The Role Of Cloud Computing Technology In Driving XYZ Company’s Business Operations

Benefits of Cloud Computing for XYZ Company

This report depicts the role rather impact of Digital technology in XYZ company for driving their business operations. Digital technology is capable to minimize the issues of traditional business operations. In order to mitigate the issues related to data management the company should adopt Cloud computing technology.  With the help of cloud computing, three main components that XYZ Company will be able to gain are application resilience, data backup and disaster recovery.  

In the new era of technology, digital technology is referred to as one of the most widely used a phrase that helps to drive a business towards massive commercial success. In addition to commercial success it also helps to obtain competitive advantages from the marketplace. In order to transform the business activity in terms of business operation it is the necessary for the owners to adopt accurate digital technology. For carrying out a project, the Chief Operating Officer is responsible to choose the most suitable digital technology for their business.  

Project aim

The aim of the project is to incorporate cloud computing technology to the business of XYZ Company for driving its operation towards massive commercial success. Cloud technology provides a huge and secured storage to the company with a disaster recovery and backup feature. Cloud storage can be easily accessed due to its user friendly nature.

• To determine the current business operational status of the company
• To incorporate cloud computing technology to the operational activities of the business
• To design proper operational flow in terms of project planning, cost, scope, time and quality planning for the products and services delivered by XYZ company  

Cost

XYZ Company has a manual data management system where the chance of man-made error occurrence was very high. This approach was time consuming and inefficient as well. In order to transfer the traditional rather manual data management system to cloud technology based storage, total cost that has been estimated in $25,000.00.

The scopes of this project are as follows:

• To define and analyze the current status of the company in terms of business operation
• To incorporate cloud computing technology in XYZ company for improving their operational and functional activities
• To shape the workplace environment in such a way so that it can minimize the issues of traditional data management

Considering the background of the existing business operation of XYZ Company it has been found that in order to implement cloud computing technology to its business operation, 8 months are required. Thus, it can be said that aim of XYZ Company is to implement cloud computing technology within 8 months within the estimated budget of $25,000.00.

It is expected that the quality of both the products and services served by XYZ Company will improve a lot with the implementation of cloud computing technology. Among the three different cloud computing architectures such as IaaS, PaaS and SaaS XYZ should adopt IaaS platform for performing all necessary business activities.

In order to avoid inter organizational and intra organizational conflict the project manager is responsible to maintain proper communication approach to ensure that, all the project team members are sharing their creative ideas about the cloud computing technology implementation along with the rest of the project team members. There are three different types of project communication approaches available such as open communication, upward and down communication those are widely followed. For each of the project activities different project team members are responsible.

Challenges to Implementing Cloud Computing Technology

Among three of these communication approaches the project manager should adopt open communication. Open communication helps the project manager and rest of the project team members to share their view points with others.

While implementing cloud computing technology in XYZ Company, there are certain challenges those may interrupt the success of the company eventually.  The list of risks those are needed to be avoided by the project manager for successfully implementing cloud computing technology in the business. A risk register should be prepared to avoid unwanted situation during the implementation of cloud computing in XYZ Company. The developed Risk register is as follows:

Risks	Probability	Impact	Mitigation strategy
Data security and privacy	Very high	Extreme	Proper encryption algorithm is needed to be developed by the  application programming manager and operation manager to avoid  unauthorized information access.
Cyber attack	High	High	Strong password and stronger server security approaches are needed to be implemented.
Issue with the Existing infrastructure	High	Very high	The infrastructure of the company should be analyzed appropriately before the implementation of any new technology to it.

In order to implement cloud computing technology in the business operation of XYZ Company, certain resources are there who have to play active roles to deliver as per the desire or expectation of the project owners and consumers.  For this particular project the project resources are project manager, finance manager, application programming manager, operation manager, system developer and system analyst. All of the above mentioned resources are internal human resources associated to the Company whereas; another important resource of the XYZ Company is the Cloud service providers. There are many active providers are available however, based on the operational background they should choose the most suitable external resource to gain commercial revenue and competitive advantages as well.

Resource Name	Type	Material Label	Initials	Group	Max. Units	Std. Rate	Ovt. Rate	Cost/Use	Accrue At	Base Calendar
Project Manager	Work		P		100%	$20.00/hr	$0.00/hr	$0.00	Prorated	Standard
finance manager	Work		f		100%	$12.00/hr	$0.00/hr	$0.00	Prorated	Standard
operation manager	Work		o		100%	$14.00/hr	$0.00/hr	$0.00	Prorated	Standard
system developer	Work		s		100%	$10.00/hr	$0.00/hr	$0.00	Prorated	Standard
system analyst	Work		s		100%	$10.00/hr	$0.00/hr	$0.00	Prorated	Standard
application programming manager	Work		a		100%	$12.00/hr	$0.00/hr	$0.00	Prorated	Standard

WBS	Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Resource Names	Cost
1	Project initiation	62 days	Mon 4/16/18	Tue 7/10/18		$13,568.00
1.1	Understanding business background	10 days	Mon 4/16/18	Fri 4/27/18	Project Manager	$1,600.00
1.2	Identifying business resources	12 days	Mon 4/30/18	Tue 5/15/18	operation manager ,Project Manager	$3,264.00
1.3	Analyzing resources	14 days	Wed 5/16/18	Mon 6/4/18	Project Manager	$2,240.00
1.4	Feasibility study	12 days	Tue 6/5/18	Wed 6/20/18	finance manager, operation manager	$2,496.00
1.5	Project budget development	15 days	Tue 6/5/18	Mon 6/25/18	Project Manager	$2,400.00
1.6	Considering on demand self services	14 days	Thu 6/21/18	Tue 7/10/18	operation manager	$1,568.00
2	Project planning	47 days	Tue 6/26/18	Wed 8/29/18		$4,416.00
2.1	Risk management planning	1 day	Tue 6/26/18	Tue 6/26/18	Project Manager	$160.00
2.2	Procurement management planning	12 days	Wed 7/11/18	Thu 7/26/18	operation manager	$1,344.00
2.3	Quality management plan	10 days	Fri 7/27/18	Thu 8/9/18	application programming manager	$960.00
2.4	Resource management plan	8 days	Fri 8/10/18	Tue 8/21/18	operation manager	$896.00
2.5	Resource pooling	6 days	Wed 8/22/18	Wed 8/29/18	operation manager	$672.00
2.6	Evaluating cloud computing technology	4 days	Wed 8/22/18	Mon 8/27/18	application programming manager	$384.00
3	Project development	25 days	Thu 8/30/18	Wed 10/3/18		$4,464.00
3.1	Basic prototype design	4 days	Thu 8/30/18	Tue 9/4/18	system developer	$320.00
3.2	Developing business catalog	3 days	Thu 8/30/18	Mon 9/3/18	operation manager ,system analyst	$576.00
3.3	Approving business catalog	4 days	Wed 9/5/18	Mon 9/10/18	Project Manager	$640.00
3.4	Confirming host providers	2 days	Tue 9/4/18	Wed 9/5/18	operation manager	$224.00
3.5	Installing necessary software	4 days	Tue 9/11/18	Fri 9/14/18	Project Manager, system analyst	$960.00
3.6	SLA development	3 days	Mon 9/17/18	Wed 9/19/18	operation manager	$336.00
3.7	Infrastructure consideration	6 days	Thu 9/20/18	Thu 9/27/18	application programming manager	$576.00
3.8	IaaS platform adoption	4 days	Fri 9/28/18	Wed 10/3/18	application programming manager ,operation manager	$832.00
4	Testing	9 days	Thu 10/4/18	Tue 10/16/18		$880.00
4.1	Unit testing	2 days	Thu 10/4/18	Fri 10/5/18	system analyst ,system developer	$320.00
4.2	Integrated testing	4 days	Mon 10/8/18	Thu 10/11/18	system analyst	$320.00
4.3	Final implementation	3 days	Fri 10/12/18	Tue 10/16/18	system developer	$240.00
5	Closure phase	11 days	Wed 10/17/18	Wed 10/31/18		$1,616.00
5.1	Post maintenance planning	4 days	Wed 10/17/18	Mon 10/22/18	Project Manager	$640.00
5.2	Final document submission	3 days	Tue 10/23/18	Thu 10/25/18	operation manager	$336.00
5.3	Stakeholder signoff	4 days	Fri 10/26/18	Wed 10/31/18	Project Manager	$640.00

References

Abdelmaboud, A., Jawawi, D.N., Ghani, I., Elsafi, A. and Kitchenham, B., 2015. Quality of service approaches in cloud computing: A systematic mapping study. Journal of Systems and Software, 101, pp.159-179.

Baek, J., Vu, Q.H., Liu, J.K., Huang, X. and Xiang, Y., 2015. A secure cloud computing based framework for big data information management of smart grid. IEEE transactions on cloud computing, 3(2), pp.233-244.

Botta, A., De Donato, W., Persico, V. and Pescapé, A., 2014, August. On the integration of cloud computing and internet of things. In Future internet of things and cloud (FiCloud), 2014 international conference on (pp. 23-30). IEEE.

Braglia, M. and Frosolini, M., 2014. An integrated approach to implement project management information systems within the extended enterprise. International Journal of Project Management, 32(1), pp.18-29.

Chang, V. and Ramachandran, M., 2016. Towards achieving data security with the cloud computing adoption framework. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, 9(1), pp.138-151.

Heagney, J., 2016. Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.

Heldman, K., 2018. PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons.

Joslin, R. and Müller, R., 2015. Relationships between a project management methodology and project success in different project governance contexts. International Journal of Project Management, 33(6), pp.1377-1392.

Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Manvi, S.S. and Shyam, G.K., 2014. Resource management for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud computing: A survey. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 41, pp.424-440.

Marcelino-Sádaba, S., Pérez-Ezcurdia, A., Lazcano, A.M.E. and Villanueva, P., 2014. Project risk management methodology for small firms. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.327-340.

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Rittinghouse, J.W. and Ransome, J.F., 2016. Cloud computing: implementation, management, and security. CRC press.

Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Svejvig, P. and Andersen, P., 2015. Rethinking project management: A structured literature review with a critical look at the brave new world. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), pp.278-290.

Too, E.G. and Weaver, P., 2014. The management of project management: A conceptual framework for project governance. International Journal of Project Management, 32(8), pp.1382-1394.