FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND IT
31245: Business Process and IT Strategy (Autumn 2017)
Assessment 2 (Group work)
Marks 40%
Submission Date Report due in week 12 (08 June), Presentations in week 11 and 12
Submission A soft copy must upload on UTS Online by 08 June and Hard copy to
your tutor during tutorial (week 12), and submit presentation slides
before Week 11.
Assignment Type Group (4 -5 students).
Minimum Length 2000 words (excluding references, and title pages)
Referencing Harvard Referencing Style
Format Time New Roman, Font Size 12, 1.5 line spacing
Penalty for Late
Submission
a 10% penalty of the whole mark per day (not the student’s achieved
mark) per day
Important Submission Instructions:
1. This is a team-based assessment, where you have to join a group in tutorial 1. I would suggest
you to make a team whom you can communicate with on a regular basis.
2. Exchange your communication IDs (Skype/E-mail/Facebook) and/or phone numbers etc., and
start your team work.
3. Write down all student names and IDs on the first page of your report.
4. Students are required to submit a softcopy of their assessment to Turnitin (via UTS Online)
and hard copy to your tutor. One submission per group.
5. The file name should be “GroupName__TutorName_Assg2. Online submission must be MS
word or PDF.
6. It is compulsory for each student in a team to complete a Peer Assessment form in a sealed
envelope and submit it to your tutor.
7. Although this is a group task, individuals may receive different marks based on peer
assessments and their answers to the questions while presenting.
8. For presentations, groups will be randomly allocated by your tutor to week 11 and 12.
9. If you have trouble with the operation of your group, please see your tutor for advice. No
complaints about group operation will be considered after the assignment has been handed in.
10. Marks and Feedback: This assessment will be marked out of 40 (see marking criteria). The
instructors will endeavour to return marked assessment and provide verbal or written
feedback after week 12. During the tutorials, feedback related to individual student inquiries
will be also provided.
Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct
Any plagiarized work will receive a ZERO mark. You should provide references in any case. Students are NOT to re-use the
work of other students from earlier semesters. Students are also NOT to copy or re-use any material they or any of their
group members have submitted as an assignment or report in previous semesters in this subject or any other subject.
Advice on what constitutes plagiarism, how to avoid plagiarism, and how to reference is available here:
http://www.uts.edu.au/teachlearn/avoidingplagiarism/index.htmlAssessment 2 Description
Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don’t think anybody can
talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other. Bill Gates- Microsoft
Today, with Information technology (IT) driving constant business transformation,
overwhelming organizations with information, enabling 24/7 global operations, and
undermining traditional business models, the challenge for business leaders is not simply to
manage IT, it is to use IT to deliver business value. IT is now closely integrated with
business, so that IT and business strategy must interact with each other.
Based on the lectures, given materials and additional research, the group (of 4-5 students)
will be required to work as a project team to develop a strategic business and IT proposal for
the design and delivery of business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce solutions. This
challenging assessment would provide you a real world experience through applied and
innovative tasks and with the team effort.
For this purpose, your company (in your group of 4-5) is planning to develop an online
store for a product of your choice (i.e. books, electronics, CD’s, DVD’s, bikes, shoes,
clothes, etc.) that you would like to sell online. E-commerce uses the internet to build and
enhance relationships with customers, partners, and other businesses. This can involve
processing orders electronically, handling customer service, and cooperating with business
partners. You are required to produce a business and IT strategic plan for the selected idea
and evaluate it in terms of the criteria required (see required tasks below). You're just starting
out, creating a business and IT strategic plan at this stage could help you see the bigger
picture and chart a strategic course for future growth.
[Notes: Starting an e-commerce business is a hard work with many steps and decisions that need to
come together at the right time. The first step to building an e-commerce business is to know what
products you want to sell. You’ve found your product, evaluated the potential and sourced your
supplier. It’s time to write your plan, but before you get into that, you'll need to research your
competition thoroughly so you know exactly what you’re up against. With your competitive research
complete, it's now the perfect time to write your plan. A business an IT strategic plan will be your road
map that helps bring your ideas and thoughts together. A plan is vital so that you can determine how to
best move forward and most effectively compete. (https://www.shopify.com.au/blog/14459769-
ecommerce-business-blueprint-how-to-build-launch-and-grow-a-profitable-online-store)]Complete the following tasks.
# Required tasks Notes
Task 1 SWOT analysis of your online business. (This task
is Due in Week 7)
In Week 7, during the tutorial time, you are
required to submit to your tutor the following
information, MILESTONE SUBMISSION
FORM (available under assessment 2), and
SWOT analysis (Task 1).
(Team members are required to specify their
contributions in the milestone submission form)
Task 2 Analysis of your business using the Information
Systems Strategy Triangle
Business strategy
Organizational strategy
Information system strategy
Also, briefly discuss the business-IT alignment.
See Lecture/Chapter 1 to 3, and on UTSOnline
Business strategy involves the goals,
objectives, mission/vision and tactics of an
organization, which is the fundamental
strategy that makes the organization to
operate, all the decision are made followed by
the business strategy. Such as, one of the
business strategy frameworks is Porter's
Generic Strategies. The organizational
strategy (organization design, and structure
and managerial levers) and information
strategy (hardware, software, database,
network, etc.) are all based on how the
business strategy decides. The business
strategy drives the overall operation of the
organization, any changes in organizational
and IS strategy should look back on the
business strategy, and the changes should not
avoid the process of business strategy. The IS
strategy triangle helps to balance business,
organizational, and information strategy.
Task 3 Build a social business strategy. What might be a
reasonable business strategy, and how would
organizational and IS strategy need to change? How
would this differ for a brick and mortar business?
How you could use social commerce to engage
customers?
See Lecture/Chapter 1 to 3, and on UTSOnline
Social Business Strategy include collaboration
(bringing people together to share ideas,
information, and expertise), engagement
(increase perceived attachment through
increased interaction), and innovation
(development of new ideas). Example:
National Instruments (ni.com) has created a
‘branded community’ to collect and
disseminate new ideas
Task 4 Discuss information resources strategies (Porter’s
five competitive forces, value chain model and
resource based view) model to describe how
information technology might be used to provide a
winning position for your business.
See Lecture/Chapter 2, and on UTSOnline
Task 5 Identify and create at least five business processes
you would like to implement in your e-commerce
website.
See Lecture 5, and on
UTSOnline
Task 6 Construct a BPMN-Business Process Modeling
Notation (such as Swimlane diagram) for a process
from any of the five business processes that you
have identified.
See Lecture 5, and on
UTSOnlineTask 7 1. Briefly discuss your website strategy (such as
the goal of your site, your target audience, web
design/user interface design, hosting and
electronic payment system etc.).
2. Design your e-commerce website/webpage (or a
prototype).
[A good website is easy to follow and customers are able to
navigate it easily. For example, an online clothing store will
have clothes organized into different categories so that
customers are able to find what they are looking for easily.
As well, online store should be attractive. They should
include different colours, and product pictures or videos to
make the customer interested and drawn to the site. Contact
pages and social networking tools should also be included
on a website so that customers can voice their concerns. For
more information, click
https://www.shopify.com.au/blog/14459769-ecommercebusiness-blueprint-how-to-build-launch-and-grow-aprofitable-online-store ]
See Lecture 4, and on
UTSOnline.
This will be just the sample of your online
store.
Your business model is B2C (business-toconsumer)
There are a number of free online sources
to get a free hosted website, for example,
www.webs.com,www.wix.com,
www.sites.google.com,
https://www.squarespace.com/,
https://wordpress.com etc.
See some examples
https://www.shopify.com.au/examples
See WordPress Ecommerce:
WooCommerce (Lynda short course) in
on UTSOnline
Your student names/IDs must be available
and viewable on the developed Webpage
but under a separate tab/section.
Also post you web link in folder
in UTSonline subject site. Only one
submission per group.
Task 8 Presentation Submit your presentation slides to your
tutor before week 11
Groups will be randomly allocated by
your tutor in Week 11 and 12
Each student must present his/her part.
Demonstrate your website.
Report template
Your report should include the following sections (this template is to assist with your preparation of the report):
Title page
Task 1
o SWOT analysis (Include this task in your final report also, submitted in week 7)
Task 2
o Business strategy
o Organizational strategy
o IS strategy
Task 3
o Social Business Strategy
Task 4
o Information Resources Strategy
Task 5: Business Processes
Task 6: Swimlane diagram
Task 7:
o Web strategy
o Build your e-commerce website.
o Provide the link and few screen shots
References