RFP Case Study: Classroom Application in the Real World

Transcription

1 RFP Case Study: Classroom Application in the Real World David GORE School of Technology Studies, Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197, USA and Marie LEE School of Technology Studies, Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197, USA and James CASTEEL School of Technology Studies, Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197, USA ABSTRACT The promise of cost savings and new applications with the use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), has fueled convergence in the business world and prompted the need for new courses in the field of technology. The Telephone Technology course provides students with hands-on experiences working with VoIP, telecommunications billing, assessment, and documentation. Cost savings can also be realized through a simple analysis of existing costs, which often fund new projects. Therefore, case studies utilizing authentic data, incorporating billing analysis, building technical baselines, and creating requests for proposals have benefited not only students by providing them with marketable and applicable skills, but also business through potential cost savings in current and future technologies. Keywords: Case Study, Request for Proposal, Telecommunications, Telephony, Communication, Transmission, Pedagogy. Introduction Theory in the classroom can provide a great basis of knowledge for students through interaction in the classroom, lectures and books. However, other methods of instruction can also provide students with an even more insightful grasp of information and how to apply it to working world situations they will find themselves in upon graduation. One of these is the authentic, application of theory in the form of a case study. According to Tellis (1997): The case study methodology has been subjected to scrutiny and criticism at various times since the 1930 s. As a research tool, it has not been a choice that is listed in the major research texts in the social sciences. However case study is a reliable methodology when executed with due care. The literature, while not extensive, contains specific guidelines for researchers to follow in carrying out case studies. Yin and Stake have designed protocols for conducting the case study, which enhances the reliability and validity of the investigation. For many students and businesses, the case study and the design of a request for proposal assignment, ultimately proved to be much more valuable than a mere classroom assignment. The relevance of working with real data greatly increases the comprehension and retention of the concepts since, in this particular case, significant savings to a company are a result of the classroom project. Background of Telephone Technology Course The Telephone Technology course at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) was developed in response to industry input provided through yearly meetings of an advisory board. Business owners and managers comprise the Advisory Board and guide curriculum development as they will be the ultimate consumers of the product that the EMU provides upon graduation. A junior-level course, Communication Transmission Systems, has been part of the Communication Technology curriculum since its inception twenty-six years ago. In 2001, especially as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) began to show promise as an important, cost-saving technology development (Enyeart, Staman, and Valdes Jr. 2007), the need for technicians to understand both voice and data technologies was becoming apparent. Many colleges and universities had courses and programs in computer and data technologies, but few were focused on telecommunications. Luke (2007) indicated that the synergies between the voice and data technologies should be explored through an academic course. To fill this

2 need, the Communication Technology program created the hands-on laboratory course, Telephone Technology, designed to incorporate physical, technical, and analytical skills used by professionals in the information technology and telecommunications fields. One of the primary developments that have been challenging for industry is the convergence of voice and data. The concept of convergence has evolved significantly during recent years. Today, convergence refers to the integration of the communications and computing resources and services that seamlessly traverse multiple infrastructures and deliver content to multiple platforms or appliances. There are three levels to convergence: infrastructure, appliances, and services. All three work together, with the ultimate goal of allowing access to and the delivery of any service to any appliance, to and from anywhere and over any medium, be it wired IP (Internet Protocol), wireless IP, or mobile cellular devices (Enyeart, Staman, and Valdes Jr. 2007). Traditionally, the voice and data technicians worked independently of each other on their respective systems and only coordinated efforts when a department was moving in or moving out and a representative of each would meet with the customer. Today, as voice is becoming an application on the data network, the voice and data technicians are merging duties. Typically, the data technicians are given the responsibility of dealing with the voice stuff as it is viewed as a data application (Enyeart, Staman, and Valdes Jr. 2007). Many voice technicians have moved to positions where they are supporting legacy systems or into other lines of work. Companies have pursued convergence to gain efficiencies in their telecommunications services and support, as well as to gain some enhanced services such as voic , fax, and messages in a unified messaging system on the computer desktop (Enyeart, Staman, and Valdes Jr. 2007). The additional challenge of convergence is a lack of understanding within a business of how technology is billed by telecommunications companies. Typically, the people within a business that handle the accounts payable, are not technically savvy, not do they want to be. The technical people within an organization are typically involved in the ordering processes and troubleshooting of technology, but are not consulted when bills come in each month. The financial people are ultimately the ones who sign contracts for services, often based on the need indicated by the technical staff and the recommendation for cost savings by the telecommunications representative. What is often overlooked is the 1 year to 5 year plan for technology within the business which can lead to poorly formulated contracts for service. Added to this, telecommunications companies make frequent errors on the bills causing overages, missed charges or coding errors (Kuehn, 2004). Figure 1. Errant voice mail charge Errors are costly and time consuming to fix, which is why the telecommunications companies count on the people in accounts payable to continue to pay the bills without challenging items that are incorrect. This disconnect between accounts payable and the technology professionals is complicated by the fact that disconnect, or change of service orders made by the technology department are not seen by the accountants, thus if a service continues to be billed erroneously, neither area is even aware of the mistake. It therefore becomes the perfect, costly, Catch-22 for the business. Kuehn (2004) calls this prevalence of errors in the telecommunications industry the open secret that both the information and financial officers are aware of, and the telecommunications representatives freely admit. A lack of knowledge (primarily) and a lack of time (potentially an excuse used due to the lack of knowledge) prevent organizations from looking at, documenting, investigating, and correcting billing errors. Without knowing exactly what technology is in use and billed for, it is very difficult to manage changes in a technology for the benefit of a business. The designer and instructor of the Telephone Technology course has incorporated a module on telecommunications billing to help students learn to recognize errors on bills and the steps to take to obtain corrections and refunds as well as calculate monthly and yearly savings. Students who will find themselves in management and technical lead positions, by applying these billing analysis skills, can gain not only advantages over their competition in job searches but also find money in the budget and financial justifications to fund technology projects. Creating a Request for Proposal (RFP) Assignment As technologies continue to converge, graduates will be faced with the challenge of assessing business needs in terms of combined applications. By modeling real world

3 problems in the classroom, students can practice technology analysis skills as well as writing reports and creating detailed Request for Proposals (RFPs) as needed to meet the needs of a particular business goal. The RFP Simulation in CMT 408 Telephone Technology is to teach this complex business process and includes the following activities: - Document the technical baseline at the company dmarc (telecommunications company point of demarcation in a building), document with pictures and record all lines and circuits; determine line and circuit use through phone list comparison and/or by calling each number; collect telephone bills to analyze charges, contracts, and determine billing anomalies; copy or create current floor plan with location of all telephones, computers, fax machines, modems, other devices connected to a voice or data line, as well as unused wall jacks. - Assess need determine if all lines billed for are in use; determine CIO and management three to five year technology plan (if one exists); create technical questionnaire for end-users to determine current use of technology, issues with connectivity, and roadblocks preventing employees from performing their duties efficiently; create interview questions to determine needs and applications of technology with departmental managers. - Write the technical specifications gather technical needs of a converged system and create the RFP document. As industry professionals would likely confess, in the real world, RFP documents are often borrowed and subsequently altered to meet the specific need of the authoring organization. For the purpose of the Telephone Technology course, technical need is documented through gathering the technical baseline and creating a plan for gathering the needs and wants of end-users without requiring the production of a unique, customized RFP document. - Prioritize requirements determine the most important technological needs of the company. Itemized technical specifications in a section of the sample RFP are weighted on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest priority. Exercises throughout the course, including a detailed explanation of rubrics, illustrate that different companies can have different priorities and those priorities often affect objective decision making. However, companies can be equally successful (or fail) with different technology/application priorities. - Determine the response parameters the RFP document includes how and when proposal responses should be received. As technology changes, the way in which a company responds to proposals has also changed. Paper documentation is often substituted with electronic submissions. The scope of this class does not include/require an actual proposal response. - Prepare for assessment (weighted priorities) sample proposals are presented to each group and must be analyzed in the most objective manner possible. In order to maintain objectivity, and not be overwhelmed with the volume of responses, creating an assessment rubric is essential to sound decision making (Gore, Lee, & Caines, 2008). Case Study Each semester, students are encouraged to use a real company for which to develop a request for proposal for a new telecommunications system. The first two steps in the process, Documenting the Technical Baseline and Assess Need, are critical to determining what is currently in use as opposed to what the company may be paying for each month in the phone bills. The use of real data, and analysis of that data, provided by the case study, allow for the application of theory to a real life business situation. Bills from the telecommunications providers are often voluminous and very difficult to dissect. A great deal of time is required to accurately asses the validity of the items on a billing statement. Current telecommunications bills are often a first step in creating a technology baseline as well as determining if there are any potential unused services or errors that could lead to cost reductions and refunds. During the Fall 2008 semester, one of the students in Telephone Technology class, James Casteel, decided to utilize his company, Hamtramck (Hamtramck, MI) Public Schools, as the company to work with for the various class assignments. James has been working for Hamtramck Public Schools for almost 10 years. As a student, he has been able to apply knowledge he has gained from the Communication Technology program in the work place. As a student, the hands on activities and applications to real life work situations have enabled him to make significant contributions to his employer. Hamtramck Public Schools began planning a VoIP system installation over a year ago. All of the planning and preparations were made by the organization, but preparing a baseline of current technology was never conducted. The organization did not identify current technology or costs when determining the need for a new telecommunications system. As part of the Telephone Technology course, the RFP case study incorporates the process of creating a technology baseline. One of the most basic, yet most important, pieces of the technology baseline is a telecommunications billing analysis. Simply sitting down and looking at all monthly bills that deal

4 with the telecommunications for an organization can be a very eye-opening experience. As billing inaccuracies are often as high as 50% (Kuehn, 2004), there are often errors that should be identified and corrected before making major changes to any telecommunications system. It is possible that phone companies can overcharge and have the errors go unnoticed as people often do not look at the itemized bills and simply pay the bills month after month as long as the charges remain approximately the same. In the case of Hamtramck School District, upon investigation of the bills for their 10 separate physical locations/buildings, it was found that they were being grossly over-charged. The first major issue found during analysis was they were paying state and federal taxes as a tax-exempt organization. Figure2. State sales tax being charged to a school. The second major issue was that they had not appropriately negotiated a service contract. In the first month of a twelve month contract cycle, the organization had already reached 30% of their yearly commitment when they should have only been at about 8.5% (no major changes were made to the billing to cause this issue after the contract was enacted). Figure 3. 30% commitment as of 1 month. The third major issue was that many of the phone lines were slammed (reassigned to a long distance carrier without the consent of the customer) with costly long distant charges. Figure 4. Slammed carrier charges. The fourth major issue was that billing has continued for disconnected lines that were taken out of service three years ago. Figure 5. Pay phone disconnected 3 years earlier. Finally, the last major issue was the cost of long distance calls. There are several lines that are being charged more than 20 cents/minute, far more than the discounted rates that school districts in Michigan are eligible for. Figure 6. Excessive long distance charges. Upon initial review of the bills, the school district is paying almost $1,500 per month in taxes which adds up to $18,000 per year, representing 17% of their current telecommunications expenditures. There is much more investigation to conduct that will result in additional refunds and monthly reductions through billing corrections. Next steps in the process include ordering customer service billing records from the telephone company for each bill, accurately determining the amount of state and federal charges that have been assessed, finding the disconnect orders for the phone lines and requesting that billing be stopped and a refund be issued, creating documentation detailing all of the billing inaccuracies and errors, determining if lower per minute costs can be attained, and meeting with a representative from the billing company to negotiate refunds, charge reductions and new contracts. Some of these tasks are in progress as of the writing of this paper, and the carrier has promised to reimburse the school district for the previous 6 years, or a $70,000 refund which represents 69% of the total annual telecommunications expenditures. Upon completion of these tasks, Mr. Casteel anticipates sizable recurring monthly savings, as well as a happy employer. As another example, during the Fall 2007 semester, one of the student groups used a local hotel as their company to complete the RFP assignment. Upon investigation of the dmarc, which was a disorganized closet where the telecommunications company had brought dial tone and circuits into the building, the group found that there were

5 many lines that were labeled that did not match up to the phone lists for the administrative offices. practical application to develop these skills. Clearly, the case study, as opposed to a lab exercise utilizing canned data, has not only more significant educational value but also has the additional benefit of recouping lost expenditures and reducing operational costs for those companies or businesses involved. Conclusion Figure 7. A typical dmarc closet with many unlabeled lines. The team s next step was to examine the telephone bills from the business. After consulting with the instructor, they discovered there were several items that seemed to be suspect, specifically a $75 charge per month for each of the two pay telephones, as well as several lines with no visible usage. This business realized an estimated $900 per month or $10,800 per year in savings related to the analysis and investigation of the bills and telephone lines. These are significant savings for a mid-sized company allowing a student to use their telecommunications systems to assess and audit for a project. Case Study Academic Value and Application In the academic realm, research is held in the highest esteem. However, not all studies necessarily need to be held to the strict standards associated with statistical research studies. The case study, in its more informal approach, can be very effective as a tool for gathering information and reaching logical conclusions that do not need a level of certainty in order to prove valuable. The case study approach is a comparatively flexible method of scientific research. Because its project designs seem to emphasize exploration rather than prescription or prediction, researchers are comparatively freer to discover and address issues as they arise in their experiments. In addition, the looser format of case studies allows researchers to begin with broad questions and narrow their focus as their experiment progresses rather than attempt to predict every possible outcome before the experiment is conducted ( study). Each time the Telephone Technology course is offered, at least one of the groups have been able to obtain real data through a company that is willing to allow physical access to the telecommunications closet as well as bills for service. This use of case studies reinforces theoretical concepts taught in the course through the hands-on, Given the potential value of the case study completed in the Telephone Technology course, more research should be focused on the partnership of business and academics through the use of these activities. For an organization, financial managers have a difficult time determining what to pay for technology and technicians have not documented the technology in use within an organization. Without a technical baseline, an organization cannot accurately articulate its need for new technology nor effectively manage its existing technology. This type of case study provides a solid, applicable framework for learning, in a supported, academic environment. As billing inaccuracies are often as high as 50% (Kuehn, 2004), the skills learned will be applicable to any business setting, on an ongoing basis, no matter what position in which the student will eventually work. References Enyeart, M., Staman, E.M., and Valdes Jr., J.J. (2007). Convergence is Real. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 2 (March/April 2007): w/convergenceisreal/40694 Gore, D., Lee, M., & Caines, A. (2008). IT Proposal Assessment Teaching Rubrics Through RFP Simulation. In Proceedings of SITE 2008 Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education 19 th International Conference. Gore, D. & Lee, M. (2007). VoIP: A Curriculum Approach to Technology Convergence. In Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2007 World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications. Kuehn, R.A. (2004). Billing Accuracy: Still Miserable After All These Years. Business Communications Review. June 1, 204. Luke, C. (2007). As Seen on TV or Was That My Phone? New Media Literacy. Policy Futures in Education, Volume 5, Number &issue=1&year=2007&article=4_Luke_PFIE_5_1_web

6 Tellis, W. (1997). Application of a Case Study Methodology. The Qualitative Report,Volume 3, Number 3, September, (