NETWORK DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT PROJECT

Network Design and Management Project

Table of Content

Introduction3

Project scope5

Design requirements6

Business goals7

Technical goals8

User Communities And Data Stores9

Network Applications9

Current State Of The Network15

Logical design16

Physical design18

Results of network design testing19

Implementation plan20

Project budget20

References22

Executive Summary

In the last decades several big changes in technology, society, economy and politics, have seriously modified the environment in which enterprises operate. Market globalisation and deregulation, together with big privatisations of public companies in many states, allowed new players coming from emerging economies to compete in traditionally domestic markets on one side, and opened interesting internationalisation opportunities that only big companies could exploit before, on the other. Customers are nowadays much more aware and demanding in their purchasing behaviour, asking for high quality products and services, willing to pay low prices and considering also environment impacts. Business context became therefore more uncertain, dynamic and complex. Efficiency, which had been the most important critical success factor of previous years, characterised by a stable demand, low complexity products and lower competition, can no longer guarantee survival on the market. Enterprises then started to respond to these changes developing new innovative products, offering advanced services, adopting new production strategies, such as Just In Time or Flexible Manufacturing, widely using Information Technology resources and implementing new management and organisational practices. Current business trends determined a move from vertically integrated companies towards flexible network organisations, where the ability to quickly and efficiently set-up, maintain, develop and dissolve partnerships with business partners is a critical success factor. The aim of this paper is to propose a set-up methodology in order to maximise the probability of long term Networks success. This paper underlines the need to consider several critical aspects that have to be fulfilled, emphasizing the importance of the main environment variables.

Network Design and Management Project

Introduction

Despite the fact that Business Networking and strategic cooperation networks are emerging as a valuable organisational instrument that can create considerable competitive advantage for small firms, unfortunately, its practical implementation is very complicated. Some studies estimate that up to 60% of the alliances fail to meet their initial objectives [Ellis, 1996], in a clear indication that there is still a lot of work to be done regarding the creation and management of these networks [Caldeira, 2004]. This is due to the complexity of several dimensions that the concept of Business Networking implies and to some confusions and lacks arising from the fact that the argument only started to be treated as a managerial and organisational topic a few years ago. The first difficulty arises from the need to define and agree among Network participants about the meaning of a Business Network (FREY, 1999).

Many definitions can be found in literature treating the network using the social approach or the business approach. However, there is too little systematic knowledge about the structure and the behaviour, of enterprise networks of integrated, multi-dependent nodes. In fact, one of the main findings and recommendation of the think creative project points to the urgent need to invest time and effort into creating a sound ...