IN ORDER FOR CASIO TO BE SUCCESS, THEY USED THE FOLLOWING FACTORS DURING THE BUSINESS:
SUCCESS FACTOR #1: SET REALISTIC GOALS
One of the habits of highly effective people is to “begin with the end in mind.”2 In this case, that means you must see the precise business problem(s) you’re trying to solve, and how your business will look once it’s solved. You must provide convincing answers to the questions: “Why do this? What is our fundamental problem? And how
can we measure any improvements?” Some common project goals include:
- Consolidated and more timely information to respond faster to changes or events Reduction of resources required to perform analysis
- Ability to compare decision alternatives against each other to understand what impact each alternative has on corporate metrics
- Higher inventory turns and lower inventory carrying costs
- Improved customer satisfaction.
SUCCESS FACTOR #2: MAKE AN EFFECTIVE PLAN
Time management experts like to say that every minute spent planning saves 10 minutes doing4. This 10:1 savings may even be multiplied by one or two orders of magnitude when applied to an IT project.
Once you know your goals, apply the discipline to develop a detailed plan for how to reach them. This plan must cover all the obvious details of hardware and software, transactions to be processed, data inputs and outputs, reports required, security provisions, and so on. Beyond that, an effective plan also grapples with less tangible but equally critical considerations, such as how to communicate the system benefits, how to manage
change, how to pull together an effective team, and how to manage the budget for best results.
SUCCESS FACTOR #3: ASSEMBLE GOOD RESOURCES
People with the right qualifications who are engaged in the challenge and committed to a positive outcome.
project will likely need to pull together all the following resources:
- An experienced project manager
- Subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Good cross-section of the user community
- Competent technical staff
- Responsive professional services people from your chosen system vendor.
SUCCESS FACTOR #4: ALLOW FOR TESTING
It almost goes without saying: Testing is critical to project success.
Never rush any new product system into production without extensive testing. Make sure to allow lots of time in your schedule for testing, debugging, and retesting. When it comes to testing, more is far better than less. Never scrimp on testing to save time or money.
SUCCESS FACTOR #5: PROMOTE USER BUY-IN
No system is worth anything if no one uses it... or if users are on the lookout for ways to work around it or revert to older methods. A final significant success factor is to work hard to ensure strong user adoption.
How can you encourage everyone to feel that the new system will solve their problems better? How can you promote user buy-in for a new way of doing things?
Some suggestions used by Casio :
- Set realistic expectations, for both users and managers, both local and remote.
- Do not over-promise and under-deliver.
- Plan how you will manage change.
- Do lots of training.
- Provide for quick support when new users have questions
