Recommendations

Recommendation #1

According to the information from our analysis, BMW of Roxbury is using hardware that is significantly outdated. We believe this is preventing them from working in a sufficient and effective manner. The hardware is the primary component that allows BMW to manage their sales, service, and parts operations. With the hardware being so outdated it does not enable them to take full advantage of the information systems that Reynolds and Reynold offers. It is imperative that they make these updates to carry out their business process more effectively.

Our first proposal is to buy all new modern hardware, which can run all the latest software that Reynolds and Reynolds have to offer. This new technology will allow the dealership to work in an up to date manner and perform efficiently, and, in turn, make more money. There are many leads and potential service and parts sales that are passed up due to the slow manner of the old technology, the new technology would allow the internet and software to capture every lead and turn it into business.

Our second proposal would be to lease hardware from a company, so we always have a updated hardware system, and we can stay up to date every other year when new technology is made available. Updating of new technology would maximize performance when it comes to speed and ability of the computers and other hardware

Solution: The best possible solution for keeping up to date with hardware is hiring an outside company to provide computers and other hardware at a monthly fee. Outsourcing this function would save us from wasting money on buying new computers and other hardware every few years. It can also help us stay up to date and provide the company with more efficient and faster technology at lower costs. Purchasing computers would make sense if computers were worth something in a few years but once technologies are updated the previous model is almost worthless. These outside companies could also provide software on the computers that are most up to date and accurate. BMW of Roxbury speciality is providing customers with cars; their strong point is not computers, so outsourcing something like this would be a good solution for them.

Recommendation #2

The analysis also indicated that BMW's mainframe in managed within the company, which doesn't have the qualified IT team to handle technical issues.

Our first proposal is to hire a decent IT team or have someone knowledgeable on staff at each dealership. Training a current employee would be a great idea because it would save money and time. Due to having them on staff at all times and the computers systems are not too complicated if someone has the proper training.

Our second proposal would be outsourcing the mainframe to Reynolds and Reynolds. Outsourcing the mainframe would help tremendously because the mainframe computer is often crashing and when that happens all the dealers in the Open Road Auto group lose access to their phone and computers since its run on the same network. Also, the mainframe computer is not up to date as it would be if Reynolds and Reynolds were in charge of it.

Solution: The solution would be to outsource the mainframe computer to Reynolds and Reynolds. Outsourcing of the mainframe would be financially wise to the company because it would save money by not having to upgrade the computer constantly and it would not crash all the time like it currently does. This solution would also allow BMW of Roxbury to have the most up to date software systems on their computers.  Allow for better lead retention and a better overall business performance due to having the state of the art software.