François Chung, Ph.D.

Sofico project @Puebla, Mexico (2015). In this project, we are gathering and analyzing both business processes and requirements expressed by Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS) México for the implementation of Miles, which is a flexible software for automotive finance, leasing, fleet and mobility management. This requirement gathering and analysis (RGA) phase is a necessary step to determine the needs, or conditions to meet, for a customized implementation of Miles in Mexico.

In practice, the RGA phase consists in workshops in which both gaps and possible conflicting requirements of the various stakeholders are taken into account, analyzing, documenting, validating and managing business requirements. At VWFS México, main stakeholders are the different departments (e.g. pricing, IT, cash collection and accounting), as well as Volkswagen headquarters. As for the requirements, they are not only driven by stakeholders, but also by market needs and legal aspects specific to Mexico.

During the workshops, Sofico and Volkswagen met to discuss business processes in various functional domains, such as:

• Accounting;
• Contract management;
• Credit scoring;
• Incident management;
• Invoicing;
• Products and pricing;
• Quoting;
• Relation management;
• Repair, maintenance and tires;
• Vehicle ordering and delivery.

Within the team of software implementation consultants, my role consists in discussing, clarifying and taking note of the requirements expressed during the workshops by the various stakeholders with respect to their business processes. These requirements are then analyzed and documented at the office and finally validated through video conference with the stakeholders.

References