Consultancy to develop a Business Investment Decision (BID) tool

We are seeking a qualified consultant/firm to develop and implement a comprehensive Business Investment Decision (BID) tool. This project involves creating both a web-based portal and an MS Office Excel-based tool utilizing Macros. The scope of work includes design, development, testing, validation, and training. The ideal consultant/firm will have experience in web development, Excel Macros, user interface design, and training delivery.

Objectives

1. Collaborate with Technical Team
   • Work closely with our technical team to design the interface for the BID tool by looking at the follow of financial calculations and steps involved in connecting various financial statements. In addition, understand the needs of the potential users of the tool on the financial aspect of the business.
     The tool will include modules for the Business profile, environment, Workflow, Costing, Financial Statements, Capital structure, Budgeting, Valuation, Business Strategy. The system should integrate the Generative AI in providing specific business strategies to the user
   • Develop a web-based portal and an Excel-based tool using Macros.
   • Include intensive financial calculation backend and users need to provide minimum information.
2. Tool Development
   • Create the tool for both the web-based and Excel-based tools.
   • Conduct trials with potential users and stakeholders to gather initial feedback.
3. Validation and Feedback
   • Validate both versions of the tool with potential users and stakeholders.
   • Collect detailed feedback for further refinement.
4. Tool Revision

Revise and enhance the tool based on the feedback received from users and stakeholders

5. User Manual Development

• Develop comprehensive user manuals for both the Excel-based and web-based tools.
• Develop a video-based or animated video-based extension materials for operating the tools.

6. Integration with CIP Seed Systems Toolbox

• Collaborate with the CIP ICT application team to integrate the BID tool into the Seed Systems Toolbox.
• Ensure seamless linking of all tools within the Seed Systems Toolbox.
• Upload user manuals and other relevant documentation into the Seed Systems Toolbox.

7. Development Requirements

1. Programming Language. PHP, Python, and other modern languages can be used.

2. Third-party components. Front-end and back-end third-party components or libraries can be used and must be detailed including any fixed or variable costs attached. All components must provide equivalent security and support levels.

3. Programming standards. Consultant must share its development and documentation standard for: organization or source code files; commenting code; declaring and naming variables, modules, functions, files, and libraries; database naming conventions (for tables, procedures, functions and other objects); and adhere to such standards during development.

4. Source Code Licensing. As per CIP Open Access Policy, software developed for CIP becomes CIP’s intellectual property under the GNU GPL license. Additional details are in CIP’s Software License Implementation Guidelines.

5. Source Code Management. During all development stages, the source code must reside on CIP’s GitHub source code repository.

6. Reporting and analytics. Functionality should be provided preferably via Power BI and Microsoft Fabric infrastructure. Application data should be consumable through either native APIs or setup of Power BI gateway or similar middleware that allow reporting integration.

7. Mobile Responsiveness. Web versions of the application must be responsive, which means it can be fully used on a mobile phone with a 5-inch screen or larger, and a tablet with an 8-inch screen or larger.

8. Mobile operating system compatibility. Mobile apps must run equally well on the latest 3 versions of Android and iOS, at the time of integrated testing.

9. Web browser compatibility. Web versions of the application must run equally well on the latest 2 versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, both on desktop and mobile devices, at the time of integrated testing.

10. Mobile Marketplaces. Mobile app versions of the application must be available on Google Play and/or Apple AppStore under CIP’s developer account.

11. Testing. Must be in complete alignment with business requirements and performed at two levels:

12. Unit tests, or test of individual functionality and modules, mainly performed by developers and technical testers.

13. Integrated tests, or test of all modules and components tested at once by users.

    8. Non-functional requirements

    Scalability. Expected 120 – 200 users after 1 year, with a maximum of 1000 over the next few years.

    1. Availability. Downtime is maximum 1 hour/month. Uptime required is 99,8%
    2. Usability. User interfaces must be developed following a known standard or framework such as the Nielsen Usability Heuristics.
    3. Branding. All CIP and project branding (use of colors, logos, and other institutional visual identity items) must be coordinated with the Communications Department and the respective research project donors and partners.
    4. Application language. British English.

    9. Training Delivery

    1. Provide training to key users and stakeholders on how to effectively use the tools.

    2. Technical team, on the operation of the system and an overview of the development.

       10. Hosting and Domain

       1. Hosting. The backend of the production environment of the application must reside on CIP’s Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure accounts:
          1. Cloud hosted database, for relational databases on MySQL or PostgreSQL on AWS or SQL Server on Azure.
          2. Cloud hosted web server, running on Apache on AWS or IIS on Azure. In any case using a secure connection (HTTPS with TLS 1.3 or later). The certificate will be provided by CIP.
          3. Domain name. The development and production version of the application must reside under cipotato.org or cip.cgiar.org domain names.

    11. Documentation

    1. Development
       1. Business Requirements documentation
       2. Architecture Overview. A high-level description of the system architecture, components, and interactions, to ensure alignment with sprint goals.
       3. Design Documentation. Detailed specifications for system design, including diagrams, data models, and interface definitions, to guide development efforts.
       4. API Documentation. Documentation for any APIs developed as part of the sprint, including endpoints, parameters, request/response formats, and authentication methods.
       5. Unit Testing plan and results.
       6. Integration Test Plans and results. Plans for integration tests to validate the interaction between components developed during the sprint.
       7. Database model and data dictionary.

    User Manuals

    1. Administration Manual

       1. User Manual

       Reports/Deliverables

    2. The consultant is expected to develop the following modules with their respective sub-modules and measures:

    3. Operations

       1. Workflow Stages
          1. Workflow process
       2. Scenarios

    4. Costing Module

       1. Costing
          1. Cost per unit
       2. Pricing
          1. Price per unit / Customer segments

    5. Financial Statement Projections

       1. Balance Sheet
          1. Projected Balance Sheet for 5 years
       2. Profit and Loss
          1. Projected P&L for 5 years
       3. Cash Flow Statements
          1. Projected Cash Flow Statements for 5 years
       4. Working Capital Management
          1. Working capital requirements, Working capital calendar

    6. Financial Statement (FS) Analysis

       1. BS, P&L, CFS Analysis
       2. Profitability Measures
          1. NPV, IRR, Payback period, Profitability Index
       3. Liquidity Measures
          1. Cash ratio, Current Ratio, Quick ratio
       4. Efficiency Measures
          1. Break-even analysis, Inventory Turnover ratio, Assets Turnover ratio, etc.
       5. Sensitivity Analysis

    7. Capital Structure

       1. Solvency Measures
          1. Debt to Equity ratio, Solvency ratio, Interest coverage ratio, etc.
          2. Budgeting
             1. Sales Forecast Modules
             2. Expenses Budgeting Modules
             3. Production/Operations Budget
             4. Cash Flow Forecasting Module
          3. Valuation
             1. Income-Based Approaches
                1. Discounted Cash Flow, Earnings Capitalization Approach
             2. Other/Market-Based Approaches
                1. Net Assets Value
          4. CIP Seed Systems Toolbox integrated with BID tool.
          5. Training sessions and materials for users and stakeholders.
          6. Technical deliverables
             1. Source code.
             2. Documentation.
             3. Environment according to CIP standards: backup plan implemented, monitoring plan implemented, vulnerability management implemented,
             4. Training delivered.

Application set up and configured as requested (security, access control, domain, certificates