Given your plan to establish an advertising firm, this study has been produced to address major problems concerning business demands - software, hardware, and information security requirements depending on the context of your activities. As such, it takes into account the predicted number of employees, the type of their work, and the $25,000 budget.
To begin, your office is divided into departments, each with a different number of employees, such as one financial accountant, one CEO, one office administrator, four graphic designers, two sales accountants, and one creative director. As such, it will be important to fulfil the needs of each department to ensure maximum potential is attained in each case.
First, all departments will require workstations (both laptops and desktops) installed with windows 10. Given that two sales staff work primarily outside the office in different regional locations, they will be given laptops owing to their need for mobility. The rest of the departments will have desktop computers installed in their offices since they will be based at the headquarters.
Second, the different departments will require different software applications as they handle different tasks. However, for communication needs, word processing, and spreadsheet activities, all computers will be installed with the Microsoft Office 365 suite which is a package bundled with the Microsoft Office applications namely, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, One Note and Outlook. Outlook will be configured to enable inter departmental communication as well as outside communication with other organisations.
Third, the graphic design and creative direction department will require additional graphic design software of which I recommend the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. The suite is licensed for different applications that are used. However, given that the business focuses on producing customized flyers, brochures and other branded items, I recommend Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign applications. Illustrator will be used in creating high quality vector graphics that meet the demographic needs while Photoshop will be used for image based graphics. InDesign on the other hand will be useful in performing editorial work such as producing brochures, magazines etc. Workstations used by the creative director and graphic designers will be installed with the three applications.
Fourth, the accountant will require accounting software of which I recommend Intuit QuickBooks which is the industry standard in performing accounting work. The application enables small businesses to manage their expenses, eases invoicing, and generates reports in a user friendly manner. As such, it will also be installed in the CEO’s workstation as well given her need to track inventory, sales and expenses digitally.
Fifth, the office administrator will as well require office management software of which I recommend Bitrix24 Office Management. The software will be installed in the office manager’s workstation from where she will be able to manage client details, important appointments and messages, projects etc. This will be liaised with the relevant departments to ensure effective communication is achieved.
Sixth, the sales accountants who work outside the office will be required to track their leads and client details for easier follow up. As such, I recommend Pipedrive CRM which automates the management of sales, marketing and customer support. Further, the software enables different team members of the sales department to follow up on leads gained during fieldwork and allows access through mobile devices. In addition, it provides statistical reports on progress and allows email integration thereby easing direct communication with the clients.
Therefore, in terms of software solutions, each department will have specialised software to carry out its tasks. However, for easy integration across departments, the CEO will require the accounting software to track expenses and as well, a copy of Pipedrive software in order to visualize sales reports and advice on areas where the business should focus on.
Finally, the company will require to sign up for a premium google cloud account to ease the sharing of files from remote locations.
The software requirements are itemized as follows.
Software
Cost
Microsoft Windows 10
$200 each license x 10 = $2,000.00
Microsoft Office 365 suite
$1300.00 annually for 10 licenses including 50 GB mailbox, 1 TB file storage and sharing, HD video conferencing, Fully installed Office on PC/Mac , Office apps on tablets and phones
Adobe Creative Cloud Suite
$4,000.00 annually for 5 user license including entire collection of 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps including Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC, Your own portfolio website, premium fonts and 20 GB of cloud storage per user
QuickBooks for Windows
$700 annually
Pipedrive
$600 annually for 3 users
Google Cloud Premium Account
$700 annually
Total Software Costs
$9,300
Business Hardware Needs
Given the nature of work done by the different departments, the major investment in hardware will be in the creative department as they will require highly intensive workstations to undertake their graphical work.
To begin with, the office manager, accountants, and the CEO will require average computing devices since their work is not highly intensive.
Their computing devices are itemized as below:
Hardware
Cost
3 Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro with 7th Generation Intel Core i3-7100T CPU, Intel HD Graphics, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Gigabit Ethernet.
$600 each x 3 = $1,800.00
3 17.5 x 17.5 inch monitors with LED displays
$100 each x 3 = $300.00
Total Hardware Costs
$2,100
The sales accountants will require laptops that are energy efficient and portable. I recommend the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 260 itemized as below
Hardware
Cost
2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U CPU, Intel HD Graphics 520, 12.5-inch screen size 1920 x 1080 pixels, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD storage.
$1000 each x 2 = $2,000.00
Total Hardware Costs
$2,000
The creative department consisting of the graphic designers and the creative director will however require high power machines as itemized below.
Hardware
Cost
5 HP All in one desktops 24 inch 4K retina display with Intel Core i7-7500 CPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB storage, AMD Radeon Pro 560 graphics card, LCD Widescreen monitor.
$1,200 each x 5 = $6,000.00
1 HP Color LaserJet CP1215 printer
$800
Total Hardware Costs
$6,800
Thus, total hardware costs for all departments in terms of workstations and a printer total at $10,900
Other important Needs
It is also recommended that the business sets up a secure file storage server in the premises to ease file sharing and to complement the Google cloud platform. I recommend the Dell PowerEdge T20 (Xeon) with specs as below.
Hardware
Cost
Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 CPU, Intel HD Graphics P4600, 32GB RAM, 2TB storage. Up to 12 x USB ports (4 x USB 3.0), 2 x Display Port, VGA, serial, 2 x PS2, Gigabit Ethernet
$2,000
Total Hardware Costs
$2,000
The server will be pre-installed with Windows Server 2016 at $500 and will be ready for use in the office.
Finally, to provide internet connection, I recommend the Cisco RV320 Dual Gigabit WAN VPN Router with secure access, firewall protection, and high performance. This will be purchased at $200 in addition to two Cisco switches each at $80. Network cabling will be provided by Cisco at $100.
From the proposal given above, the total costs of the software, hardware and networking equipment totals to $23,160 which is under budget. Kindly let me know if there are any areas that require further clarification.
Regards,
Name
