1 Objective 3: Evaluating the gap between the current

situation of company and its goals to determine the

companys ability to produce the mobile application
The purpose of this objective is to identify various difficulties and contains that may arise, in
terms of application development. As the company X is a food supplier company, it is
essential to identify typical constrains that involve considering existing staff.
1.1

Gap Analysis

A gap analysis approach is proposed for this objective with multiple orientation.
1.1.1

Staff - Development Gap

According to the information provided, it clearly mentioned that development of the mobile
application is out of scope of the company. Still, gap analysis in this direction would identify
total technical staff available at company. Based on these total staff available, staff that are
suitable for the mobile application development would be listed. Based on the preliminary
result, it can be identified that whether the application development must be done at company
x or it must be outsourced. Based on the result of this analysis, further approach can be
decided. The outcome would have high impact on total bid for overall development, as type
of support require from third party would be identified, for example development only,
development and maintenance only, development,

maintenance and operations only,

development, maintenance, operations and support (customer and / or administrative) only.

Thus, gap analysis is in orientation to the type of support that would be required from third
party (out sourcing).
1.1.2

Staff Operational Gap

Next gap analysis would be done on total types of the users / technical and non-technical that
will be involved in usage of the application. Based on outcome of previous analysis, total
services to be done in house and total services to be out sourced would be determined.
Though, there must be few operational users, who would involve in real-time use cases of the
mobile application. The gap analysis in this context would be in accordance to the post
development of the application, where real-time usage is expected. Here, current strategies of
handling orders would be analysed and how the transition would take place, when orders are
received by mobile users through developed mobile application. Furthermore, the gap
analysis would be divided in two parts. One part would identify total operational users,
(technical or non-technical) that would be involved in taking up and processing orders. The
outcome of this analysis would identify resource from the existing staff of company X, who

must get involve at different stages of processing orders, in context to users orders through
the mobile application. For example, a mobile user can order few food products. There must
be a staff in company who must be notified with the order and must start further process. In
addition to this, the analysis shall provide details on whether such operating user must be
given with additional training or not. If additional training is required, based on the result of
gap analysis, the total resource who must be considered as operating user and must be trained
(if required) will be clearly identified. Thus, the training duration would be added to time to
market of the product launch, as it cannot be used in real-time unless and until, the operators
of company X are not able to manage or understand orders received from mobile application
and unable to decide on what to do next and how to do. The second part of the analysis shall
be dependent of total in-house resource, who would participate or act as stakeholder, in
development and/or usage of mobile application. Furthermore, if any, what types of training
they must be given with if necessary? What is the impact of such training on business needs?
1.1.3

Staff-Maintenance Gap

One more analysis would be done, on total operation and maintenance requirement. This
analysis would detail on how the out sourced Development Company (or in house) would
deal to the operation and maintenance staff. The application would support various users and
would require IT hardware and physical resources. Thus, this analysis would identify how the
hardware and where the hardware would be deployed (cloud or in storage) in order to make
application live. Moreover, it shall decide total operational maintenance strategies to be
followed. For example, the application might deal with payments and if history of payment is
lost due to improper technical knowledge within in house staff, it may lead to legal issues.
Thus, this analysis would identify how technical support and maintenance of the deployments
would be handled.
1.1.4

Staff-Customer Support Gap

This gap analysis would outcome in a strategy on how in house staff would respond to the
issues or troubles faced by the customer. Particularly for this analysis, it would be assumed
that support is not related technical issues, but in terms of business needs. For example, a
customer found bad quality of food product, or have complains in the received food product
like delayed delivery. Thus, whether the existing staff is cable of handling such client queries
and issues, would be analysed in this section. If not, the section would further extend on how
or what training must be given to exiting staff or new support staff must be resourced.
Moreover, the availability of the staff, to be working in shifts or working only in the regular

shift in order to provide customer support, would be one of the outcome of this gap analysis.
This would be helpful as, currently staff may not be trained to handle client. Similarly,
current staff may not have 24 hours of shift, who can provide customer support.
This gap analysis report would outcome for one of more of the following in summary:
1. Capacity of support required from third party (out-sourcing).
2. Requirement for technical and non-technical training for in-house staff.
3. Decision between hiring resource (on contract or employee) or to be outsourced.
1.2

SWOT Analysis

The gap analysis approach identified whether particular application can be developed in
house or not and unto what extent. In addition to this, each and every approach as decided
must be done with SWOT analysis. For example, if an approach is considered in hiring entire
development department, that would develop mobile application in house and would take
care of other IT needs of company X, it may end up taking more time in development and
have delayed time to market. Thus, it impacts on business. For every approach in accordance
to the outcome of gap analysis there must be a SWOT analysis performed. SWOT analysis
provides a report on how a particular approach (or entity) is better, lagging, used optimally
and unfavourable environments to be avoided.
1.2.1

Identifying Strength

The S stands for the strength of the subjected entity. This explains on where and what,
particular entity shows strengths. For example, approach of outsourcing development have a
strength that no technical complications are required to be handled by company and company
can work in same manner they were working before without any hard transition. It must be
noted that each such approaches would have their own strengths. Thus, based on working
environment the best suitable approach must be in correlation to the identified strength of the
approach.
1.2.2

Identifying Weakness

The W stands for the weakness of the subjected entity. This explains a typical scenario where
particular approach or entity shall fail to serve. If such failure is part of the business needs, it
may result in losses. Thus, weakness analysis of each approach must be performed. For
example, if existing staff are used for customer support without any external training (due to
time constrain or cost constrain), it may end up, end users frustrated and annoyed. This would
have impact on business. Thus, each approach identified as outcome of the gap analysis per
performed with the weakness analysis. For optimum approach, the weakness of subjected

approach must be theoretically uncorrelated to the business needs. If in case, an approach is

used which have weakness to one of the business need, it evolves requirement of further risk
analysis and risk management plan.
1.2.3

Identifying Opportunity

The O stands for the opportunity of the subjected entity. This explains a typical scenario
where particular approach or entity shall consider is as opportunity and can handle it in best
possible manner. It is best to have an approach that have opportunity as one of the core
business need. For example, if an approach as outsourcing customer support is considers, as
one of the outcome of the gap analysis, it considers dealing with multilingual customers as
opportunity, as most of the customer support outsourcing companies provides option for
multilingual and regional language support. Based on this, it would have direct gain in
business needs. For example, a frustrated customer can be handled well when talked in
regional language, rather than supplementary language. Usage of supplementary language
which is not being used on regular basis like usage of English by non-English person, can
make him more frustrated in finding proper channel to communicate and explain exact
problem. Thus, opportunity is a component that is good in have in approach that is one of the
outcome of gap analysis, and having direct impact on business needs, though, not mandatory.
1.2.4

Identifying Threats

The T stands for the threats of the subjected entity. This explains a typical scenario where
particular approach or entity shall consider particular objective or environment as threat. For
example, an approach of outsourcing hardware and customer data have a threat of personal
and financial information being altered. Thus, for any approach as outcome of the gap
analysis, the threat must be in least correlation to the business requirements. If due to any
reason, if particular approach is chosen that have threat as one of the direct or indirect
business needs, further analysis would be required in identifying the risks involved and
management to mitigate such threats, if occurred.
1.3

Cost Analysis

The gap analysis and SWOT analysis can filter best approaches to be used in accordance to
the objective. However, as different approaches are expected as the outcome of gap analysis
and SWOT must have multivariate conclusion, an additional parameters would be require, for
cost. The expected outcome of this approach is to identify total cost involved in each and
every approach, as outcome to the gap analysis. Thus, while comparing gap analysis, the cost

factor consideration would aid in choosing the best approach that a company can make use
of, in order to fulfil the aim. The cost analysis would involve various cost, like development
cost, maintenance cost, one time cost, recurring cost and recurrence interval, customer
support cost, technical support cost and other miscellaneous cost. Each approach would have
a sum total of each sub cost and thus, a final cost of approach. Moreover, a time of market
would also be considered as one of the cost, as delay or early to market have direct impact on
business needs and profits.

1.4 Summary
The objective is to choose on strategies to be considered for mobile application development
and operative usage. It evolves a gap on identifying the capability of existing companys staff
in accordance to providing with development, and/ or support and / or maintenance, and
many other approaches. Furthermore, in order to choose the optimum approach, SWOT
analysis would be conducted on each of these approaches and various strengths, weakness,
opportunities and threats that fits with business needs must be chosen. In addition to this, the
SWOT analysis must also consider the cost of each approach. As each approach is assumed to
be having wide difference in cost, a single level of cost analysis would not be considered and
a second level of cost analysis, which includes time to market must also be considered. For
example, in house development can save thousands of revenue, but in trade-off with time to
market. Thus, the loss due to delayed time to market must also be considered while
considering the approach cost. Thus, based on the outcomes of all these approaches, in
collaborative method, one and only one approach would be concluded and would be utilised
to achieve this goal.