PROJECT SELECTION CRITERIA AND A HIGH LEVEL PROCESS/ TUTORIALOUTLET D PROJECT SELECTION CRITERIA AND A HIGH LEVEL PROCES | Page 3

In Part 1 of the project, the new Vice President (your instructor) of
your Strategic Business Unit had asked you to create a portfolio
management process and project selection criteria for use by the SBU.
It is now time to apply this process in selecting this year’s projects for
your portfolio.
In the annual budget cycle, your SBU was allocated $24 million
dollars of funding uniformly spread over the next year for your
portfolio. This means you have $6 million dollars to spend any given
quarter. You may select any of the below projects to be included in
your portfolio, but you cannot spend more than the allotted dollars
allocated to your SBU. Your task is to select those projects, using
your selection criteria, that most benefit the overall company without
exceeding you quarterly budget of $6 million dollars. You must also
lay out a plan for what quarter your selected projects will start in.
Below are your possible projects:
Project Call Center
Currently you have no call center to address customer complaints or
accept orders. Customers must use the internet to fill out an online
form to address their complaints or service needs. These forms are
processed by employees in your department. Currently the turnaround
time on any given form is between four to eight hours. This creates a
number of other customer complaints. Project Call Center is designed
to reduce this turnaround time by 75% by creating and staffing a call
center in Tampa. Building acquisition, building renovations, building
fit out, IT system upgrades, and hiring and training of staff are
estimated to cost $8.5 million dollars. This $8.5 million dollars can be
paid evenly in any two quarters in the next year. In addition, seven
new employees will need to be hired at $40,000 burdened labor costs
per year to staff the call center. Management of this project could
easily be done with the current in-house staff. Most of the work of
this project would be outsourced and w ill have minimal impact on
day-to-operations.
Project Ordering Upgrade