Project  – Cyber Software, Inc.

 

Cyber Software, Inc. is a medium size manufacturer of cyber protection software products.  The company has gross sales of 20 million dollars. Expenses are approximately 8 million dollars leaving an after tax profit of 10 million dollars per annum.  Some of their major clients include local retail businesses as well as state and municipal governments. One medium sized client is the Baltimore City Government. Yesterday, the city found that their website was hacked and credit card information provided to pay water, sewer, real estate tax, and parking tickets was accessed.  It was suspected that the hacking was part of the recent attacks by Russian cyber thieves.

Joseph Jackson is the CEO and owner of the corporation.  Fortunately for Jackson the company was able to respond quickly and only 275 people were affected by the hacking.  However, this was a wakeup call for Jackson.  He knew that if he was to continue growing the business he would have to develop better software as well as faster clean up procedures for the victims.  Jackson felt it was imperative that the company always remain on the cutting edge of the industry so that his customers felt safe and trusted the company’s work.  He takes pride in the fact that the company has been capable of keeping his client’s information safe.  In reaction to the break in at the City, and wanting to keep their business moving forward,   Jackson realizes that several changes need to take place.  First, the vision and mission statements in place need revision.

The existing vision statement of Cyber Software, Inc. is:

          The top software security company that strives to provide the best protection to our customers.

The existing mission statement of Cyber Software, Inc. is:

          Help customers secure information through innovative services

Second, Jackson decided that he would set up a separate division to work on new program development and a third division to focus on victim clean up and damage control.  He thought the third division would provide a good selling point to potential new clients as none of his competitors offered this service.  The new development division required the hiring of four new program developers with extensive cyber security background.  They all had good skills and some had actual experience in helping to uncover a few cyber thieves in the Target incident. They were creative and motivated to help protect people from having their property stolen. Knowing the nature of programmers Jackson did not structure the new development division.  Their progress or program approach was left to the programmers.   In fact, Jackson, in general, tried to keep the company as a whole free from a bureaucratic or structured environment. A year into the project the four programmers began to diverge so much in their programming approach that it became extremely expensive and in some ways they were wasting resources by covering similar ground.  Nobody could agree as to which course of action was most effective.

In the current client/customer service division two programmers were hired as well as two experienced credit specialists, and two paralegals.  Further, the division’s lack of structure has allowed a few strong personalities to emerge and he individuals cannot seem to get along.  Like the new development division, customer service seems to be spinning their wheels in developing standard procedures and credit protection help for victims.

Also, both divisions were pulling people from their existing clients to help work on the project.  Jackson knew that interfacing with ongoing work would help but it was ad hoc and disturbing existing work.  Jackson could see that he would have to rethink his position on structure and “free” work environment if the company was to continue to grow.

It’s time for an organizational structure and plan.  A review of the budget revealed that the company could afford to allocate $1,500,000 to the operation of the two divisions before they would have a sellable product. Existing salaries and expenses are $750,000.  This means that they have one year to get all viable projects on the market.