Ariba Case Study

Executive Summary

A global pharmaceutical company, MED-X had conducted an Ariba Implementation project in order to transform its current procurement system into an internet-based and self-service organization. During the collaboration with the Implementation Technologies, a consulting firm, the project had been behind the schedule and could not complete the implementation on time.

This report is aimed at finding and exploring the reasons causing the project behind schedule by using the earned value and cost control concept to analyze the project status.  More importantly, the reports intend to discuss how should a project manager access whether the major components at each step have been completed by adopting risk and contingency assessment from overall picture. The conclusion is that         (will be written after the result part.)                                                               . Last but not the least, recommendations will be given for how project manager should conduct the project to meet the scheduled deadline and budgeted cost, at the same time achieve target of the project.

Statement of the Problem

In this report, we are going to use and examine every project factor mentioned in the case to come out a detailed analysis based on our methodology, so we could compare what we conclude with the actual outcome in order to give our reasoning and recommendations.  This report will take a deep analysis to solve the following questions.

Why Martin, the project manager assigned by the consulting firm, realized the project had behind schedule in the late stage. What is cost control and how should the project manager recognize the completion at each critical step. What is earned value and why is it important for project management.  Based on the answer, what experiences should be learned in order to prevent such situation in future.