Analysis - The company needed a new stock control system, they would have identified in the analysis stage that their current stock control system was not sufficient and a new on would be needed.

Decision - Therefore, the company would have made the decision that a new stock control system would be required, based on the information found in the analysis phase. The budget for this task would be decided here also.

Agreement - The decision would then have been discussed with the other employee within the business, ensuring they agree with the idea and are happy to go ahead with it.

Planning - The time allocated to building the new system would be agreed on here and a plan to build this would be made using Gantt and Pert charts.

Implementation - The changeover of systems would occur, so the new stock control system can be used by the company.

Assessment - An evaluation of the new system would be made, if any problems are identified then changes could be made.


Consulting staff when changes are being made:
- Setting up meetings between higher level staff ie. managers with lower level staff to discuss the changes being made. This will ensure they fully understand the changes that are going to take place and are happy with them, they will also be able to offer suggestions to help the change take place smoothly.

Make changes occur easier:
- offer training days to staff, ensuring they understand the change and will still be able to work efficiently with the change being made / ensuring they have the appropriate skills to be able to work with the change.

Keeping staff morale high with changes being made:
- By discussing the changes with staff and getting their views on the change it will make them feel valued by the business and thus keep staff morale high.


Training off staff - ensuring the staff have the appropriate skills and a re taught these skills through training sessions.

Data migration - The conversion of data from the old system to new.

Switching over - This is the point at which the old system is switched off and the new one is switched on.

Disaster Recovery - A plan that has been put into place to restore the old system if the new system fails.

Help Systems - Even after training, staff will need to have a support system in place if they need help. This may be part of the system itself or it may be a help desk with trained IT staff on hand.

Business process change - Most systems are there to support some business process within the organisation. The current process should be analysed to see if changes are required because of the new system. Expert staff should be consulted as part of this analysis.

Custom Vs Off The Shelf

Custom Vs Off The Shelf 

Off the Shelf Advantages: 

• It is relatively cheap
• It is easily available from most computer shops
• It will have been thoroughly tested so there won’t be any serious problems or bugs
• There will be lots of user support i.e. books, user guides, online help and discussion forums on the Internet
• Available immediately

Off the Shelf Disadvantages: 

• No access to original developers
• May not meet all client needs
• Large memory footprint
• Lots of ‘unneeded’ features

Custom Advantages: 

• The company will get the exact software/system that they need
• The software will work exactly how they want it to work
• The software will only have the features that they specifically need in their business.

Custom Disadvantages: 

• It takes a long time to develop such a system, between a few months to  years.
• It costs a great deal of money to develop such a system. 
• The company may need to employ a team of people such as business analysts, programmers, testers etc.
• There will be little in the way of user support and online help.

An online ordering system for a small company. [Essay]

Both off the shelf and custom made software could be purchased by the small company for an online ordering system. Off the shelf software is much cheaper in comparison to custom, therefore this software is likely to be more appropriate for a small business as they are likely to have limited funds to spend on this software. As well as this the small company's needs for the software are not really specific, there's already off the shelf software that would meet the requirements of the small business, therefore it would not be necessary to spend extra money on custom made software.

The off the shelf software would be available to the company immediately, where as they would have to wait time for the custom made software to be built, therefore it would be beneficial for the business to use off the shelf software. 

The small company may also not be experts at using software's / systems, therefore off the shelf software would be more appropriate, this is because there is lots of support available such as user guides and online help. Therefore, if the company was to have any problems, then lots of help would be available to them in order to solve the issue. Whereas, this would not be the case for custom made software, if there was problems with this they would have talk to the original developer, which may be difficult.