Background Cardinal Analysis, LLC (CA) is a company that has been in business for seven years. It

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Background

Cardinal Analysis, LLC (CA) is a company that has been in business for seven years. It started when its two founders took an MBA class on Entrepreneurship and created the business model as a class project. While working their regular jobs, the founders worked part-time in the evenings and weekends to get the business off the ground. With two, small, local customers CA was created. Within three years, the company grew and had 15 customers and was running in the black. Over the next four years the company expanded, hired more staff, and acquired more and bigger customers. The company is on the verge of a big business expansion they plan to implement over the next three years. In order to grow as they hope, they’ll need to take out some loans. With a positive cash flow and a clean balance sheet, CA will have no problem getting the necessary funds.

CA’s business is to provide analysis of its customers’ marketing and sales data which is provided daily to help a customer find business problem areas or concerns. The analysis provided also compares a customer’s performance in relation to other companies of a similar size and industry.

CA currently employs: two salesperson working on commission; the founders who run the day-to-day operations and determine business strategies; two data analysts/programmers who take client data from Excel workbooks, load it into an Access database, run proprietary formulas, and send the analysis back to the client via email; a bookkeeper who pays bills, runs payroll, deposits checks, prepares tax forms, etc.; and, an office manager who runs the office and serves as the company’s HR staff.

IT Infrastructure

CA currently uses two servers, one for data analysis work and the other for office administration work such as accounting, payroll, and human resources. Each employee has a company-owned laptop that is supposed to be used only for company work. The laptops of the data group are more powerful in terms of processing power, memory, and hard disk size. All servers and laptops run the Windows operating system and CA has an enterprise license for Microsoft’s Office 365. All other software is from a third-party company.

Your Role

CA has given you an opportunity to become a potential IT consultant to help with the expansion mentioned above. There are other consultants being considered and the firm with the best proposal will get the contract. You will provide a report to the CA founders detailing the IT changes needed. Essentially, you need to define how the IT group will look in three years, transforming from the current state to the end of the three-year expansion. Your report should address, but is not limited to:

1. Will you create a position for Chief Information Officer or Chief Technology Officer? If not, under which department will you put IT – operations, finance, accounting, etc.?

2. What will the IT organization look like? What positions will you have? How many employees will you hire for each position? Will you use any offshore contractors? What is the salary range for each of these IT positions?