INFS1602 Digital Transformation In Business: Group Project Assessment Answer

UNSW Business School Information Systems and Technology Management

 INFS1602

Digital Transformation in Business Semester 1 2019

Group Project

THIS ASSIGNMENT IS GRADED UPON 100 MARKS AND COUNTS FOR 15 PERCENT OF THE

AVAILABLE MARKS FOR THE COURSE

1. Background

This assignment investigates the proposed adoption of technology solutions for a large Australian business and is set within the scenario of you being part of a consulting firm seeking potential business from large businesses.

• This assignment is to be undertaken as a group of 3 or 4 students.
• It is worth 15% of your overall Marks.
• Assignment is due on Monday 8 April 2019 at 1pm.
• It has to be submitted electronically via Turnitin in Moodle.
• There is one deliverable for this assignment: a report of 3500 to 4000 words maximum.
• You have 5 weeks to undertake this project so you are expected to manage your time and deliverables accordingly via Trello https://trello.com

The following sets out the scenario and requirements for the assignment. Please read them very carefully

2. Scenario

You are a team of junior consultants, specialising in Information Systems, at a leading international consulting firm. The Senior Vice President (SVP) for business development of your firm is not happy with the 2018 productivity of the large business segment in the IT consulting division. The SVP wishes to grow the business relationship of existing cleints as well as potentially acquire new ones and is asking your team to prepare a proposal that analyses 1 potential client (a client of your choosing), with a justification as to how building a relationship with this client will be good addition to your existing consulting portfolio.

The SVP business development criteria outlines the following:

1. The large business should be Australian and founded in Australia and the headquarters MUST still be in Australia.

2. The large business must have operated for at least 25 years.
3. The business MUST have both an online and offline presence (ie website/mobile application and service physical shop/store/office).
4. The business should operate/service in all major states.
5. The business must be in the ASX300 list. https:// www.asx300list.com 

Learning Outcomes Addressed:

3. Requirements

Knowing that your team specialises in technology solutions, the SVP has asked you to prepare a proposal to advise him on the potential of advising the business you have chosen. The proposal doesn’t have to be a project that directly applies to all business areas of the organisation. You may focus on 1 or 2 areas that you believe is the most critical to address.

Prepare a proposal with the following structure:

1. Undertake an analysis of your client and it’s external environment. Specifically, provide your understanding of how the business positions itself in relation to its competition in the industry based on your analysis. Clearly justify your analysis using Porter’s Five Forces model (10%)
2. Using Osterwalder’s Business Model canvas, undertake an analysis of your client’s internal environment. Specifically, provide your understanding of how the business creates and delivers value, operates and positions itself in relation to its competition. (15%)
3. Based on your analysis of the current state of your chosen business’ in part 1 & 2 above, explain how the business could improve their operations and competitiveness by leveraging on at least two specific technology solutions - (you may choose any of the technology solutions from any of the topics of the course this semester).

For this part, you should first identify, based on your research and analysis in Part 1& 2, the three most pressing areas in your chosen business that require attention. A “pressing” area does not have to a problem. It could be an opportunity that the organisation has missed to capture or methods and standards that they could have implemented to achieve competitive advantage.

You should then outline how the specific capabilities of the combination of technology solutions you have chosen, could help in addressing these pressing areas. Your recommendation should clearly explain the impacts on specific business processes and strategies. (25%)

1. Identify and describe at least three main IS/IT security, ethics and privacy issues that the business should take into account when leveraging on your chosen technology solutions. (10%)

2. Vendor selection: recommend specific vendors for the commercially available IT products/solutions that your chosen business should adopt. Your recommendation should be based on your analyses in Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4. It should clearly justify the capabilities of the particular vendors and that they are the best choice for the business. This means that you need to compare your chosen vendors against their main competitors in the market. (20%)

It is important that you provide your SVP with information that is customized for the chosen business rather than producing material that reads like a generic brochure. You should demonstrate that you understand the business context and priorities as well as articulate any assumptions that you make about the business (if necessary). You should make sure that you provide adequate explanations to back up your recommendations.

You are required to carefully consider the points that you wish to make in this report. A ‘brain dump’ of all you know is of little value. You should consider using tables and figures to present material whenever suitable as they may help in structuring your argument.

In order to prepare your assignment, you have to undertake research. However, you should ensure that you use the information gathered to illustrate your argument; you should not simply copy or describe your research findings.

Marks are also available for the following:

Reflection

An analysis of how relevant course material and additional insights from your own research were utilized to support the analysis contained in the report (5%). (500 words max and is excluded from the word count)

Project Managment

Trello. Effective and consistent use of Trello as a project management tool both towards the planning stage (Project Plan) and execution of of project (research & written work) (10%)

Presentation

Effective and coherent presentation of information in a format suitable for a consulting report. Adherence to UNSWBS presentation standards including Harvard referencing and the use of acceptable research materials (5%).

Submission Details

Using Moodle Turnitin, each GROUP should submit a single MS WORD document (no other formats such as PDF allowed – 5 mark penalty applies) that includes:

1. A fully completed and signed (by all group members) cover page (available on Moodle).The business report. The main body of the reports is expected to be 3,500 words, with an absolute maximum of 4,000 words. Cover/Title page, table of contents, reference list, reflection and executive summary are excluded from the word count.
2. No other appendices are required for this assignment and if included, will be included in the 4,000 work count limit. If report exceeds 4,000 words, we will not mark sections that exceeds the limit.
3. A full set of references used to prepare the report (excluded from the word count
4. Indicate the number of words on the document.

Please note that ONE submission per group is required. Multiple submissions from the same group will be considered an invalid submission. A mark of zero will be awarded for assignments submitted by individuals or by groups larger than five.

If you have any questions about interpreting the assignment and its requirements, please make use of either the LiC’s or group assignment consultation sessions. To avoid confusion and misunderstanding, we will not be answering such questions about the assignment over email.

The originality of the submission will be checked using Turnitin. Please check the originality report generated by Turnitin during the submission process. All members of the group should satisfy themselves as to the originality of the full assignment prior to final submission. It is the responsibility of the person submitting the assignment to provide other group members with a copy of the originality report generated by Turnitin during the submission process. Please note that Turnitin will only generate an originality report ONCE every 24 hours. So if you submit your file and override your original file in a space of less than 24 hours, you will not obtain an update on your originality score for the new file.

The University regards plagiarism as a form of academic misconduct, and has very strict rules regarding plagiarism. For UNSW policies, penalties, and information to help you avoid plagiarism see: http://student.unsw.edu.au/plagiarism as well as the guidelines in the online ELISE tutorials for all new UNSW students: http://subjectguides.library.unsw.edu.au/elise

Submission of the assignment must be accompanied by a signed cover page provided on Moodle. All members of the groups must sign the cover page. Signatures on the cover page must match the ones you signed for your workshop attendance. Groups with missing cover page will be given an automatic penalty of 10% of the maximum marks available for the assignment. Individual student, whose signature is missing on the cover page, will obtain an automatic penalty of 10% of the maximum marks available for the assignment. The maximum marks for this assignment is 100 marks and hence the penalty is a flat 10 marks deduction from the score you obtained for the assignment.

Each individual student should provide their tutor with a completed and signed peer assessment sheet (available on Moodle). The peer assessment sheet should be provided to your tutor no later than Friday 19^th April 2019, 5pm.

If you wish to claim for unequal contribution, you must justify your claim with evidence. We only accept Trello and official UNSW email communication as evidence of work. Personal emails, social media messengers & chat, facebook are not acceptable forms of evidences.