Phillimore Maids Agency THE CONTEXT

Philimore Maids Agency is the first ISO certified employment agency in Malaysia. Established in 1991, it provides employment services for maids, workers and professional placements. It provides maids of different nationalities and religions. Philimore has three offices in Kaula Lampur and is a registered member of Malaysian Association of Maids Agency.

Image source: www.philimo.com

Clients, families and corporates, can use the services of Philimore for various services like applying for new maids and transferring maids or formal workers, among other services. While maids are for household work, formal workers are meant for office jobs. Typically, such employment is contractual with a two-year contract between the employer and the maid. Philimore works as an intermediary and earns on commission basis. Over the two decades of its existence, it has added many value added services to its list of offerings such as: Search for suitable candidates from their existing database Training (and retraining) of maids in household activities such as cleaning, cooking, serving etc. Free consultation and legal advice on maid matters Free transportation Free air transfers Cheap air tickets Maids personal insurance Maids salary remittance

Any one, who intends to get a service from them, needs to first register with the agency. To hire a maid or formal worker from Philimore, the client needs to share the family income and other particulars required as per the agency and government policy. Aligned with its vision to excel as a leading maids agency in Malaysia fulfilling the needs of its valued customers and stakeholders and its motto, we can do better, Philimore has crossed many milestones towards
This authentic assessment was prepared by Professor Kamna Malik. The information presented here has been compiled from published sources and is not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.

providing value services to its clients and is always on the look out for new ways to serve. The facilities offered by Philimore have received a positive feedback from clients. They find the maids reliable, trustworthy and capable. Philimore has a website that gives basic information about the agency and its services. It also offers some skeleton online features to reach out to them with your requirements or problems. However, most of the front-end services as well as back-end work are still managed manually.

Image source: www.philimo.com

However, in view of the growing demand of their services and the emerging market trends in household services, it is time for Philimore to consider streamlining their back-end systems so that in the next phase, they can consider offering a wider range of services to a larger spectrum of customers across the geographies. Given that its current usage of information technology (IT) is very less, their IT team is not well equipped to handle serious applications. The management feels it necessary and appropriate to involve an external expert who can help them define the scope of automation to accommodate their current and future service offerings.

THE TASK
One of the promoters of Philimore met you recently in a social gathering. Having known that you have a formal background in Analysis and Design, he invited you to act as an external expert and advise them on the scope and scale of activities to consider for automation. He gave you a basic idea about their services and directed you to their website. You have a meeting with them in their premises the following Monday. The purpose of this meeting is to get the discussions rolling about the scope of automation and also possibilities for future extensions.

GUIDE TO THE TASK

Study the website and capture the business domain of Philimore. Advise them on the current and future possibilities of automating their services.
This authentic assessment was prepared by Professor Kamna Malik. The information presented here has been compiled from published sources and is not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.

To be prepared for the Monday meeting, you should browse through the website of Philimore and make your notes around the following aspects of business analysis: Model the business activities of Philimore using case diagrams and sequence diagram. If felt appropriate, you may also prepare an activity diagram. Suggest priorities for these business activities, as you deem appropriate. Model the key business objects and their interactions using a class diagram. Understanding such inter-relations will help them decide which objects need to be in or out of scope for application development. Suggest reasons to convince the promoters that it is possible to have extensible software design ie, new services can be added to the software application without disturbing the earlier ones. Suggest two options for a software process model that their development team can adopt to build the application in a systematic manner. Indicate your recommendations with reasoning.

Remember to restrict your focus purely on business/application domain and avoid entering into other dimensions such as technology infrastructure and marketability.

Authentic Assessment Authentic assessment is a form of assessment in which students are required to perform tasks that demonstrate the meaningful application of knowledge to situations that mirror the kinds of problems they are likely to face in the real-world. An authentic assessment item can be used to facilitate student learning in a number of ways, such as in-class discussion, as an individual assignment, a group assignment or for examination purposes.

This authentic assessment was prepared by Professor Kamna Malik. The information presented here has been compiled from published sources and is not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.