Reference no: EM131394153

For the final project in this course, you are being asked to apply the concepts learned throughout the course to assist a small business owner in improving his business through the use of technology. Milestone One will be the first step in creating your report and recommendations to the business owner.

The objective of this milestone is to further explore course concepts and incorporate additional perspectives and source material to analyze real world scenarios. Leverage both the textbook and external sources to complete the internship assignment.

Prompt

Harrison Kirby runs a local golf course with a shop of around 150 products. He wants to have a website that will facilitate e-business for his golf course. He wants online scheduling of tee times (including coordination of group play), online shopping, and social network integration. One difficulty of moving a small business from a traditional retail store to an online store is channel complications. Everything must be reconsidered.

For example, how will he communicate with his customers? How will they find product information? How will he accept orders? How will he manage payments and shipping? These questions and many more have kept Kirby from making the e-commerce plunge.

Below you will find a letter from Kirby explaining what he would like you to do:

Dear Intern,

I have an interesting project for you. I am interested in an online presence for my golf shop. Specifically, I want to offer a few (less than 150) products online for in-store pickup or delivery. I would also like online scheduling of tee times.

I want you to research the web for companies that provide this type of product. Ultimately, you may recommend a combination of providers to accomplish all that I am trying to do. For example, your final recommendation may include a web hosting solution, logistics provider, and a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. Or, perhaps you will find a product that can be customized to provide all the functionality in one piece.

Keep in mind that my shop is a small business, and I do not have resources to manage a complicated system. I need something that is fairly easy to implement, use, and manage. I have heard of online, cloud, as-a-service platforms that do not require local hardware. I think that this type of setup would be most useful to me, but I have no idea what type of software I should use to support my business.

After you complete your research, as the first step in this process, please send me a report with the following critical elements:

1. Overview of the companies you learned about

2. Profile of your selections and the reasons you chose them

3. Summary of why you believe this will help me accomplish my goals

Note: You should incorporate at least three sources into your report; one source should be the textbook. Use paraphrasing and direct quotations to help demonstrate the concepts and support your perspectives.

IT 210 Milestone Two: Technology

Overview

For the final project in this course, you are being asked to apply the concepts learned throughout the course to assist a small business owner in improving his business through the use of technology. Milestone Two will be the second step in creating your report and recommendations to the business owner. The objective of this milestone is to further explore course concepts and incorporate additional perspectives and source material to analyze real world scenarios by creating a technology guide for the business owner. Leverage both the textbook and external sources to complete this assignment.

 Prompt

Amazon has a huge advantage over brick and mortar retailers because of the intelligent systems it employs. A customer need only get close to a product category and the intelligent systems will provide links to products other customers shopped for or bought after they viewed that particular item. Often, in a few clicks customers can find a top-rated product they were not aware of a few minutes earlier.

For Harrison Kirby, owner of the golf shop from the Milestone One Internship Activity, this causes a real problem. He has a tough time competing with online golf stores because he is not able to carry a high level of inventory nor does he have the amount of data necessary to create these intelligent systems. Below you will find a letter from Kirby that explains how you can help him in this situation.

Dear Intern,

I have an idea that I need your help developing. I realize that there is a great deal of information available on the web. Every product I carry has plenty of resources to help my customers make a decision. The problem I have found is that those resources are available on my competitors' websites!

For example, Amazon does a great job of using its data to offer an "intelligent" suggestion to its customers. It often shows what percentage of people buy an item after viewing it, suggests related items, and even suggests combinations of purchases. I will never have as much data as Amazon does, but I wonder if I couldn't somehow tap into their system and use it to my advantage?

I am interested in developing a system that will allow my customers to use the intelligent systems that are available online but keep my customers in my store for purchases. Part of helping with this will be gathering a list of the major golf websites that offer extensive product information, including customer reviews. I need you to build a table that has the following information in it:

 

Company Name	Product Information (Does the website offer extensive product information-even from the manufacturer?)	Customer Reviews  (Does the website offer customer reviews?)	Related Product Information (Does the website offer related products to view?)	Purchase Information (Does the website offer information on how many people purchase this item? What about other products they purchase after looking at this one?)	Combination Purchase (Does the website offer suggestions on combinations of items that customers typically purchase?)
e.g. Company x   www.siteexample.com	The company's web site offers specific description of the product and links back to the manufacturer's web site for additional details.	Yes - The website links reviews of the product to Amazon reviews.	The site does not offer related products	The site does show related products that people purchase after looking at a specific items or what people purchase instead of the current item.	Yes- the site shows items 'often purchased together'.

 

Your table should be professionally presented within a Microsoft Word document (exactly how the table above has been added to this document), and should include all relevant information I will need to help me make decisions and speak to website developers. Once you compile this list, I will use it to talk to developers about ways to pull this information together. It will also help you see how many websites make use of intelligent agents to help their shoppers!  Along with your Microsoft Word table, please also include a brief narrative that summarizes your findings and provide some guidance for my business based on what other companies are offering in the different dimensions.

IT 210 Final Project

Overview

The final project for this course is the creation of a research paper based on Internship Activities from the text.

The final paper should demonstrate an understanding of the materials in this course, as well as the implications of new knowledge gained. The 3-4-page paper should integrate new learning into the target company example and internship work. It may include explanations and examples from previous cases and activities.

The purpose of the final paper is for you to synthesize the learning achieved in this course by describing your understanding and application of knowledge in the area of business systems and the critical thinking process that has evolved. For this assignment you should choose any two of the concepts discussed throughout the course and integrate your research on these concepts into your case proposal for the target company.

The project is divided into two milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Four and Six.The final submission will occur in Module Seven.

 Prompt

In this final case study, you will synthesize the concepts learned throughout the course based on a series of Internship Activities that are the first two milestones. Through the two assignments outlined in Milestones One and Two, you will recommend solutions to Harrison Kirby, while also incorporating additional perspectives and source material to analyze real world scenarios and provide him with options to consider as part of his strategy to increase revenue and influence customer interactions and experiences in his small business. You will leverage both the textbook and external sources to complete the final project.

From the milestone assignments, you will find that Kirby is interested in improving his business through the use of technology. As you learned in the first two cases you worked for Kirby, he is focused on revenue through e-commerce and customer experience through intelligent systems incorporated with his web presence. Take the opportunity to provide Kirby with some other technology opportunities to consider that would support his business venture in e-commerce and intelligent systems.

Within your final paper, choose two of the concepts below drawn from course readings. Provide detail and an explanation for each concept, which will demonstrate how each can be leveraged to support business growth and/or create a streamlined operation for Kirby. Make sure to leverage sound examples, products, and references where appropriate to further substantiate your findings.

Course Concepts:

Big data and knowledge management

Wireless, mobile computing, and mobile commerce

Social computing

Cloud computing

Business analytics and business intelligence solutions

Your final product should answer this question: How will technology position Harrison Kirby's business for future growth and for the enhancement of both customer alignment and efficiency?

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

Case Synthesis

a) What is the purpose in Harrison Kirby asking you to collect this data and how will it impact his business?Start the assignment with 2-3 paragraphs providing a description of Kirby's business and the industry in which he operates. In this type of contemporary business organization, what is the central role that IT is playing for Harrison Kirby?

b)Find a complementary or competing company in the same industry as Mr. Kirby's. Take time to research the company and provide supported evidence to communicate how IT may be playing a strategic role for that company in order to maintain or gain a competitive advantage.

Security and Ethics

a) What are the security or control issues that should be addressed as part of the technology selection process for Kirby's business?

b) Propose how you would address ethics or information security issues as part of the technology selection process for Kirby's business.

Findings and Recommendations

a)As the technical liaison for Kirby, you are providing him with critical information that he will use in making decisions on expanding the use of technology to improve his practice. It is important that you write your response with conviction through well-developed recommendations based on sound reasoning and evidence.

b)Include an embedded Excel object in your final Word document submission that includes a matrix of technical options that Kirby should consider in his decision making process. The Excel file should include the columns below in an example based on cloud computing. Make sure that you communicate to Mr. Kirby the challenges he should expect to face when introducing new technology into his business.

 

Technology Concept	Product/Service Name	URL	Solution Type	Licensing/Cost	Use Case / Value Statement
Cloud Computing	Amazon AWS	https://aws.amazon.com/	Storage - Amazon EBS	30GB Free	Business continuity Due to the sensitive nature of transaction and customer data for Kirby, he should consider a backup/storage solution where he can quickly recover from a potential catastrophe and retain customers to minimize loss and get back to business quickly.

 

c) Comment and provide examples of how Mr. Kirby can use this new technology to make better management decisions for his business in the future.

Articulation of Response

Always include a title page with your name, the date, the course name/number, the title of the assignment or paper, and the revision (if applicable).

In the body of the paper, use headings and sub-headings. Do not jump from subject to subject without providing some type of heading beforehand.

Use correct grammar and punctuation. Capitalize the first word of a sentence.

Make the presentation as professional as possible. Think, "If someone were to look at this paper, what would they think?" Sloppy papers may have correct answers, but they still leave an overall "messy" feeling when read.

Make sure you understand how to cite reference material within the text of your submission(e.g., according to John, "citing in text is a key concept in this course" [Doe, 2013]).

Milestones

Milestone One: Internship Activity

In task 4-2, you will submit Milestone One. In this milestone, you will first read through the Internship Activity in Chapter 7. For this activity, you will conduct research to help Harrison Kirby, owner of a local golf course and golf shop, create an online presence. In this milestone, you will provide an overview of your research, discuss your research selections, and discuss how you think your research will help Kirby accomplish his goal. This milestone will be graded using the Milestone One Rubric.

 Milestone Two: Technology Guide 4: Intelligent Systems-Internship Activity

In task 6-2, you will submit Milestone Two. In this milestone, you will first read through the Internship Activity in Technology Guide 4. For this activity, you will build a technology matrix in Excel for intelligent systems by researching major golf websites that use extensive product information and reporting your findings to Harrison Kirby. Include a 1-2 page narrative describing your findings, including which sites offered the best customer experience or the worst. Use examples and references in your narrative to support your findings and provide Kirby with adequate detail to help him with his project.