7.1 Lexington Brokerage

Lexington Brokerage is a small firm, not terribly well known, but aggressive and eager to become a major player in its industry. In a competitive analysis, Lexington executives have discovered that other brokerages have been offering speech recognition, instead of standard touchtone systems, in their call centers. They have met with industry analysts, who suggested that not only have the systems provided significant cost savings, but also brokerage customers are very satisfied with them. The analysts reported that customers prefer speech to touchtone systems and that they appreciate the easy access to their accounts and up-to-the-minute information on the performance of their portfolios. One analyst described a survey he performed in which customers of brokerages with speech offerings rated their brokerages higher on customer service.

Lexington has a touchtone system that provides stock quotes and basic account information. The executives have decided to create a speech system in order to expand the firm's automated offering to include trading and portfolio information, and to provide customers with an easier-to-use, more intuitive interface. They expect the automation of telephone trading to lead to significant cost savings.

We have just signed a contract to design, develop, and deploy the system. Lexington wants to deploy quickly, although it is concerned with achieving a high-quality result and making the deployment process smooth and predictable. We enter the first phase of our project: requirements definition.