Asia Pacific International College SBM3101 – Professional development and business communication Business Report Case Study Project - Report Scenario You work as a graduate consultant for a consulting firm in one of its branches (Australia, Singapore or India) of APIC Business Consulting (ABC). You have worked there for six months. The company has been in operation for five years and has 80 employees including the general manager, consultants, administrative staff, project managers, programmers, business analysts, a technical writer and a trainer. The company provides Information Systems consulting services and also develops lightweight database-driven information systems in Visual Basic for small businesses, organisations and charities. ABC Consulting has a new client who needs advice on whether to adopt an ecommerce system. The following is the scenario ABC is faced with: Client Scenario: Never Forget Flowers Never Forget Flowers is a small, evolving business in Sydney that delivers floral bouquets on behalf of its customers to their loved ones at their home or office on special occasions. It does not sell flowers in stores, but delivered in person to the intended recipient, in response to pre-scheduled online orders. The manager, Ben Nielson, is a young entrepreneur. He is also an experienced manager. Anecdotally, Ben feels that people who pre-order flowers for scheduled special occasions ahead of time are often more genuine and are willing to spend more money to have them delivered by someone else than people who leave it to the last minute and try to arrange it themselves. He believes that his business can compete with other suppliers delivering flowers. The business has gradually evolved and provides a reasonable income. All of the sales are for one of four basic styles of bouquet. However, the main sources of sales are via word of mouth from previous customers. His advertising is limited to a Facebook page. Floral bouquet arrangement is a skill that requires specific training. Ben employs a professional florist to buy the flowers from the markets each day, who then makes the bouquets for each order. One or moreAsia Pacific International College SBM3101 – Professional development and business communication contracted delivery drivers then pick these up and deliver them to various prescribed addresses all across the city. Current information flow and data management has evolved organically and manually from the very beginning of the business to now, and still only operates using an email account, mobile phones, cars and street directories. It has become increasingly apparent to Ben that more and more people are looking for flower delivery services on the internet. Although he is internet savvy, he is not sure about the direction to take with respect to a data management system to manage information flow in the business. Data types in this business include a calendar of general and pre-scheduled dates, pre-order reminders to customer, customer’s order confirmation, and specification (including delivery address, recipient’s name, sender’s name, personalised message, special instructions), customer’s order change requests, confirmation of order to customer, notification of order to florist, drivers and manager, personalised completed delivery notification to the customer (sender). Ben has approached APIC Business Consulting for advice on how a streamlined data management system may boost sales and the direction he should take. You have been asked by your supervisor to prepare a report explaining data management systems in general, highlighting the issues and benefits, and developing a broad strategy for information flow that you believe this particular client should undertake. Your advice needs to be well researched and not based on your own personal views or experiences. Instructions You will provide consulting services to Never Forget Flowers as mentioned above as part of a consulting team. You will partner with the same members of your team who presented in Weeks 10 to 12 and work with them in and outside of class to complete the Case Study Project Report. The consultancy report and specifications will provide Never Forget Flowers (your client) with an overview of the selected system so they can determine if they want to proceed with implementing such a system in their own business. It will also guide them on the requirements for the new system. The report will also highlight the benefits and issues associated with adopting such a system.Asia Pacific International College SBM3101 – Professional development and business communication Learning objectives After successfully completing this assessment task, you should be able to: • Demonstrate understanding of the fundamental concepts of long reports in a business context • Conduct independent research • Explain the issues and benefits associated with implementing an information system • Produce a professional report for a business audience Report Format You need to download the report template file available from the OLS and use it to prepare your report. Your report should show your lecturer and tutors that you have researched the topic, have applied your research to the case study and have argued a direction the business should take. We are not expecting detailed computer specifications in the report. But you should be able to relate the things you have found about these systems to the various components of information systems: hardware, software, data, people and procedures. The most important are the last three components, so ask questions such as: People What sort of things will need to be done to include people who use the system? Remember, we are not talking about customers but people in the business. Procedures What changes will be necessary to the current processes (or procedures) in the business to ensure that the system will be successful? Data What sorts of data will be collected and how will this be done? Submission The report component of this assignment is due for submission by the end of Week 13 (4 June 2017) and needs to be submitted through the OLS.