Business Report

Comprises of two parts. Both parts must be submitted in the form of ONE business report.

Assessment Part 1.

The Task 50%

This individual assignment requires you to critically evaluate an online retailer of your choice and analyse how its EIA supports its business objectives. You may investigate which Information Systems (IS) and Technologies are currently used in that organisation or being planned in the future.

You will need to consider the positioning and Resource Based View of the organisation and identify how IT supports (or not) its strategic business objectives. You may wish to discuss the level of IT systems used (e.g. organisational, departmental, individual), and the perspective (i.e. consider the relevant stakeholders; users, managers, developers or consultants) and any features of the particular culture/environment.

The Reading List provided for the module should offer you some guidance on possible research approaches that you may adopt (NB There is no one right approach, so you may select, with clear justification, any approach that you feel is appropriate for the problem under examination).

Deliverable

A 2000 (maximum) word report, which should focus on business benefits for an organisation, and may contain supporting material as Appendices*.The report should include:

• a one page Executive Summary (indicating report aims, approach and findings). This is a standalone and concise summary of the whole paper, which is understandable without reference to the rest of the paper.

• a brief review of the current situation/background regarding the topic

• a clear methodology section outlining project aims/objectives and how the study was undertaken (with justification)

• a critical evaluation of the EIA strategy in business rather than technical terms

• clear statement of findings

• use of figures or tables to summarise points and aid readability

• a clear and comprehensive set of appropriate references (produced to academic journal standard using Harvard Referencing style)

(* not included in word count)

Marking Criteria are shown in attached Table, but you should also include:

• A clear and logical document structure, emphasising business/IT alignment

• A critical rather than descriptive stance

• Justification for statements made e.g. logical reasoning rather than unsupported statements, such as ‘this will be a good thing’

• Professional standards of presentation e.g. page numbering, spell checking, correct grammatical sentence construction, proof reading, clear list of references and neat page layout, with appropriate use of figures and tables. You should not use the first person in preparing the report.

Assessment Part 2.

The Task 50%

Based on the analysis conducted in Part 1, this assignment requires you to use the WordPress environment to develop a working eCommerce application which simulates an online retail operation. The style of presentation is left to your choice. It is recommended that you use the plugin WP e-Commerce (Note that when you install the WP e-Commerce plugin into WordPress you will find full documentation on how to use the plugin) as the foundation for this exercise, although you can use another plugin as foundation for the application if you wish. Whichever plugin you choose to use it must be enhanced by using other plugins to improve the application’s functionality. This could be via plugins which allow the application to:

• Track user access;

• Use a gallery for product images;

• Offer loyalty rewards to customers;

• Offer social media connectivity;

• Offer the customer a questionnaire;

• Offer HELP to new customers;

• Generate invoices.

This list is not exhaustive so you can be as creative as you wish. Credit will be given for the amount of innovation shown in your final application.

Instructions

Your submitted assignment should include the following (1000 words maximum):

1. A report which discusses the specification, design and implementation of your application;

2. A User Guide;

3. A disc or pen-drive containing your wordpress subdirectory with your application plus an exported wordpress database in an .sql file.

Both part 1 and 2 must be submitted in the form of a SINGLE final business report