Proposal Help....please.?

Question

I'm currently working to better my department, so right now I am doing a proposal letter so I can present to my boss. I am working to try and reconstruct my department and need a little help to make sure my proposal is on point....can you please tell me what you think and please let me know if anything should be added by showing a line or 2. I been working on this proposal for almost a month now and I want to make sure this proposal really impressed management :) Thanks advance for all your help.

Objective:
To purchase office fixed assets/furniture for the Billing Department to improve overall customer experience and employee satisfaction. Also, protect the business monetary from the risk of security breach.

Background:
• Inadequate internal control procedures
• Multiple complaints regarding Billing Department appearance, lack of privacy & comfort while completing transactions in the department.
• Employees collect and count money in an uncontrolled environment without any security prevention measures in place.
• Lack of safety procedures in place creates an exposure that place employees and students at risk.

Goal of Project:

• Provide employees with a comfortable environment to promote productivity.
• Improve safety and limit risk of theft by providing a more secure work environment.
• Assure exemplary customer service experience at Imation.
• To display Imation as an organized professional establishment.
• Prevent staff and students from injury due to hazardous wires and cords, which can lead into unwanted lawsuits.

Project Scope:
• Relocate Non Billing staff to make room for seating area
• Full Cubicles for more privacy
• Paint for clean environment

Financials / Investments:

• Open to reducing budget to fund department needs.
• Improvements will help secure weekly cash collections
• Through improvements we expect favorable customer experience which will lead to higher rate of return.
• The budget for this improvement is open to Management discussion (pictures are included).
Goals & Measurement of success:
• Customer Survey – A mailbox will be put outside of the office and comments will be reviewed on a bi-weekly basis.
• Reduction in oral complaints by student and parents.
• Manager and Staff to attend seminars relating to Customer Service.

Answer 1

I think it is far too wordy and confuses what you are trying to say. For example, is your objective really to spend money? That is what it says ... objective is to purchase etc etc. An offer to spend money usually has little appeal to managers who can always think of lots of things they would like to spend money on. I think your objective is to improve the appearance of the billing area, make it more secure and offer improved privacy to customers. You are going to achieve that by some rearrangement of the area, purchase of new furniture and doing some redecorating.



Just go through cutting out all the redundant crap and you will then have a reasonable proposal - impress by clarity and simplicity, not by elaboration.

Answer 2

Eliminate the purchase of new furniture, customer survey mailbox, and paint. They will not increase revenue.

If staff were expected to take customer service courses, that's a separate proposal.

You are throwing too many unrelated items together. There is no proven cause and effect. Business economics shows what, at mimimum, worked within their budget in the past.

Did your boss ask for an overhaul? No? This is not professional level.



Look at sample business proposals.

They get to look at a 5-10 line executive summary, at most. If you fail to convince them it's significant and desirable then, the rest won't matter. You lost the cause.



Write much more, in a full proposal. This is just an outline. It's not logically proceeding from assumptions to conclusions. Please retry.



If nobody has gotten hurt yet, all you need to put in are simple inexpensive cord controls to manage wiring. Those exist, at less cost than buying cubicles.



Employee happiness is not the objective of most businesses. Sorry, it's productivity and profitability.

Answer 3

Hi Berna, a good business case template that I bought a year back helped me to determine EXACTLY what I wanted to achieve and how to do it. The business case template that I bought online was specifically written as a (professional guide to structure and content). It was put together by a team of CEO's, CIO's, CFO's, Project Managers and consultants, it is well-structured, easy-to-follow and highly recommended.