Case Study Project

Business Areas

MTC provides consulting services in the following areas:

• Business Process Consulting – Business process redesign, process improvement, and best

practices

• IT Consulting – IT strategy, analysis, planning, system development, implementation, and

network support

• IT Outsourcing Consulting – Requirements analysis; vendor evaluation, due diligence,

selection and performance management; Service Level Agreements

Business Strategy

MTC’s business strategy is to provide extraordinary consulting services and recommendations

to its customers by employing highly skilled consultants and staying abreast of new business

concepts and technology and/or developing new business concepts and best practices of its

own.

Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.

MTC Case Study 11/23/2019 Ver. 1 2

Excerpt from the MTC Strategic Business Plan

While the complete strategic plan touches on many areas, below is an excerpt from MTC’s latest Strategic Business Plan that identifies a few of MTC’s Goals.

Goal 1: Increase MTC Business Development by winning new contracts in the areas of IT

consulting.

Goal 2: Build a cadre of consultants internationally to provide remote research and analysis

support to MTC’s onsite teams in the U. S.

Goal 3: Continue to increase MTC’s ability to quickly provide high quality consultants to awarded contracts to best serve the clients’ needs.

Goal 4: Increase MTC’s competitive advantage in the IT consulting marketplace by increasing its

reputation for having IT consultants who are highly skilled in leading edge technologies and

innovative solutions for its clients.

Current Business Environment

MTC provides consultants on-site to work with its clients, delivering a wide variety of IT-related

services. MTC obtains most of its business through competitively bidding on Requests for

Proposals issued by business, government and non-profit organizations. A small but growing

portion of its business is through referrals and follow-on contracts from satisfied clients. MTC

anticipates it will win two large contracts in the near future and is preparing proposals for

several other large projects.

MTC, as a consulting company, relies on the quality and expertise of its employees to provide

the services needed by the clients. When it is awarded a contract, the customer expects MTC

to quickly provide the consultants and begin work on the project. MTC, like other consulting

companies, cannot afford to carry a significant e number of employees that are not assigned to

contracts. Therefore, they need to determine the likelihood of winning a new contract and

ensure the appropriately skilled consultants are ready to go to work within 60 days of signing

the contract. MTC relies on its Human Resources (HR) Department to find, research, and assess

applicants so that line managers can review and select their top candidates and hire

appropriate consultants to meet their needs for current new contracts. It is very much a “just in

time” hiring situation.

The Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, houses approximately 350 employees. Satellite

offices have been opened in the last two years in both Herndon, Virginia and Bethesda,

Maryland to provide close proximity to existing clients. It is anticipated that new pending

contracts would add staff to all locations. The management team believes there is capacity at

all locations, as much of the consultants’ work is done on-site at the clients’ locations.

Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.

MTC Case Study 11/23/2019 Ver. 1 3

Strategic Direction

As a small to mid-size business (SMB), MTC recognizes that it needs to carefully plan its future

strategy. Considering the competitive environment that contains many very large IT consulting

firms, such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), and Science Applications

International Corporation (SAIC), as well as numerous smaller companies with various skill sets,

market niches, and established customer bases, MTC will be evaluating how best to position

itself for the future and recognizes that its ability to identify its core competencies, move with

agility and flexibility, and deliver consistent high quality service to its clients is critical for

continued success. MTC’s plan for growth includes growing by 7% per year over the next five

years. This would require an increase in consulting contract overall volume and an expanded

workforce. One area that is critical to a consulting company is the ability to have employees

who possess the necessary knowledge and skills to fulfill current and future contracts. Given

the intense competition in the IT consulting sector, MTC is planning to incorporate a few

consultants in other countries to provide remote research and analysis support to the on-site U.

S. teams. Since MTC has no experience in the global marketplace, the Director of HR has begun

examining international labor laws to determine where MTC should recruit and hire employees.

Challenges

Increased business creates a need to hire IT consultants more quickly. Overall, the Director of

HR is concerned that the current manual process of recruiting and hiring employees will not

allow his department to be responsive to the demands of future growth and increased hiring

requirements. There are currently two contracts that MTC expects to win very soon will require

the hiring of an additional 75 consultants very quickly. He is looking for a near-term solution

that will automate many of the manual hiring process steps and reduce the time it takes to hire

new staff. He is also looking for a solution that will allow MTC to hire employees located in

other countries around the world.

Management Direction

The management team has been discussing how to ramp up to fill the requirements of the two

new contracts and prepare the company to continue growing as additional contracts are

awarded in the future. The company has been steadily growing and thus far hiring of new

employees has been handled through a process that is largely manual. The HR Director

reported that his staff will be unable to handle the expanded hiring projections as well as

accommodate the hiring of the 75 new employees in the timeframe required. The Chief

Information Officer (CIO) then recommended that the company look for a commercial off-

theshelf software product that can dramatically improve the hiring process and shorten the

time it takes to hire new employees. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) wants to ensure that all

investments are in line with the corporate mission and will achieve the desired return on

investment. She will be looking for clear information that proposals have been well researched,

provide a needed capability for the organization, and can be cost-effectively implemented in a

Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.

MTC Case Study 11/23/2019 Ver. 1 4

relatively short period of time to reap the benefits. The CEO has asked HR to work with the CIO

to recommend a solution.

Your Task

As a business analyst assigned to HR, you have been assigned to conduct an analysis, develop a

set of system requirements, evaluate a proposed solution, and develop an implementation plan

for an IT solution (applicant tracking system hiring system) to improve the hiring process. You

have begun your analysis by conducting a series of interviews with key stakeholders to collect

information about the current hiring process and the requirements for a technology solution to

improve the hiring process. Based on your analysis and in coordination with key users you will

produce a Business Analysis and System Recommendation Report (BA&SR) as your final

deliverable.

Interviews

In the interviews you conducted with the organizational leaders, you hear the comments

recorded below.

CEO: Samuel Johnson

“While I trust my HR staff to address the nuts and bolts of the staffing processes, what is

critically important to me is that the right people can be in place to fulfill our current contracts

and additional talented staff can be quickly hired to address needs of future contracts that we

win. I can’t be out in the market soliciting new business if we can’t deliver on what we’re

selling. Our reputation is largely dependent on having knowledgeable and capable staff to

deliver the services our clients are paying for and expect from MTC.”

CFO: Evelyn Liu

“So glad we’re talking about this initiative. As CFO, obviously I’m focused on the bottom line. I

also recognize it’s necessary to invest in certain areas to ensure our viability moving forward. I

recognize that the current manual hiring process is inefficient and not cost-effective. Having

technology solutions that improve current process and enable future functionality is very

important to MTC’s success. We must consider the total cost of ownership of any technology

we adopt. MTC is run as a lean-and-mean organization and support processes must be effective

but not overbuilt. We do want to think towards the future and our strategic goals as well and

don’t want to invest in technology with a short shelf-life. Along those lines, we currently have a

timekeeping and payroll system that requires input from the hiring process to be entered to

establish new employees; and to help support our bottom line financially, any new solution

should effectively integrate with, but not replace, those systems.

Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.

MTC Case Study 11/23/2019 Ver. 1 5

CIO: Raj Patel

“As a member of the IT Department, you have a good understanding of our overall architecture

and strategy; however, let me emphasize a few things I want to be sure we keep in mind for this

project. Any solution needs to be compatible with our existing architecture and systems as

appropriate. Obviously, we have chosen not to maintain a large software development staff so

building a solution from the ground up does not fit our IT strategic plan. Our current strategy

has been to adopt Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions that can be deployed relatively quickly

and leverage industry best practices at a low total cost. In addition, our distributed workforce

means we are very dependent on mobile computing – this brings some challenges in term of

portability, maintenance, and solutions that present well on mobile devices. We’ve been

expanding at a rapid rate and are seeking to expand internationally so any solution will need to

be viable globally. And last, but certainly not least, MTC’s success is largely dependent on our

ability to satisfy the requirements of our clients and maintain a reputation of high credibility,

reliability and security. Any security breach of our applicants’ data could have a devastating

effect to our ability to compete for new business as well as maintain current clients. Any

technology solution adopted by MTC must contain clear security measures to control access and

protect data and allow us to use our current security for mobile links. I recognize that MTC can

no longer rely on a manual hiring process to meet these needs.”

Director of HR: Joseph Cummings

“Thanks for talking with me today. I see this effort as very important to the success of MTC.

While the recruiting staff has done an excellent job of hiring top IT consultants, the rapid

growth to date and future plans for expansion have pushed our recruiting staff, and we

recognize we can no longer meet the hiring and staffing demands with manual processes. I’m

also interested in solutions that are easy-to-use and can interface with our existing systems and

enhance processes. I’m willing to consider a basic system that can grow as MTC grows and

provide more capabilities in the future. I’m sure Sofia, our Manager of Recruiting, can provide

more specifics.”

Manager of Recruiting: Sofia Perez

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to begin the process of finding a technology

solution to support our recruiting processes. In addition to myself, there are 2-3 full-time

recruiters who have been very busy keeping up with the increased hiring at MTC; and there are

no plans to increase the recruiting staff. It goes without saying that a consulting company is

dependent on having well-qualified employees to deliver to our customers. We’re in a

competitive market for IT talent and want to be able to recruit efficiently, process applicants

quickly, and move to making a job offer to the best candidate before the competition snaps

him/her up. When I talk with my colleagues in other companies, they mention applicant

tracking systems that have enabled them to reduce their hiring time by 15-20%. I’m so envious

of them and look forward to having our new solution in place before the next set of contracts

Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.

MTC Case Study 11/23/2019 Ver. 1 6

are won and we need to hire 75 (to as many as 150) staff in a 2-month period. I do not think my

team can handle such an increase in an efficient and effective manner. On-going growth at

MTC will continue to increase the demands to hire more consultants quickly. It really seems like

there would be a rapid return on investment in a technology solution to support and improve

the hiring process.”

Recruiters: Peter O’Neil (along with Mike Thomas and Jennifer Blackwell)

“This project should have happened 2 years ago but glad it’s finally getting some attention. As a

recruiter, I’m sort of the middleperson in this process. On one hand, we have the job applicant

who is anxious to know the status of his/her application and fit for the advertised position. It’s

important that the recruiters represent MTC well, as we want the best applicants to want to

come to work for us. Then we have the actual hiring manager in one of our business areas who

has issued the job requisition and wants to get the best applicant hired as quickly as possible.

Obviously recruiting is not the hiring manager’s full-time job, so we’re always competing for

time with other job responsibilities, so we can keep things moving as quickly as possible. They

provide us with job descriptions to meet the needs of clients and look to us to screen resumes

and only forward the best qualified applicants to them so they can quickly identify their top

candidates. Working with Tom, our administrative assistant, we need interviews to be

scheduled to accommodate everyone’s calendars. After the hiring managers make their final

selections of who they would like to hire, it is our task to get the job offers presented to the

candidates – hopefully for their acceptance. Everything is very time sensitive, and the current

process is not nearly as efficient as it could be. Applications and resumes can get lost in

interoffice mail or buried in email; and, when a hiring manager calls us, we often cannot

immediately provide the status of where an applicant is in the process. This can be very

frustrating all around. Speaking for myself and the other recruiters, I have high expectations for

this solution. We need to really be able to deliver world-class service to MTC in the recruiting

and hiring areas to meet the business goals.”

Administrative Assistant: Tom Arbuckle

“I support the recruiters in the hiring process. After the recruiters screen the resumes and select

the best candidates for a position, my job is to route those applications and resumes via

interoffice mail to the respective functional/hiring manager, receive his or her feedback on who

to interview and who should be involved in the interviews, schedule the interviews based on

availability of applicants and the interview team members, collect the feedback from the

interview team and inform the assigned recruiter of the status of each candidate who was

interviewed. In addition to preparing the job offer letter based on the recruiter’s direction, after

a job offer has been made and accepted, I coordinate the paperwork for the new hire with HR

and Payroll to ensure everything is ready to go on the first day. As you can imagine when hiring

volume is up, I’m buried in paperwork and trying to keep all the applicants and their resumes

straight, track their status in the process, and ensure everyone has what they need is very

challenging. I love my job, but want to ensure I can continue to keep on top of the increased

Maryland Technology Consultants is a fictitious company created for the IFSM 300 Case Study.

MTC Case Study 11/23/2019 Ver. 1 7

hiring demands and support the recruiting team effectively. Any tool that would help the

workflow and enable many steps in the process to be done electronically would be wonderful.”

Hiring Manager (in functional area; this person would be the supervisor of the new employee

and would likely issue the job requisition to fill a need in his/her department/team):

“While it’s a good problem to have – new business means new hires — the current method for

screening applications, scheduling interviews, identifying the best qualified applicants, and

getting a job offer to them is not working. My team is evaluated on the level of service we

provide our clients, and it is very important that we have well-qualified staff members to fulfill

our contracts. Turnover is common in the IT world and that along with new business

development, makes the need for hiring new staff critical and time-sensitive. I confess that

sometimes I’m not as responsive to HR as I should be; but although hiring new consultants for

the contracts I manage is important to successfully meet the clients’ needs, this is only one of

several areas for which I’m responsible. I look to the recruiters to stay on top of this for me. In

the ideal world, I’d like an electronic dashboard from which I can see the status of any job

openings in my area, information on all qualified candidates who have applied and where they

are in the pipeline. Electronic scheduling of interviews on my calendar would be a real time

saver. It’s important that we impress candidates with our technology and efficiency – after all

we are an IT consulting company—and using manual processes makes us look bad. And, this

system must be easy to use – I don’t have time for training or reading a 100-page user’s

manual. Just need to get my job done.”

BIDS(71)