Reference no: EM13983379

Assignment-1:

Scenario

You are strongly advised not to copy and paste material from elsewhere (including from previous students) for any part of this coursework. All submissions will be passed through TurnItIn for an authenticity report, and action taken against any student where there is evidence of plagiarism.

As the IT Director in a multinational organisation with 30,000 employees you have decided to investigate Enterprise 2.0 systems that could be implemented to

1. Improve the standard of documentation within the organisation

2. Facilitate group work

3. Develop an intranet for the organisation

You have seen demonstrations of SharePoint at a conference, and have been impressed by its functionality, but you have also read that there are open source alternatives (Alfresco, Drupal, Joomla!, Concrete4) that may give the same functionality.

Task 1

Develop a set of criteria, with justification, for each of these three areas that could be used to evaluate different products.

Evaluate two Enterprise 2.0 systems of your choice, which you must specify, against these criteria, giving references to published material (eg by Microsoft, Drupal).

A suitable Weighted Scoring Model must be used for this task, and images from it need to be included in your report.

A screencast of your Weighted Scoring Model must be done which illustrates its features, and its URL (and password if necessary) must be included in your report.

Task 2

Currently, many staff members are using Web 2.0 systems such as Facebook, Flickr, box.net and DropBox for online storage, Doodle for scheduling meetings, and Google docs for word processing and other office tasks. Explain clearly any legal, ethical and social issues that this may generate, and justify why your recommend Enterprise 2.0 solution is preferred.

You must illustrate your answer by reference to two recent (ie in the last 12 months) relevant examples where legal, ethical or social issues were raised in an Enterprise environment.

Task 3

Include six discrete examples from your own lab work using an Enterprise 2.0 system to illustrate the wide range of functionality that is available. (5% for each example, total 30%). Make sure you explain in detail the functionality illustrated, and include annotated screenshots.

Assignment-2:

Scenario

This is a group coursework, which must be entirely in your own words. There is also a group grade which will be weighted by your contribution to the team effort.

Specification

You need to become part of a team for this coursework. Teams should have about six members, including a designated project manager and a quality assurance manager (with responsibility for testing and maintenance of documentation).

Use SharePoint or other suitable Content Management System to implement a web site for a broadcasting company in your own country to advertise its services (eg schedule of programmes, latest news, weather), and to provide information about the company, provide contact details, and deal with enquiries and complaints. Implement as much functionality as possible, basing it on a real web site which you must specify. The aim is to create a duplicate version of the site, although some links can be set as "Under development". At least one of the items of functionality implemented must involve a database and a workflow (eg an enquiry system).

For the purpose of this coursework you may use images, data, style sheets and text from your chosen site. Your site must not be accessible by anyone who does not know the site password or have a relevant login account. What you are doing is purely for educational purposes, so there are no copyright issues involved, particularly as everything you will be using is publically available on the internet.

You will need to have a team structure with clear roles, and a number of minuted meetings. All development documentation must be kept in a secure structured repository to which your tutor and the Greenwich course leader need read-only access.

The team is required to present their finished site to their tutor at a designated date. The presentation is to focus on the benefits of a CMS for building the site, and should include a comparison between the team's site and the real site.

The team must also produce a 5-10 minute screencast illustrating the design and functionality of their site.

Tasks

1. Work as a team to build and test a CMS to meet the above specification.

2. Create a screencast recording (including screen and sound) demonstrating the design and key functionalities of the system. This can be created using any suitable software (eg Camtasia or Jing) and hosted securely on the cloud.

3. Present the finished product to a non-technical audience to explain the benefits of a CMS for building the site. Include a comparison between the team's site and the real site, illustrating any differences.

4. Document the system to an appropriate standard, including your reflection on the finished product, and on the contributions of your team members.

Deliverables

1. A Group Repository containing all the artefacts produced by the team (eg responsibility matrix of the team, Gantt charts, minutes of meetings) with a menu allowing easy access to its content. The repository must be secure, but accessible by your tutor and the Greenwich course leader.

2. An Individual PDF Report

The report must give the URL of the Group Repository, the Screencast and the website and any usernames or passwords needed to access it. The individual component of the marking will be based on your report, so ensure this has evidence that your system meets the specified requirements. The text in your individual report must be entirely your own words.

3. A Presentation and Screencast

You must be present as part of the team that presents the finished product to your tutor, and should contribute to the screencast. The presentation should be pitched at a non-technical audience; the screencast should demonstrate the functionality of the system.

Assignment-3:

Important Information

The case study contains a lot of information about Brightling Kids Foundation (BKF) .In order to complete this coursework successfully you will need to abstractthe important information , that is, decide what information is relevant to this assignment and what isn't.

• Do not use a previous student's coursework as a basis for your work. It will be identified.

• Any attempt to use other people's material in your coursework, whether taken from a classmate or from another source, will result in you receiving a lower mark and possibly being awarded zero.

• You should not need to reference journals/books/websites within this coursework - your discussions should relate to what you have found in the case study and/or what you have learnt as a result of undertaking the given activities. However, if you have found it necessary to use any other sources then you must reference them appropriately using the Harvard Method.

• You will need to refer to information given in the case study. DO NOT copy information directly from the case study. Make sure that you rewrite it in your own words.

o You have been warned: If you copy text directly from the case study this will result in you receiving a lower mark and possibly being referred for an Assessment Offence and being awarded zero.

o You may include appropriate quotes from the case study if they support your argument. However, if you do this make sure that:
- You use speech marks to indicate the quotes
- Reference them by stating the page number of the case study
- Use quotes sparingly - your mark will be reduced if your discussion consists largely of case study quotes.

• Do not copy the whole case study into your report. Only submit the work you have completed.

Coursework Summary

Using the attached case study, Brightling Kids Foundation (BKF), you are required to:

A. Analyse and model the BKF environment using rich pictures

B. Produce and analyse a set of Use Case models describing the requirements for the current Walton Disabled Youth Training (WDYT)System

A detailed list of what you are required to do and the deliverables is set out below.

Detailed Specification

Part A - Requirements Analysis using Rich Pictures

This section requires you to use information from all of parts of the case study. You should use examples from the case study to illustrate any points you make but do not just cut and paste from the case study.

A1. Draw a Rich Picture of the overall BKF environment from the perspective of Head Office.

o Use relevant information from any part of the case study to help you. Remember, though, your Rich Picture should reflect the key aspects of the overall BKF environment from the perspective of Head Office.

o Make sure that your submitted diagram is clear, readable and contains a key identifying the symbols you have used. Hand drawn diagrams are preferred to computer generated diagrams. Do not spend hours making your Rich Picture look pretty, but make sure that it is readable.

A2. Discuss your understanding of the overall BKF environment (as represented by your Rich Picture).

o In particular, discuss your understanding of the following:
- the key actors in the environment
- the key issues and areas of conflict affecting the environment
- the cultures and sub-cultures within the environment
- The current IT provision and issues at Head Office

In completing this section, you must use examples from the case study to support your discussion. Your answer to this should be in the region of 750 words.

A3. Draw a Rich Picture of the overall Walton Disabled Youth Training (WDYT) project environment from the perspective of the WDYT staff.

o Use relevant information from any part of the case study to help you. Remember, though, your Rich Picture should reflect the key aspects of the WDYT project environment from the perspective of the WDYTstaff.

o Make sure that your submitted diagram is clear, readable and contains a key identifying the symbols you have used. Hand drawn diagrams are preferred to computer generated diagrams. Do not spend hours making your Rich Picture look pretty, but make sure that it is readable.

A4. Discuss your understanding of the overall WDYT project environment (as represented by your Rich Picture).
o In particular, discuss your understanding of the following:
- the key actors in the environment
- the key issues and areas of conflict affecting the environment
- the cultures and sub-cultures within the environment
- The current IT provision and issues within the WDYT environment

In completing this section, you must use examples from the case study to support your discussion. Your answer to this should be in the region of 500 words

Part B - Requirements Analysis using Use Case Modelling

The case study provides information about the work undertaken by the Walton Disabled Youth Training Centre. It gives specific information about the processes currently undertaken to manage this project. Use this information to help you complete the following:

B1: Draw a use case diagram for the current Walton Disabled Youth Training (WDYT) system clearly identifying the actors and processes involved.

B2: Document your use case diagram

B2.1 Write the primary (or normal case) scenario for each business (or essential) use case in the system. (Note: you must document business use cases not system use cases)

B2.2 Select two of your primary scenarios and, for each one complete the following:

1. Identify all the secondary scenarios that you think exist for the primary scenario

2. Rewrite the primary scenario to include the secondary scenarios you identified in step (1) above.

B3: Discuss how the use case modelling process helped you develop your understanding of the current environment.

To complete this section you must:

o Explain how the process of developing and documenting your use cases helped you identify key actors, key processes and any areas that require further investigation.

o Identify any assumptions that you made in order to develop your use case models: In real life what questions would you have asked to get the necessary information? Who would you have asked?

o Use relevant examples from the case study to support your answer

This must be a discussion based on your own experiences.

Your answer to this section should be in the region of 750words.

Assignment-4:

Case Study - Boots

The Boots is a pharmaceutical private limited company based in the United Kingdom. Boots is a major manufacturer and retailer of cosmetics, toiletries, wide range of health and beauty products, baby products, and gifts, with prescription and non-prescription medicines with a chain of retail stores in most high streets and shopping centers across the United Kingdom.

This case study deals with Boots launching a loyalty card scheme known as the ‘Advantage Card'. Loyalty Card schemes are an effective way to increase customer retention. Customers can sign up for the Advantage card and for every pound spent the cardholder can receives four points, each point is worth 1p, which over a period of time could accumulate for amounts which can be redeemed against a purchase.

While Boots may not have been among the first major retailers to leap onto the loyalty bandwagon it's considered approach and lengthy trial phase are now paying rich rewards. Like others, Boots now knows who its best customers are but more importantly for the company's growing team of analysts and marketers, information on purchasing patterns is now driving strategic change within the organisation as it moves from the traditional product category focus to a customer-centred view. ‘We were always confident that the loyalty data would have a real impact on the business', says customer insight strategy manager, Helen James, ‘and that has happened - the information really is changing the way we do things'.

Boots launched its Advantage Card scheme nationally in September 1997 following a two-year research programme that had included extensive trials in the Norwich and Plymouth areas.

These trails tested out reward levels and had begun to identify what card holders wanted from the scheme. ‘The majority of our customers are obviously women', says Helen, ‘and many already have cards for the various supermarket loyalty schemes. The toiletries and over-the-counter pharmacy market is very competitive, other schemes effectively reward the housekeeping money with a discount or coupons rather than giving a personal benefit to the customer. We wanted our scheme to be different - hence the focus on "treats", rewarding customers with a personal item that they would not normally buy for themselves. You can't redeem Advantage Card points on basic essentials like toothpastes and our early research with the trials suggested that this was something card holders really valued'.

Boots initially hoped to sign up eight million card holders during the scheme's first year: in the event it has far exceeded its original estimate with 10 million card holders by December 1998 and a continuing healthy level of new recruits. ‘We had predicted four per cent sales growth as a result of the card', says Helen, ‘and that is effectively what has happened. We expected this to tail-off over time, but due to the scheme's effectiveness we've continued to see quantifiable growth rates into the second year of operation - which was not what we expected'.

With Boots' total investment in Advantage Card in the first year (including the database) put at around £25 million a significant sales growth was an important part of the rationale for the scheme. More valuable in the longer term are the insights into consumer behaviour which the monitoring of buying patterns, with the help of sophisticated data management and analysis tools, reveals. ‘We always knew that the growing customer database was going to prove one of our greatest assets', says Helen, ‘this is why we chose not to contract the analysis out to a third party - it's a vital business tool as we're discovering'.

Boots is a long-established IBM customer but the marketing department and Boots' IS team thoroughly researched the available options before deciding to go with IBM for the new customer analysis system. ‘There were other companies who could offer better individual components', says IS project manager, Ian Radmore, ‘but IBM were able to offer a complete solution and the retail experience of their support team, led by Derek Linney and Evan Williams, gave us confidence that they could add real value during the solution development cycle'.

The database project started in spring 1997 - 6 months before the national card launch. ‘The project generally went well', adds Ian, ‘but it is very much state of the art technology and was a lot more painful at times than we had expected. No one wants to be first with IT - but if you're not then you can lose out on competitive advantage'.

With more than 2 years of individual card holder transaction records and a selection of non-card holder sales records to provide a comparison with card holder behaviour -‘the size of the database was always going to be a challenge for performance', adds Ian. ‘We wanted to get the structure right from the start. It was key to us that the system would provide maximum flexibility and this has been achieved by storing data at the lowest level of granularity so that users can build it up to any level they require during analysis. Another important aspect is that commercial analysts have rapid real time access to all of the data without having to make special requests on IS support - the database is structured to support the analytical process'.

The resulting Customer Data Analysis System (CDAS) sits on an SP/2 platform running under IBM's DB/2 UDB database under AIX. After 18 months the database has reached 1,200 GB but most queries only take a few minutes to run, and even highly complex ones come back within a reasonable time scale. ‘The analysts were delighted when query response times were demonstrated to be over 30 times faster than what they were used to on their trial system' adds Ian.

The current tool set includes MicroStrategy's DSS Agent and Andyne's GQL which are used for the bulk of queries - with IBM's Intelligent Miner for Data being used for more advanced data mining such as segmentation and predictive modelling.

Currently there are 23 full-time analysts in Helen James' Customer Insight team as well as a separate team of direct marketing experts. ‘From our traditional EPoS data we knew what was being sold, where and when', adds Helen, ‘now we can determine what different groups of customers are buying and monitor their behaviour over time'.

What interests the analysts more is the behaviour of groups of customers. They are interested, for example, in the effect of Boots' marketing activity on customers - such as the impact of promotional offers on buying patterns, over time. They can make a valuable input to decisions about layout, ranging and promotions by using market basket analysis to provide insight into the product purchasing repertoires of different groups of customers.

Like others, Boots has made a feature of multi-buy promotional schemes in recent years with numerous ‘three for the price of two' and even ‘two for the price of one' offers. Using the card data the Insight team has now been able to identify four groups of promotion buyers:
• The deal seekers who only ever buy promotional lines;
• The stockpilers who buy in bulk when goods are on offer and then do not visit the store for weeks;
• The loyalists - existing buyers who will buy a little more of a line when it is on offer but soon revert to their usual buying patterns; and
• The new market - customers who start buying items when on promotion and then continue to purchase the same product once it reverts to normal price.

‘This sort of analysis helps marketers to understand what they are achieving via their promotions, rather than just identifying the uplift. They can see whether they are attracting new long term business or just generating short term uplift and also the extent to which they are cannibalising existing lines', says Helen. Analysing market basket trends by shopper over time is also providing Boots with a new view of its traditional product categories. Customers buying skin care products, for example, often buy hair-care products as well so this is a good link to use in promotions, direct mail and in-store activity.

Other linking's which emerge from the data - as Helen says, quite obvious when one thinks about them - include films and suntan lotion; sensitive skin products - be they washing-up gloves, cosmetics or skin care; and films and photograph frames with new baby products. ‘Like many large retailers we are still organized along product category lines', she says, ‘so it would never really occur to the baby products buyers to create a special offer linked to picture frames - yet these are the very thing which new parents are likely to want'.

‘We're also able to see how much shoppers participate in a particular range', says Helen. ‘They may buy tooth brushes, but do they also buy toothpaste and dental floss?' It may well be more profitable to encourage existing customers to buy deeper in the range than to attract new ones.

Monitoring purchases over time is also helping to identify buying patterns which fuel further marketing effort. Disposable nappy purchases, for example, are generally limited by the number of packs a customer can carry. A shopper visiting Boots once a fortnight and buying nappies is probably buying from a number of supply sources whereas one calling at the store twice a week probably gets most of her baby's nappy needs from Boots. Encouraging the first shopper to visit more would probably also increase nappy sales.

Boots combines its basic customer demographic data (such as age, gender, number of children and postcode) with externally available data. However, according to Helen ‘the real power comes from being able to combine this with detailed purchase behaviour data - and this is now being used to fuel business decisions outside of the marketing arena'.

An analysis of how Boots' customers shop a group of stores in a particular geographical area has led to a greatly improved understanding of the role different stores play within that area and the repertoire of goods that should be offered across the stores. For example, Boots stores have typically been grouped and merchandized according to their physical size. This leads to large stores competing with smaller stores for trade in the same area. ‘We quickly learned that our most valuable customers shop across many stores in their area' says Helen, ‘and that there is a lot to be gained by managing stores as local areas and focusing on getting the overall customer offer right'.

Gaining a greater understanding of how customers shop product areas and stores offers really valuable insights. However, as Helen says, ‘the real prize is in gaining a really good overall understanding of your customers'. For a retailer with a very broad customer base it is too simple just to focus all efforts on the most valuable customers. Boots builds up its understanding by combining data from a number of customer dimensions: RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary value) analysis enhanced with profitability. This helps Boots to understand the main drivers of customer value and identify which customers it should value and retain and which could be more valuable if it focussed on them more.

• Lifestage analysis - This provides insight into how a customer's value changes over their lifetime. Using it, Boots can identify which are the potentially valuable customers of the future. It can also see the point at which a customer might become less valuable and try to prevent this. It is also clear that some messages become very important at certain times (e.g. vitamins to people over 35 who have realized they may not be immortal) and irrelevant at others (which mother is concerned about cosmetics within a couple of weeks of the birth of her child?). This informs the mix of messages the customer receives, for instance via direct mail.

• Attitudinal insight from market research surveys and questionnaires gives Boots an understanding of the attitudes driving the behaviour they see on their database. It is pointless directing a lot of marketing effort at people whose attitudes mean that they are unlikely to become more valuable to Boots.

This diversity of data is being used to build up a multi-dimensional picture of customers that gets to the heart of what drives customer value both today and into the future. Analysis of attitudes and customer repertoires offers Boots pointers to influencing customer value in a positive way. This understanding of customers has many applications within Boots from the way the Boots brand is communicated to specific cross-selling activities for store staff. One of the first applications of this segmentation was as a driver of the Boots relationship marketing programme enabled by the Advantage Card.

The segmentation provides a framework for relationship marketing. Specific campaigns help Boots to deliver that framework. These could encourage customers to shop along different themes - summer holidays, Christmas shopping - and incentivize them to make a visit. They may simply raise awareness of a particular new product or service - Boots Health & Travel Cover launched in April is a good example of this. They could be an invitation to an exclusive shopping event where the customer can shop in peace and perhaps earn extra points as well.

To make all this happen Boots needed a campaign management system that could involve customers in the relationship marketing programme most relevant to them. The ‘campaign management' component has been fully integrated within CDAS through a bespoke development by IBM. This means that direct marketing analysts are able to develop their target customer profiles without having to first create a separate extract of the data and are also able to base these profiles on the full richness of information held within the database. Having defined these criteria, the system will automatically come up with a mailing list of matching card holders with no further intervention.

The system not only automates the measurement of basic campaign response analysis, but also makes the list of customers actually mailed available within the analysis environment so that more sophisticated response analysis can be performed. ‘The close integration of the Campaign Management System within the analytic environment of CDAS is one of its main strengths' says Ian, ‘not only are we able to drive high response rates by tightly targeting relevant customer groups, but we are able to close the loop from initial customer analysis, through customer selection and campaign execution back to campaign response measurement and further campaign analysis'.

‘When we announced the Advantage loyalty scheme we knew that the incremental sales generated by it would pay for the initial investment, but that the long term value would come from the application of customer insights across the business' says Helen - ‘we are already proving that we can add significant value from doing this. But you do not obtain these benefits unless you get the base of detailed information right - and couple this with an ability to thoroughly exploit it'.

Detailed Specification:

You have been invited as an experienced consultant, by Boots Senior Management, to put together a strategic plan based on the evidence supplied in the case study. The Management are also seeking a thorough investigation into the analysis of the impact of the new system on the culture and the productivity of the organisation.

You are required to produce a management report entitled, "Strategic Evaluation Document for Boots" (Minimum 2500, maximum of 5000 words). Specifically you are required to:

1. Investigate the impact of the new IT/IS system on the culture and productivity of the organisation

2. Identify evidence that corroborates, or falsifies the claim that the new system has delivered value and provided the organisation competitive advantage that Boot's management were seeking?

Your Task

1. Management Summary

Briefly summarise the approach taken in the report, and the key findings

2. Introduction

Background - briefly describe the background context of the organisation (e.g. historic information on the company's formation, the financial performance, and the key products and services).

3. Strategic Evaluation

Present Position and Industry Analysis: You should consider analysing the organisation's current position using both of the following tools: SWOT and PEST

4. eMarketing Strategy

5.1 What eMarketing strategy would you advise the organisation to adopt?

5.2 What is the value proposition and differential advantage of this strategy?

5. Legal and ethical issues

What legal and ethical issues does the organisation need to consider with regard to the gathering, processing, distribution and use of information on the Internet?

6. Conclusion

7. References