One of the most powerful resources
available to organizations is information technology (IT). While most
executives recognize their responsibility to ensure that all of the
organization’s business processes provide optimal value to the organization,
they may find it difficult to ensure that the IT infrastructure is aligned with
the organization’s strategic goals. Without this alignment, IT resources may
not be used effectively and may not fully contribute to the organization’s
business goals. To ensure that an organization’s IT strategy is aligned to the
business objectives, one has to understand the business objectives, the legacy
systems, and new technologies.
In this project, you will complete an audit
of the technology and information systems processes in your organization. Focus
on hardware, software, networks, databases, security, and people. You will
decide the extent to which business functions are being facilitated by the
present information technology infrastructure. In particular, you will assess how
well the current IT infrastructure can accommodate your organization’s business
strategy.
Conduct this IT audit for your own
organization if you can. Depending on the size of your organization and your
access to information, auditing your entire organization may be impractical. As
an alternative to using your own organization, you can choose a nonprofit
organization, an educational institution, a previous employer, or another
organization with which you are familiar. Consult your instructor for approval
of your choice.
This project will use templates in
Microsoft Excel to walk you through steps to evaluate your information systems
strategy, to assess gaps in your current system implementation and security,
and to recommend emerging technologies to assist your organization in its
business objectives. The file Templates_for_Project2_with_Instructions.xlsx
contains the required templates and instructions in Appendices A1, A2, B, C, D,
E, F, G ,H, I:
- Appendices
A1, A2: Business Objectives (to be used with Step 1) - Appendix
B: Organizational Effectiveness (to be used with Step 1) - Appendix
C: Department Effectiveness (to be used with Step 1) - Appendix
D: Technology Inventory (to be used with Step 2) - Appendix
E: Information Technology Assessment (to be used with Step 2) - Appendix
F: Risk Assessment (to be used with Step 3) - Appendix
G: Risk Matrix (to be used with Step 3) (for information only) - Appendix
H: Emerging Technology Assessment (to be used with Step 4) - Appendix
I: Implementation Plan for Emerging Technology (to be used with Step 6)
Each appendix is in a different tab. A link
to the Templates_for_Project2_with_Instructions.xlsx file is found in Step 1:
“Understand the Business.”
The first step in performing an IT audit
that is tied to business strategy is understanding the short-term and long-term
goals and objectives of the business. While we expect IT strategies to be
aligned to an organization’s business strategies, in practice, this is not easy
to achieve. The organization typically has made large investments in legacy
systems that have been supporting the current business. The organization must
balance the maintenance of current business requirements with the need to
support longer term strategies, using emerging technologies to improve the
competitiveness of the organization.
Completing this business audit will ensure
that you learn a lot about the business of the organization.
To prepare for the audit, readAudits, Internal and Core
Competencies. The templates provided for Step 1 will give you a framework for
collecting this information. Be sure to ask the following questions:
- What are
the strategic goals of the organization? - What are
the business operational goals? - How do you
see your organization in one year, in five years, and beyond?
Download and open theTemplates_for_Project2_with_Instructions.xlsx file.
You will be using this file throughout this project. For optional feedback in
Steps 1 and 3, use the following naming protocols:
- Step 1
-> Lastname_first name_Project 2_Appx_A1_A2_B_C - Steps 2
and 3 -> Lastname_first name_Project 2_Appx_A1_A2_B_C_D_E_F
For the final submission in this project,
please use the following naming protocol:
- Step 5
-> Lastname_first name_Project 2_Appx_A1_A2_B_C_D_E_F_G_H_I
The templates for business objectives in
Appendices A1 and A2 will guide your discovery. You should list a minimum of
three business objectives that exist for your organization, which will likely
vary from these templates. Existing entries in templates A1 and A2 are for
illustration purposes only. You should fill in and submit to the assignment
folder two tables: Appendix A1 is for short-term goals (one year) and Appendix
A2 is for longer term goals (five or more years). See Goal
Setting for more information.
After you understand your organization’s
business objectives, you will need to evaluate how well your organization is
meeting those objectives. The template in Appendix B will guide you through a
quick analysis of overall organizational effectiveness. You may want to ask
those in leadership positions how well the organization is performing, but you
can also get this information by examining how well the organization is
performing according to current operational objectives. Choose a minimum of
three organizational effectiveness criteria. Provide a one-sentence description
of each measure, along with an overall score on a five-point scale and an
explanation of the score you provided. SeeEffectiveness and Efficiency.
Now that you’ve looked at how well the
overall organization is performing, you should evaluate the organization at a
lower level. Using the Appendix C template to guide you, assess the general
well-being of any two departments in your organization (for example, finance
and marketing). Again, provide explanation for any key issues for areas where there
are less effective or very effective departments. This information may help you
to see areas where opportunities exist to improve your business with
technology.
To summarize what you have found during
your assessment of the business, prepare a two-page summary of the business
objectives and the level of effectiveness in your organization. This business
objectives and effectiveness summary should address the following questions:
- What are
some short-term and long-term business objectives of your organization? - What is
your evaluation of overall organizational effectiveness? Departmental
level effectiveness?
Post your business assessment worksheets
(Appendices A1, A2, B, and C) along with your two-page summary of business
objectives and effectiveness to your assignment folder. Your instructor will
review your work and inform you of any major weaknesses in your deliverable.
In the next step, you will evaluate the
ability of IT to meet the business objectives identified in Step 1. In Step 1,
you looked at the state of business. Now in Step 2, you will evaluate the
ability of IT to meet business objectives. You should review Technology in
Businessand Technology Resources before moving on to Appendix D and
E.
Conduct an inventory of the technology
being used in your organization. The technology inventory, Appendix D, provides
a structured format for identifying various technologies and their business
functions. In this step, you are merely identifying the various types of
technology that exist in your organization and their purpose in the
organization as they relate to business functions.
Next, you will evaluate the technology for
its ability to meet current and future business needs. Does your organization
use software for customer relationship management (CRM)? For inventory
management? For employee training? What have you learned from this assessment?
Review Capabilities of IT Systems and Measuring IT
Effectiveness before you continue.
Many of the technologies found in
organizations are implemented to meet the needs of specific business functions.
Often, they are not evaluated for their impact on the organization’s overall
strategic business objectives. Use the information technology assessment
worksheet, Appendix E, to document the overall state of technology in your
organization. Some of the cells in the worksheet are filled in as examples.
Please delete the examples before starting your work so that you begin with a
blank template. Assess two or three of the most critical business functions as
you identify and list the capabilities and problems or gaps that exist, being
precise in your description of how each business information system contributes
to the overall efficiency or performance of the business function. You will use
the following five questions to guide your assessment:
·
What
technologies are responsible for the operation and success of the organization?
·
What
is the organizational structure and where does IT reside in this structure?
·
Are
there obvious areas where existing technology is not meeting the current
business needs of your organization?
·
Are
there inefficiencies or redundant systems?
·
Are
there potential vulnerabilities in the existing systems that could impact
operations in the short term? What about in the long term?
See Identifying Applications of
Current and Potential Technologies before continuing.
Next, write a detailed assessment of the
ability of technology to support key business functions in the organization.
Your two-to-three-page technology assessment write-up will consist of one or two
paragraphs to address each of the five questions above at the end of Week 2.
Post this along with your technology assessment worksheets (Appendices D and E)
to your assignment folder. Your instructor will review your work and inform you
of any major weaknesses in your deliverable.
In the next step, you will complete a
business process risk assessment for your organization.
In Step 2, you looked at your
organization’s business processes and the technology that supports them. Some
opportunities for improvement should now be apparent. Every organization has
limited resources to invest, and so it is important to prioritize the problem
areas that you identified. One way to prioritize issues is by their potential
impact to key organizational business processes. You will do this by conducting
a risk assessment. A risk assessment can be used as a tool for identifying and
quantifying the factors that have the potential to impact critical business
goals. See Business Process Risk Assessment.
A risk assessment exercise typically
requires several steps: identification of the business risks, assessment of the
likelihood and impact of the risk, and the identification of mitigation
strategies to control the risks. See Business Risk Mitigation to get
more details.
Use the risk assessment worksheet, Appendix
F, to list and rate the business risks as to the relative consequences and the
likelihood of not meeting business objectives. If there is an existing
work-around or mitigation strategy that reduces the seriousness of the risk,
please make a note. A mitigation strategy may involve a process work-around,
realignment of resources or an investment in IT infrastructure. You might also
want to review the risk matrix in Appendix G, for additional information on
performing your risk assessment.
You will now use the risk assessment and
level of risk you determined through your risk analysis to prioritize the
organization’s business risks. The risks that pose realistic and severe threats
to the business will typically have the highest priority. However, mitigation
efforts should be considered as you make your list of priorities. The
organization may not view a risk as a high priority if they have an acceptable
mitigation strategy in place. Post the risk assessment (Appendix F) in your
assignment folder by the end of Week 2.
In the next step, you will familiarize
yourself with emerging technologies in preparation for making recommendations
to the CEO.
Now that you have assessed your
organization’s current technology inventory and assessed your organization’s
risk factors, you are ready to review emerging technologies that may
benefit your organization.
In almost every aspect of business,
technologies have been transforming the way that we do business, improving the
productivity and efficiency of organizations across all sectors. Point-of-sale
systems are now used by most major retailers and computers are used to manage
sales, inventory, employees, and communication. Technology is evolving and new
technologies are being introduced all that time that have the potential to
improve the competitiveness of organizations. The following are some of the
emerging technologies that you should become familiar with before you make your
report to the CEO:
- mobile
devices - social
media - cloud
computing - data
analytics (big data) - digital
tools (3D printing, wearables, internet of things, etc.) - virtual
and augmented reality - machine
learning and artificial intelligence
You are not limited to the emerging
technologies in this list; be sure to consider other technologies you have
learned about in your research or from other sources. When you have completed
your review of emerging technologies, you are ready continue to the next step,
in which you will evaluate these technologies and determine if they might be
useful for your organization.
Every organization is unique when it comes
to assessing how beneficial the implementation of one technology is over
another. Many technologies have failed to live up to the potential benefits
that were expected from their implementation, so you will want to look at
several factors as you proceed through your analysis. Below are some specific
questions to consider when identifying emerging technologies that have the
potential to impact critical business functions in your organization.
·
Can
it lower the cost of maintaining your legacy systems?
·
Will
it enable your organization to improve business processes?
·
Will
it improve interoperability of systems?
·
Will
it simplify or standardize IT interfaces?
·
Does
it define new computing or communication standards?
·
Can
this technology be used to reengineer a mission critical business process?
·
Will
employees see it as a solution to their problem?
·
Is
the organization prepared to deliver any required training on the new system?
Be sure to read Technology Solution
Implementation before you continue with this step.
Indicate which two emerging technologies
you would recommend that your organization implement. As you evaluate the new
technologies, you will choose two that you believe have great opportunity to
add value to your organization and organizational business processes. Replacing
or integrating critical legacy information systems can be costly to the
organization and may put the organization at risk, therefore you should
evaluate these suggestions carefully. Fill out the emerging technology
templates (Appendix H and I). These templates will help you capture the
pertinent factors regarding implementation of new technologies in your
organization. For assistance for estimating costs of new technology see Cost
Estimating.
When you have finished evaluating emerging
technologies, continue to the next step, in which you will present your
complete technology audit report.
Now that you have a full understanding of
the gaps and opportunities presented by current and future technologies,
prepare an executive-level brief (or technology audit report) of no more than
3,000 words, which communicates the current state of information technology in
your organization. Discuss whether or not existing technologies help your organization
meet business objectives as well as the impact that these technologies may have
on your organization’s business model. Ultimately, if accepted, your
recommendations would be documented in a technology plan or technology roadmap.
See Technology Roadmap for help on this step.
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Description |
Week Due |
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End of Week 1 |
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End of Week 2 |
|
End of Week 3 |
Before you submit your assignment, review
the competencies below, which your instructor will use to evaluate your work. A
good practice would be to use each competency as a self-check to confirm you
have incorporated all of them in your work.
·
1.1:
Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that promotes
understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
·
2.1:
Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or problem under critical
consideration.
·
2.5:
Develop well-reasoned ideas, conclusions or decisions, checking them against
relevant criteria and benchmarks.
·
8.1:
Evaluate major business/organizational systems and processes and make
recommendations for improvement.
·
8.2:
Analyze an organization’s current technology capabilities and needs,
identifying specific strengths and areas of weakness.
·
11.1:
Recommend strategic plan for the use of technology to meet the strategic goals
of organization.
·
13.1:
Identify and analyze new opportunities.
Submission for Project 2:
Conducting a Technology Audit of Your Organization
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You are the global marketing vice president
at Dyson. You have been asked to attend a meeting with James Dyson, the
company’s founder. Dyson’s CEO and the head of Dyson’s New Product Innovation
department will also be in attendance.
“Thanks for meeting with me
today,” James says. “Market intelligence has shown that our major
competitors—Hoover, Shark, and Bissell—are all developing new cordless vacuum
cleaners with a longer battery life than what’s currently available.”
James Dyson looks to you: “I need you
to participate in a new cross-functional product development team that will
research the feasibility of creating a cordless vacuum cleaner that works for
one hour on a single charge. We also need to know if there’s even a market for
this type of vacuum,” he says.
“We envision that this new vacuum will
be used primarily in the home, but keep in mind, we want to be able to adapt it
easily and cheaply for light commercial use. One way of doing this is by using
swappable battery packs.”
“Have an actionable marketing plan
ready for me in three weeks,” James says.
You know that to give the CEO the most
thorough report, you’ll need to conduct an internal analysis of Dyson and an
environmental scan for the new vacuum cleaner. You’ll need to have a detailed
plan for identifying marketing opportunities, and you’ll need to research the
home and commercial vacuum cleaner industry, market trends, and Dyson’s major
global competition.
Introduction
As you have read above, this project asks
you to put together a marketing plan for your CEO. The marketing plan will be
for a consumer product with the potential to expand into light commercial use.
The product will have a new swappable battery with longer life than the
competition.
You have a total of three weeks to finish
and should complete these eight steps by the end of Week 6. If you have any
questions, ask your instructor.
When you submit your project, your work
will be evaluated using the competencies listed below. You can use the list
below to self-check your work before submission.
One of the most important functional areas
in business is marketing. Companies such as Google, Boeing, Airbus, Apple,
McDonald’s, and Toyota have a passion for understanding their consumers and
satisfying consumer needs in “well-defined target markets” (Kotler
& Armstrong, 2014, p. 4). Basically, marketing is a managerial and social
function through which companies and consumers create and exchange value.
Kotler and Armstrong define marketing as the “process by which companies
create value for consumers and build strong consumer relationships in order to
capture value from consumers in return” (p.5).
The marketing process involves the
following five steps (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. 5):
1.
Understanding
the marketplace and consumer needs and wants.
2.
Designing
a consumer-driven marketing strategy.
3.
Constructing
an integrated marketing program that delivers superior value.
4.
Building
profitable relationships and creating consumer satisfaction.
5.
Capturing
value from consumers to create profits and consumer equity.
There are five major consumer value themes
(Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. XVI):
1.
Creating
value for the consumer in order to capture value from them in return.
2.
Creating
and managing strong local and global value-creating brands.
3.
Capitalizing
on new marketing technologies such as the Internet and social media
(eMarketing).
4.
Assessing
and managing the return on marketing investment.
5.
Sustainable
global marketing.
Selecting a product (or a service) to
develop is a serious process in which cross-functional teams contribute to
researching, selecting, developing, and launching the new product. In addition,
the company needs to evaluate the attractiveness of a new business.
Sometimes a company will seek external help to develop a new product as the
company may lack the necessary technical expertise, market knowledge, or
resources. The company may also simply want to spread the financial risk
involved i.e., strategic alliances.
To carry out this assignment, you need to
understand consumers, how to acquire market knowledge (through primary and
secondary research), and how to turn that knowledge into products that are
needed and wanted by a group of consumers. You must also be able to invent
market offerings that not only create value for the consumer but also create
profitability for the organization. A company should strive to do all of this
while being socially responsible and engaging in ethical behavior.
There are two types of market
research: primary and secondary research. Both types of research are
required, and each of them has its pros and cons.
There are differences between a
product and a service. A product is more than just a physical good—it can be a
service attached to a physical product, a “pure” service, an idea, a
place, an organization, and even a person, such as a celebrity.
References
Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G.
(2014). Marketing management (15th ed.). Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson.
You will need to develop a marketing
plan, which is a written document that outlines the marketing program for the
new Dyson vacuum cleaner. As part of your marketing plan, include the
promotional budget allocation for the entire planning period. In other words,
your marketing plan details what is needed to implement your marketing program
and achieve its goals. Read
about vision and mission statements, and then find Dyson’s
vision and mission statements online.
It is important to note that a marketing
plan is notthe
same as a business plan. While the marketing plan is part of the business plan,
business plans typically also include additional information on financial
strategies, operations, risk management, and human resources.
To standardize this process, you will use
thismarketing plan template.
Dyson relies on quantitative and
qualitative information from its industry and from markets to make important
decisions, including go/kill decisions for its new product developments
(Cooper, 2011). Several tools are available to Dyson; these include the
following:
·
PESTEL analysis (sometimes called PEST
analysis): A PESTEL analysis enables Dyson to
identify, analyze, and monitor the political, economic, social, technology,
legal (including regulatory), and environmental factors that may impact its
operations (Frue, 2017).
·
Porter’s five forces analysis: Porter’s five forces analysis is a framework that helps Dyson
understand the competitive forces at play in its industry, and how these forces
may impact the way economic value is divided among its competitors in the
industry (Porter, 2008).
·
SWOT analysis: A SWOT analysis is a planning and brainstorming tool that helps
Dyson evaluate its projects and formulate its business plans. SWOT stands for
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Dyson uses this tool to
identify and analyze its internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as its
external opportunities and threats. The results of this analysis may help Dyson
improve its business, or forecast how a new product will perform (Harmon,
2016).
Research the vacuum cleaner industry (home
and commercial, domestic and international). Include the following items in
your analysis: market trends, market opportunities, threats, and Dyson’s major
global competition.
Go to the Library>Research Guides
and select the following two research guides: Business and Management and
Marketing. Read these research guides. Find and print the articles that will
help you complete your assignments. It is easier if you conduct a separate
search for each section of your marketing plan. Also, use industry or company
databases, such as ABI/INFORM Complete, Business Insights: Essentials, Business
Source Complete, Factiva, Hoover’s, and Mergent Online, to research the vacuum
cleaner industry. Make sure that you have a solid mix of scholarly
(peer-reviewed articles) and reliable nonscholarly sources (e.g., Reuters,
Bloomberg, Money, Fortune, Forbes, or
practitioner sources such as
Harvard Business Review).
Milestone 1: Conduct the following three analyses for Dyson: PESTEL analysis,
SWOT analysis, and Porter’s five forces analysis. Present your results in a
four-page report (excluding cover page, reference list, tables, graphs, and/or
exhibits). Be sure to support your work with the required readings, scholarly
sources, and reliable nonscholarly sources using ‘s library search engine.
You will combine the work you have completed in this milestone with the other
milestones and submit all work together in the final step.
References
Cooper, R. G. (2011). Winning at new products (4th
ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books
Frue, K. (2017). Why do PEST analysis for
your business? Retrieved from http://pestleanalysis.com/
Harmon, A. (2016). SWOT analysis. Salem Press Encyclopedia [online].
Retrieved from Research Starters, Ipswich, MA. Accessed February 24, 2017.
Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive
forces that shape strategy. Harvard
Business Review, 86(1),
78-93.
Now that the environmental scan has been
completed, the new product development group needs to conduct an analysis
of consumer buying behavior in this industry. Outline how the team
would conduct this analysis, while considering both current and potential
product users. Your analysis should address how you would determine the
following:
- What needs
are being met by the product purchase? What are the benefits to the
consumers? Make sure that you differentiate between features and benefits;
go beyond manifest motives and consider latent motives. - Who is
involved in the purchase process? Who are influencers, buyers, and users? - Where are
the products sold (distribution channel)? - How often
are the products purchased? Is there seasonality to sales?
Milestone 2: Present
your results in a three-page report (net, excluding cover page, reference list,
tables, graphs, and/or exhibits). Be sure to support your work with the
required readings, scholarly sources, and reliable nonscholarly sources (such
as Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance, Money, Forbes, Fortune,
and Harvard Business Review) using ‘s library search engine.
You will combine the work you have completed in this milestone with the other
milestones and submit all work together in the final step.
The first step in developing a marketing
strategy involves segmenting, targeting and positioning (STP).
Segmentation is breaking down the market into homogenous groups; targetingis
selecting the consumer groups on which you will focus your marketing efforts.
The appropriate segmentation variable is dependent on the needs and wants of
the consumers. These decisions require extensive marketing research on the
consumers and are directly tied to your value proposition. Once the
segmentation variables are determined and the target markets selected, you need
to develop a positioning strategy.
Positioning refers to the image of the product that you want the consumer to
have relative to the competition.
Describe the market research you would
conduct to analyze and segment the market for the new vacuum cleaner. Explain
how you would select a target market or markets for the product offering. These
can be domestic markets, international markets, or both. In addition, explain
the process of positioning the new Dyson vacuum cleaner relative to the
competition.
Milestone 3: Your research results should be presented in a three-page paper
(excluding cover page, reference list, tables, graphs, and/or exhibits). Be
sure to support your work with the required readings, scholarly sources, and
reliable nonscholarly sources (such as Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance, Money, Forbes, Fortune,
and Harvard
Business Review) using ‘s library search engine. You will
combine the work you have completed in this milestone with the other milestones
and submit all work together in the final step.
Dyson’s new product innovation
process involves both incremental and radical innovation. Radicalness is
the combination of the degree of differentness and newness. This includes
innovations that are new to the world, the industry, or to Dyson. Most radical
innovations are new to the world (e.g., digital photography), and are very
different from existing processes and products. On the other hand, incremental
innovations lie at the other end of the spectrum; they are not exceptional or
particularly new, they may currently exist in the industry, and may involve
minor tweaks, adjustments, or changes from existing products. A radical
innovation may become an incremental innovation over time as its underlying
technology becomes more common (Schilling, 2013).
Once your idea is developed, write a value
proposition for your new product.
Milestone 4: Present the results of your activities in a two-page report
identifying your new product idea, explaining the procedure you used to develop
the process, and state your value proposition. Be sure to support your work
with the required readings, scholarly sources, and reliable nonscholarly
sources (such as Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance, Money, Forbes, Fortune,
and Harvard
Business Review) using ‘s library search engine. You will
combine the work you have completed in this milestone with the other milestones
and submit all work together in the final step.
References
Schilling, M. (2013). Strategi
