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Mercedez Benz Essay

Decent Essays

MERCEDES-BENZ USA:
INVESTING IN IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Question 1. How should Settle and his team evaluate the e-learning option? What factors should they consider when deciding between eLearning and traditional, classroom-based education?
Settle should evaluate the eLearning option based on the following principles for delivering value:
(1) Have a clearly defined portfolio value management process. In the case, Settle has had a basically financial budget already. There are two vendors that clearly listed to choose, one is RealServer, and the other is Microsoft.
(2) Aim for chunks of value. ELearning would enable MBUSA to scale its training systems without building additional training facilities. It improves employee productivity by …show more content…

(6) Other factors like student access to computers and bandwidth availability is not a problem. Because I have mentioned before that Greg Settle would apply eLearning to a number of technicians that exceed the classroom capacity, those who have access to computers to take the on-line courses.
In conclusion, the web-based distance learning option benefits MBUSA more than adding a training center does.

Question 2. Build a financial model to determine if MBUSA should invest in eLearning. Should MBUSA make the investment? What are the key drivers of value?
Generally speaking, budgets are means to implement IT strategy, linking the long-term goals of the organization and the short-term goal execution through the allocation of resources to activities. According to the MBUSA financial model in the excel sheet, the NPV of adding a training center is -$167,737,828.11, while the NPV of building web-based distance learning is -$141,952,163. To pick the one with higher NPV, MBUSA should invest in eLearning.
The key drivers of value are:
(1) The distance learning system would enable MBUSA to scale its training systems without building additional training facilities, instructor salaries, administrative staff, and building utilities and maintenance.
(2) The distance learning system would eliminate the costs of videotapes and other documentation.
(3) NetSTAR would eventually reach all dealerships in the MBUSA network.

Question 3. What are the key factors that

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