Mortgage Brokerage Firm

Company Website

Toby Hermel, Chris Taylor, Shirley Flowers, Wendell Knowles, Miguel Garcia

CMGT410

Deborah Ray-Sims

January 9, 2008

Company Website

Background and Statement of Need

NMC Mortgage Brokerage Firm (NMC) is an organization that has grown from seven (7) offices located on the east coast to nearly 30 offices nationwide. The organizational growth began with the merger of NMC and LM Real Estate Services in 2004. The merger has created an organization that is dedicated to providing the best services to its employees and customers. Their primary focus is to give all customers access to loan and lending information online. The use of the internet will give NMC a flexible platform for their information-based services. NMC needs to create new strategies and business processes that will unify the organization with their customers.

NMC's business goal is to provide commercial mortgage placement services to individuals and organizations. In order to streamline operations and increase business, the CEO, Margie Hemphill, believes that providing information related to mortgage placement, servicing and lender requirements on their company website will increase business since current and future customers will have immediate access to all information and services offered. The Statement of Need given by Margie Hemphill addresses the importance of providing clients access to company information and it seeks solutions to the successful implementation of an internet based system that will demonstrate such services.

With the merger of NMC Mortgage Brokerage Firm and LM Real Estate Services a new website needs to set up to give our customers online interaction with their financial accounts. Since mergers can cause chaos while companies become one, we will need to start this process by having one unified company website which our customers can visit and see their account information.

Project Objectives

A project of this size will take some time and we hoping to have the new site up during the 3rd quarter of 2008. The current board of directors has approved a budget of $350,000 to provide funds to get the project completed. We must be aware of the cost as we go forward with the project so it doesn't run over our budget. If we end up running over the budget no more funds will be available until 2009 after the new budget has been approved. Our current Information Technology department will be overwhelmed with maintaining existing websites while trying to rebuild a new website. New hires may be needed in this department or outsource some of the work to a consulting firm. The key will be to produce a reliable and user-friendly website which will meet our estimated traffic requirements while designing the project for potential growth and expansion.

* Have the website up and running by the 3rd quarter of 2008

* Website must contain the following or be

o User friendly

o Customers must be able to access their accounts and make transactions worry-free (transactions will secure and encrypted)

o Support page

o Contact page

o Login page

o Company background, mission and value statements

o New products and services page

o Customer accounts page

* Needs to reliable

o Redundant servers

o Redundant firewalls

o Primary and Secondary Internet connections for broadband

* Any plan must take in account possible future growth and expansion

Mission and Goals

The primary goal of this project is to design and implement corporate web site for the NMC. The web site will afford all customers, both commercial and individual, with services that will functionally streamline operations and increase business. This e-commerce tool will effectively enhance the organization's mortgage placement, servicing and lender requirements on the company website and will increase business due to customers having instant and immediate access to all information and services offered.

Web site development and implementation will be tasked to the company's internal information technology department. Due to the fact that enhancements will take considerable time and effort, additional IT support personnel may be hired or outsourced during the project's duration. This will ensure that existing users and IT functions are not neglected during this time of growth.

The project's operational structure will be defined as follows:

* Development and design of the NMC Mortgage Brokerage Firm's corporate web site. This design will take place with the input of all stakeholders within and outside of the company. NMC values the opinions and inputs of all customers and will consider all suggestions.

* Development of necessary infrastructural needs for this project. This may include both hardware and software requirements. Site connectivity will also be developed further.

* Training for all users, customers and vendors.

* Implementation of the corporate web site.

This operational structure may be modified as needed to meet the project's goals within the context of resources available.

Project Approach

The overall approach to this project will be to use the SDLC methodology to gather requirements, design the internet site based on those requirements, create, test the design, and implement the design.

Requirement analysis phase will identify current and new functional requirements and areas of improvement for the internet implementation. The requirement analysis phase will conclude with the completion and review of the requirements document. The requirements document