Transcript A Guide to Computer User Support

Chapter 8
Product Evaluation Strategies
and Support Standards
Learning Objectives
• How product standards emerged
• Common tools and methods analysts use to evaluate and
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select computer products
How organizations develop and implement product
standards
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User Support Role
in Product Standards
• Support workers often have expertise to evaluate
competing products many employees do not have
• Eliminates duplication of effort if many employees
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individually evaluate products
Support employees can act as liaison between users and IT
staff to represent viewpoints of each group
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How Product Standards Emerged
• Product standards are lists of hardware, operating
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systems, network and applications software products
selected to meet the needs of end users
During 1980s
• Significant incompatibility among computer products
• Incompatible platforms were viewed as a marketing
advantage
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Problems Caused by
Product Incompatibility
• Limited ability to transfer data between systems and
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between users
Excessive inventory of parts required to support multiple
vendors’ systems
Difficulty to train and equip hardware service technicians
User skills not transferable to other systems
Increased cost to support incompatible systems
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Support staff couldn’t be experts on all systems
Training had to be targeted to specific platforms
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Early Development of
Product Standards
• During 1980s, to reduce acquisition and support costs,
companies began to
• standardize on a few selected hardware platforms designed to
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meet users’ needs
adopt standard operating systems, and in the 1990s, standard
network operating systems
limit the choice of application software to a few standard
application packages in each software category
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Methods for Evaluating and
Selecting Computer Products
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Product evaluation is a process of researching and
analyzing computer product features, capabilities, and
suitability to solve specific user needs
Product evaluation process
1. Collect product information
2. Test, compare, and evaluate advantages and
disadvantages of competing products
3. Make decisions or recommendations
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Resources Available to Help
Evaluate Computer Products
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Vendor literature, marketing information, Web sites, and user
manuals
Demonstrations and evaluation software
Product reviews and comparison articles in computer periodicals
and in e-zines on the Web
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An e-zine is an electronic magazine organized like a print
publication, but distributed via the Internet
Opinions from industry experts in trade publications and Internet
news groups
Opinions of employees who have experience with various
products
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Sample Sources of
Product Information: Web sites
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Sample Sources of
Product Information: Trade Publications
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Industry (Trade) Periodicals that
Publish Product Comparisons
• Computing Review
• InfoWorld
• MacWorld
• MaximumPC
• Network Computing
• PC Magazine
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• PCWorld
• Smart Computing
• Tom’s Hardware Guide
• ZDNet
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Software Evaluations
• A software evaluation copy permits support staff to
• try out a product’s features
• assess a product’s ability to meet user needs
• Software evaluation copies
• Distributed via
• CD-ROM
• Internet download
• May have limited features
• May operate for a limited trial period
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Product Decision-making Tools
• Industry standard or best-selling products
• Products used by competitors
• Benchmarks
• Weighted point evaluation method
• Request for proposal (RFP)
• Acknowledged subjective criteria
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Industry Standard
Best-selling Products
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Industry standard products are computer products that are
market leaders in sales
Not really a “standard” defined by an independent organization,
such as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
Advantages
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Can reduce support costs
Likely to be targeted by trade book publishers, training materials
developers, and support service vendors
Disadvantages
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May not meet needs of specialized users
Standards based on market share change over time
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Adopting Industry Standard or
Best-selling Products
• Get user input before making software selection
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decision
Find out which products end users have experience with
Identify advantages and disadvantages of competing
products for specialized tasks
Learn whether users have preferences among products
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Products Competitors Use
• Competitors may have thoroughly researched the market
and identified strategic reasons for adopting products,
especially in niche markets
• A niche or vertical market is a software market that is highly
specialized to a specific industry
• Example: software for title companies`
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of products that
competitors use
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Benchmarks
• Benchmark is an objective test used to compare the
capabilities of competing products
• Benchmarks are unbiased because they use objective
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evaluation criteria that are not influenced by personal
opinion
Benchmarks try to eliminate extraneous variables that could
bias the results of a product comparison
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Benchmarks (continued)
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Benchmarks can be used to evaluate
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Hardware
• Speed
• Capacity
Software
• User productivity
Vendors that provide hardware and software benchmarks
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Business Applications Performance (BAPCO)
PassMark
Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation
VeriTest
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Weighted Point
Evaluation Method
• Weighted Point Evaluation Method uses several
evaluation criteria of predefined importance to arrive at
a numerical score for each product
• also called Kepner-Tregoe method
• Goal: to make the evaluation and selection process as
objective as possible
• Treat competing products equally
• Eliminate favoritism or bias among evaluators
• Force evaluators to specify in advance the
important factors in evaluation
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Steps in Weighted Point Evaluation
Method
1. Decide on evaluation criteria
2. Determine importance of each criterion
3. Rate each product against all evaluation criteria
4. Compute average rating for each product for each criterion
5. Weight the product rating by the importance of the criterion
6. Compute the total rating for each product
7. Compare product ratings
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Examples of Criteria Used in
Weighted Point Evaluation Method
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continued
Example of Weighted Point
Evaluation Results
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The Request for Proposal (RFP)
• Request for Proposal (RFP) is a product selection or
competitive bidding procedure that uses objective
criteria to select among products proposed by vendors
• Often used as the basis for awarding a contract to provide
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computer products
May be a legal requirement for computer selection in public
agencies
An objective product and vendor selection tool
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Primary Steps in the RFP Process
1. Conduct a needs analysis
2. Develop a purchase specification
3. Define
• decision criteria
• importance of each criterion
4. Write the RFP document
5. Send the RFP to prospective vendors
6. Receive vendor proposals
• describes how vendor’s products address user requirements
• bid price
7. Analyze vendor responses to the RFP
• often uses weighted point evaluation tools
8. Select a vendor and award the contract
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continued
Subjective Evaluation Criteria
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Subjective evaluation criteria are factors that are not directly
related to the fit between product features and user needs
Based on:
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personal relationships
convenience
personal preferences
traditional practices
Are neither measurable nor repeatable from one evaluator to
another
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Product Support Standards
• Help control user support costs by limiting the number
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of hardware and software options users can choose
May offer options to balance two extremes
• One-size fits all
• Buy whatever you want
• Often adopted by larger organizations with a substantial
investment in computer technology because the potential
for waste is so large
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How Organizations Develop Computer
Product and Support Standards
• Company computer culture
• Historic computer traditions
• Product standards committee is a group which defines
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computer product standards and coordinates their use
Composed of
• support specialists
• end users
• technical support staff
• management
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Changes in
Computer Product Standards
• Changes in computer product standards may be met
with user resistance
• Users are comfortable with existing standard
• If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
• Changes in standards should
• be discussed with users
• involve users in decisions
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Computer Use Standards
• Acceptable use guidelines are policies adopted by an
organization about how users are permitted and not
permitted to use computer systems
• Activities that are prohibited by organizational policy
• Activities that are illegal
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How Organizations Implement
Computer Product Standards
• Adoption and implementation of product and service
standards is influenced by:
–Investment in existing hardware and software
–Continual arrival of new products, services, and
product upgrades
• Conversion to new standards
• can result in loss of employee productivity during transition
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period
can be phased in over time
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Criteria Used to
Update Product Standards
• New products offer technical improvements
• New product features may improve user productivity
• Employee preferences change over time
• New products offer cost savings
• New products may be compatible with or set new
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industry standards
New products become best-sellers
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Adopting or Modifying Technology
Standards
• Requires analysis and evaluation of products and
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services
Triggers potential support cost increases for installation,
upgrades, training, documentation, trouble-shooting, and
help desk services
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Chapter Summary
• In order to reduce computer product and support costs
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and increase compatibility, many organizations began to
develop product standards during the 1980s
User support staff often evaluate computer products and
services to be able to make recommendations to users
that will meet their needs
Support staff use a variety of information resources to
evaluate computer products
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Chapter Summary (continued)
Aids to product evaluation and selection decisions
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Industry standards
Best-selling products
Products used by competitors
Benchmarks
Weighted Point Evaluation Method
Request for Proposals (RFP)
Product standards are based on
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company culture or tradition
decisions by a product standards committee
Organizations also adopt acceptable use policies to communicate
what uses are and are not permitted
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