[281] in magellan
Online Credit Card Processing Report 9/23/99
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lorraine J. Rappaport)
Thu Sep 23 18:13:33 1999
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Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 18:12:21 -0400
To: magellan@mit.edu
From: "Lorraine J. Rappaport" <ljr@MIT.EDU>
Project name: Online Credit Card Processing
Project leader: Lorraine Rappaport
Report date: 9/23/1999
Project url: http://web.mit.edu/is/discovery/ccard
Accomplishments past period:
- Met with SAP to discuss their credit card processing functionality of the
Customer Relationship Management module. This module is still in
development, so we kindly suggest some functionality that we thought they
should build in!
- Began to wrap up discussions with internal merchant groups. We haven't
yet been able to connect with a couple key groups, but will make a last
attempt. We have received terrific input. There is clearly a lot of
interest out there.
- Continuing to compile the business case, refine the details of the
design, and formulate a viable business model.
- Drafted article for I/S Newsletter on general issues relating to online
credit card processing
Goals for coming period:
- Firm up business case to have focused discussions with sponsors, et. al.
regarding issues, strategies, options, etc.
Issues:
- One of our potential vendors - the frontrunner - is getting really antsy.
There is some risk that they will pull themselves out of the running if we
don't make a decision soon. This result would be very unfortunate given
that their product appears to be the best fit both product-wise and
time-wise.
Regardless off how serious the risk really is, it is an unfortunate fact
that we (I) have spent a significant amount of time doing vendor management
that should have been spent doing other project tasks.
That raises the question (and a future meeting topic?): when during the
discovery project is the right time to engage vendors? When does it help
to have vendor/industry input early on to add to the data gathering? When
does it hurt?
