed by Oliver Group, one of the family business center members, for each family member. Matrix is used to create and monitor surveys after every event to get feedback about the event which helps the center to improve in the future. Staff member usually do analysis by running excel queries but also use google analytics to see what member are interested and get alerts about new results for businesses. These alerts help the center assist the business to best handle the situation, may that be good or bad.

4.3      Staff IT Skills/Training

Most of the support is provided by respective product vendors and is managed by Anthony Potts and Kathleen Hoye. Anthony is the only one in the team with IT background and is responsible for resolving issues before they must be escalated to the vendor in which case he or Kathleen would contact the vendor, and open a case with them. Anthony is also responsible for exporting information form MemberClicks and backing up all data for every source to I drive on University’s Network. Besides Anthony, technology skills are very limited at the center, and any new system should provide ease of use and be easy to maintain.

4.4      IT Budgeting and Spending

The center operates under the umbrella of the College of Business at University of Louisville and can use some of the resources of the university for administrative tasks such as human resources, payroll, bookkeeping as well as IT support, secure storage space on the university network, and specialized graphic design and printers from the marketing department. University of Louisville also gets the center access to software licenses for software such as the Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL server and discounts on wide range of the software from Microsoft and other software companies. These benefits come at a price of $26,000 or 12% of the overall spending for the center. The center currently spends another $9135 for two-year access to member clicks and various added plug ins. The FBC has also purchased a genuine copy of GenPro which was a onetime cost and can be used for the foreseeable future. The FBC uses free versions of the other programs such as the HootSuite for social media presence, and Matrix for conducting surveys.

5.    Envisioned IT Capabilities

Following section will information about the vision that Kathleen Hoye(Director) has for the family business center and the top 10 technology issues that might hinder the center from achieving that goal.

5.1      Leadership’s Vision

Family business account for about 85% of the overall business community. The Family Business Center at university provides services to about 100 family businesses in and around Louisville which makes for about 1 percent of the total family businesses. Kathleen would like to see that number increase which would also increase revenue for the center. Center relies of referrals as their primary method to gain new members who are along to attend couple events hosted by the center and have a private meeting with the consultants at the center. The center does not have an effective way to track the new members. Kathleen would like a system that can track the new members, the meetings they have had with the staff, and the center sponsored events they have attended along with the time and date. Kathleen would also like that information to be tracked for current members to give the staff an idea on what events/topics are most in demand, which solutions have been effective for the business and which weren’t, and keep detailed data on the business and the family members with a stake in the business. The system currently tracks information on member but is not time stamped which is a problem for the center because they are not aware of when the information was entered and how relevant it currently is.  

The system that is currently in place is very disconnected with different solutions for different processes that do not seem to work well together. An ideal system would connect various aspects of the business to create a more streamlined system that will automate some of the administrative tasks to allow staff to spend more time with the members and in the community. The system should allow for custom emails to be sent to the member that are easy to format which will be used for mass mailing information. A streamlined system will save time for the staff to spend it with the members. Not having enough 1-on-1 time is the largest complaint of the members and a solution that resolves this will help the center increase their retention rate from the current 96 percent.

Kathleen has played a leading role in the transformation of the center from its beginning in 1993 and she would like to continue the trend. She would like the center to take a wider approach to the community as a who instead of just focusing on the business. Kathleen would like to use the information collected by the system to understand the trends to the see the impact of policies, events, meetings, family members on the business and the impact of the business on the community. She would like to see the family business support the community as a whole instead of an association management style the center currently operates with.

5.2      Top 10 Technology Issues

1.     Reliance on University IT

The Family Business Center is heavily reliant on university IT for support. As an affiliate of the University of Louisville, the FBC gives 12% of their spending budget to university which provides them access to university resources such as help desk for IT support, network storage on the I and H drives for data backups, administrative services such payroll, bookkeeping etc. University IT is a hassle to work with which causes problems and delays for the family business center which they hope to resolve by having a system in place that is independent of the university. The center does not have control over the backup schedule of important documents that are stored on the I drive and university IT is slow at responding to requests when requested.

2.     Fragmentation of the current system

The Family Business center provides a wide range of services to local family businesses which requires very varied business processes. These processes have been tacked on to the existing system making the system very fragmented which causes delays in transfer of information and during analysis. Currently, the staff has to move between different programs to accomplish different tasks such as HootSuite to post to different social media sites, MemberClicks to manage members, send mass emails to notify users about upcoming events, and maintain financial invites, Doodle to manage meeting calendars etc. The services are also not compatible with each other which can sometimes become counterproductive.

3.     Limited control over IT

The Family Business Center has a very limited control over their IT as almost everything has been outsourced. There is fragmentation of IT where data is stored by different organizations that provide different services to the center and backups are store by manually exporting data and storing that on university servers such as the I and H drives. University controls on how and when backups are performed without any input from the center. Center also does not have information or control on how the services secure the information provided to them, with whom its shared, if and how its backed up etc. Employees of the center who are also students at the university are not provided access to the H drive which hinders their ability to perform some tasks. Member database is very important to the FBC and they would benefit greatly with control over how the information is stored and protected.

4.     Lack of automation

The staff at the Family Business Center must perform a lot of manual steps for even the mundane tasks such as data backup as the center currently lacks any meaningful automation. Anthony must download data from several places and save it to the I drive for backup purposes. File types are different for different programs and would take considerable effort from staff to bring operations back up from an outage. Emails that are sent by MemberClicks have to be manually formatted and sent to members instead of the system automatically sending notification to a group of members that fit a criterion when certain criteria are fulfilled.  

5.     Heavy reliance on Microsoft Excel

The family Business center is heavily reliant on excel which is currently used to perform assessments of member businesses and perform analysis on data exported by MemberClicks website about members. Excel is a powerful tool but there are better options available now that would take out several steps that need to be performed by the staff, making the process faster and more efficient.

6.     Communication constraints

Communication constraint is a major complaint of the member businesses. The email system that the center currently uses via MemberClicks is buggy and have very strict formatting requirements. It is not unusual for the staff to spend hours on trying to format the email as desired and test it to ensure it looks correct. The owners/managers of member businesses can be elderly who can be scared easily if the email formatting is not correct as they believe they might have broken it.

Members also complain about not having enough time with staff as they would like. Members can receive 5 hours of face to face time for free but that is generally not possible because staff is usually busy with some other tasks. It is also difficult for members to schedule appointments via Doodle. The center would benefit from a system that makes it easy to send emails and help improve the process for setting up appointments with staff members.

7.     Lack of technology Experience

The family business center relies on Anthony to manage their website and database through MemberClicks. Anthony provides limited support for minor issues and decide what the next steps to getting problem resolved should be e.g. should they call university IT, call MemberClicks about support for their product etc. The center employees would require training for managing their own IT and resolve problems. It would also be beneficial to have another person aware of the steps to maintain website and MemberClicks to keep the center operation in the absence of Anthony.

8.     Inconsistent Technology

The family Business Center has been able to find a service to fulfill some of their needs but the staff would describe the solution they have in place as “okay”. They can accomplish most of the tasks they need but with considerable amount of effort using different programs. Center started using MemberClicks to manage their member database but as the center found their requirements over time, they just started adding more to MemberClicks using available plug ins or by using other services. They used solutions that could accomplish what they wanted but those solutions were not designed to cater to their needs and hence are ineffective, inefficient, and/or unreliable.

9.     Database needs

The Family Business Center has been focused on being association of family businesses where members can interact with each other to learn to be better at providing services, attend seminars with professional speakers, consult with the FBC staff members if they have specific questions that could be answered by staff members. The center could help business by connecting them with professional advisors such as accountants, lawyers etc. to get accurate information for if the answer is not readily available. The center has been operating with the member businesses in mind like other family business centers across the nation. The leadership at the center would like to change their focus to the impact of family businesses on the community as they would like to strengthen the community as a whole. This is not possible under the current system as it is not able to collect and analyze the information necessary. The database base has become a bottleneck resource for the Family Business Center, defined as any resource whose capacity is equal to or less than the demand placed upon it (Goldratt, 145).

The center would like to gather information such as the meeting appointments, event schedules, completed surveys, that they currently collect from various sources and store it in one location along with their time stamps. There is information that is collected on the current system but cannot be used because staff is unaware about when the information was collected. This information along will allow the center staff to analyze trends and impact of the family businesses on the community.

10.  Lack of social media analysis

The Family business center currently uses HootSuite to manage their social media. The center uses the free version of the service which only allows them to post to multiple social media accounts at once at a scheduled time. The service does not provide any other functionality to allow staff to interact with their users which must be done by logging into each account. They are also not able to generate any kind of reports or run queries to see which posts were popular with their members and non-member businesses in order to find posts that are more popular with their audience. This functionality would help the center reach out to more businesses and assist with recruitment which would help with increase in revenues.

6.    Closing the Gap

You can find my recommendations to closing the gap that exists between the IT solution in place right now and the one that is needed to accomplish leadership’s vision of the Family Business Center.

6.1      Unified system

The Family business has a system that comprises of several distinct products which are not built to work well with each other. The center would benefit greatly from a system that encompasses all major processes of the business to create a more unified system. A unified system would reduce redundant data such as the customer information saved in MemberClicks and excel files when completing assessments. The system should help the center reach out to their audience with includes current and potential future members more effectively. It should help the staff actively interact with the audience which would help the center become an effective voice in the community. The system should also keep data about the posts and the interactions to provide data that can be analyzed to see which topics were popular. The system could be based on commercial software or can be built in house specifically for the center. A system built from ground up would be beneficial to the center as it would be built the business process in mind and will fulfill all requirements for the FBC. It will also streamline the process as different processes will be able to use the same

6.2      Simplified data entry process

Data entry process can be a time-consuming process for any organization and any help to simplify the process would help to speed it up. A faster and simpler process would save finite resources of the Family Business Center to be used more efficiently. The entry process could be transferred to the client e.g. members can submit meeting requests via website from a list of available times that will automatically update the calendar for the staff.  Members should also have the option to fill out their own assessment on their own to see how they are doing compared to other businesses that follow best practices. It would provide businesses with an idea on how far they have come towards best practices and what else needs to be done. Filling a self-assessment would provide member businesses with necessary at intervals that they desire because as Morgan would say, “Without regular updates, any knowledge gained from using Porter’s model will quickly be out of date as it was only designed to provide a snapshot of any particular market” (Morgan).  System could also send out surveys for each event to the attendees to get their input and save the data with their individual profile along with time stamps.

6.3      Ease of Use

Most of the member businesses are run by the older generation who can sometimes have a challenging time with modern technology to the point where it can scare them if the formatting of the website is different. The lack of technical expertise among the staff and member business makes it very important that the system is designed with simplicity in mind. It is imperative for the effectiveness of the above recommendation that the system provides simplicity of use because users will not be able to navigate to complete surveys, contact staff, or complete assessments if the system is disorganized and difficult to user.

It would be beneficial for the center to have a web based system that can be accessed like an online portal. “Long distance networking minimizes geography as a constraint in doing business” which means that center could reach more people than was previously possible using a website (Cash,257). The staff and members alike can log in to the system which can be navigated based on their role to accomplish tasks easily from anywhere, any device, and at any time at their convenience. A web based system would be especially useful for the staff as they would be able to access the information they need when they are organizing events, or are unable to be in the office. This would also mean that the center could be productive during unforeseen situations such as snowstorms, even when the university is closed, as they will be able to work from anywhere using their own laptops. This would save critical time that can be used later to setup more meetings with members or in recruiting more members.

6.4      Independent System

The Family Business Center is very reliant on the University of Louisville IT that causes delays and other problems for them. The center would benefit from a system that is independent from University IT as it would allow the center to be in complete control of their IT. This would reduce delays that are experienced when waiting on the University IT staff to process requests such as helpdesk support for their devices in case of a malfunction, and also give them more control over how and when the backups are performed. This control would also allow for the center to implement their own business continuity plan to ensure services are available for the staff at all times without reliance on the university. It would also keep the center safe attacks and effects of spending cuts that has plagued the university recently. An independent system would allow the center to operate as a division which will provide them with better responsiveness by increasing adaptability, accountability and time efficiency with responding to changing situations such as budget cuts, member demand etc. (Cash, 41).

6.5      Scalable and secure

The database for the family business center currently holds about 3600 entries for member businesses and their families. Original database by MemberClicks was designed for fewer tasks and database entries. The database needs for the center have changed as their focus, and needs have evolved over time. The MemberClicks system was unable to effectively keep up with the changed and increased demand which has brought to center to this point where they would benefit from a new system. The new system should be scalable that will allow for more information to be stored for each member and one that can be expanded in case the member base of the family business center were to increase.

Information is currently stored on the university and MemberClicks network which provide their own security. For the new system to obtain and store more information about the business such as information about family members and completed assessments while being independent, the system would have to provide an elevated level of security to maintain member confidence. An independent system that would provide the center staff with more control over the business continuity plans and backup schedule should also provide for secure backup functionality, preferably based on NIST standards.

7.    Conclusions

It is important for the Family business to keep up with technology to see how it best fits their requirements because “IT will continue to affect business whether or not it is welcomed” (Freid, 111). Center should take its time, to find a system based on the requirements outlined in this assessment because if they don’t, the competition will force them into a technology that causes major errors and losses. The Family Business Center can perform most tasks required for their major business process but they would benefit from a system that allows them to be more efficient. A non-working system would eventually result in loss of revenue like the processes described by Goldratt (Goldratt, 10). The current system is disorganized with different services being used to complete different processes. The center, as part of the university, are dependent on university IT to provide basic services such as helpdesk support and backup storage. It is beneficial for the center to stay under to the university umbrella as it reduces their operational costs such as rent, marketing expenditure, administrative costs such as bookkeeping, payroll etc. The center would like an independent system that gives them more control on the overall system and decrease their interaction with university IT which acts like a functional structure prone to delays.

The new system must also overcome problems such as consistency, fragmentation, limitations of database to allow the leadership to achieve their long-term goal of making their community stronger which is not possible with the current system and information collected by it. The system, not only has to meet the current needs but also must be scalable to allow the center to expand the data collected or services provided.

This system could be created from ground up or based on a commercial product which each having its own advantages and disadvantages. A product such as salesforce or WordPress could be customized to provide features that the center currently needs at a reasonable cost. This could provide benefits such as security, independence, availability that the FBC staff desires. But such a system might not be scalable, might not provide a simple and unified system, and could have considerable operational costs over time. Whereas an inhouse system will be able to fulfill all of the center’s needs at a lower operational cost but will result in significantly higher upfront costs. The center has a lot of options and it is up to the leadership to pick a system that can help them close the gaps outlined in this assessment. This new system is required for the center to expand their clientele, extend the services provided, and help them reach their goals.

8.    Appendices

8.1      Basis of Analysis

The analysis in this assessment has been completed based on information provided by the staff at the family business center and various theories prominent in the business world. The analysis was started using the Cash Model (Cash):

Porter’s 5 forces we analyzed to find the environment that the FBC operates in which will provide use with more information about which strategy and organization structure is best suited for the center. This information can be used further to find the gaps in the system currently in place and how to close those gaps to accomplish Kathleen’s vision. The analysis of 5 forces is as follow (Lima):

High threat of new entrants: The family business is a nonprofit organization that operates to provided necessary services to local family businesses which in turn strengthens the community. It is not personally beneficial for anyone to start a new organization to help local business, it is relatively easy to do so with minimum amount of resources required. Anyone that wants to help local businesses and the community can create a website, and organize member meetings.

High threat of substitutes: The center operates to benefit local businesses and the community with not much more to gain. There are other family business centers across the nation but most are exclusive to the area they are located in. The center does have other competitors in town such as Keep Louisville Weird, GreaterLouisville.com, Kentucky Small Business Development Center etc.

Low supplier power: The center directly provides services to the business, connects them to outside professionals, or other member businesses. They have minimal needs for supplies that can be procured from any office supplies store. There is a lot of competition for professional businesses in town that can provide competitive services to member businesses.

Moderate buyer power: Buyer in this scenario are member businesses that have the option to become part of another organization that assists local businesses. Other organizations provide similar services at about the same rate which decreases the likelihood of this move. Member businesses are mostly owned by the elderly who are not comfortable with change which can be seen through reports that the center has 96% retention rate where they only lose members if they disliked what Kathleen, staff or professionals said when providing consultations. So, even though member businesses have other options, they are very unlikely to move.

Low degree of rivalry: The center is there to assist member business that join on their own and does not actively recruit other businesses. All organizations providing similar services are working to make their community stronger which decreases the rivalry among them. The center has been able to build strong relationship with their members that refer other businesses to the center and themselves stay for a long time.    

Based on the information retrieved with the analysis of the five forces, it is recommended that the center take the differentiation strategy to better compete with other providers which is what Kathleen Hoye would like to do as she prepares to start focusing on the community instead of staying an association manager which is the case with other family business centers, and other competitors. The Center operates as part of the University of Louisville which itself has a functional structure that causes delays when making decisions. A new system requested by the center should be independent of the university that would allow the university to operate as an independent division. This divisional structure would provide the center with better responsiveness by increasing adaptability, accountability and time efficiency should the conditions change (Cash, 41).

Analysis was also done with the stakeholders of the FBC in mind which includes the Family Business Center, the staff, member businesses and their families, and the community. The Center is a major stakeholder in the implementation of the new system as the current system is unable to fulfill their needs which prohibits them from functioning effectively and efficiently. The current system causes delays and wasted resources making jobs difficult for the staff. The member businesses have a stake in the new system as it would affect how and what services they receive. the new system would allow staff to spend more time with member business which resolve a common complaint from businesses. More input from the staff of the Family Business Center could result in more effective businesses that provide services needed by the community which would in turn strengthen the community as citizens would invest in local businesses, keeping money within the community. The Information Technology Architecture will affect the jobs and their characteristics for people involved. This architecture was recommended based on information provided above.

8.2     Technology Inventory

· Three desktop computers with two monitors each.

· A laptop dedicated for use during offsite events.

· Each staff member has access to their own landline phone.

· Each staff member has access to their own printer with a special printer in the Ulmer Career Center that can be used to print special orders.

· Staff members also use their own laptops to remote into university’s network.

· Staff also uses their own phone although they are not reimbursed for such use.

· MemberClicks for managing member database.

· HootSuite which allows the staff to post to multiple social media sites at once.

· GenPro is used to create family tree for business owners.

· PI index is administered by the Oliver Group for each family member of member businesses.

· Windows 7 is running on 1 desktop while others are running Windows 10.

· Microsoft Office 2016, VM Ware Horizon is installed on all university computers.

· Every computer also has access to the university I and H drives.

· Matrix is used to create and manage surveys that are sent to members.

· Google Analytics is used to track information, good or bad, posted on the internet.

Works Cited:

· Cash, et. al. Building the Information Age Organization

· Goldratt, E.  The Goal

· Morgan, Gareth. Images of Organization

· Unknown. Apes Demonstrate Basic Facts about Humanity

· Unknown. The Rules of Bureaucracy

· Tony Lima, Michael Porter’s “Five Forces” Model

Confidential

2017

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