Case Study

You are the CIO of a successful insurance firm with offices in cities across the nation. You provide all major categories of insurance to consumers who include companies and individuals. You recently attended a technology seminar on Cloud computing. It occurred to you that this would offer potential benefits to your organisation and would be well-received by management and staff.

At the seminar you learnt there were many issues to consider, policies to be developed or modified, and new investments to be made to manage a Cloud environment. These included upgrading your ICT Data Security System to accommodate Cloud Computing to protect clients' and your firm's data; this needs to synchronise and ensure the integrity of data on servers and end-user devices.

You plan to present your Business Case for Cloud to your CEO, Board and executives. You are required to research the background for a project to implement and manage Cloud, determine the scope for the extent to which you recommend use of the Cloud, use Microsoft Excel to model a business plan, perform sensitivity analysis to validate assumptions, and create a presentation to seek funding and authorisation from senior management to implement and manage Cloud Computing.

As Board members and executives are dispersed across the nation you plan to use YouTube or other medium for your presentation. You will also prepare an Executive Handout containing your spreadsheet and will provide this along with the link to the URL which is where the Executives can access your presentation.

Activity A: Journal (maximum 500 words)

Prepare a journal which records your activities and progress related to completing this assignment. In date order, clearly list the following:

? Date of research activity/discussion
? Topic researched or discussed
? Time duration
? Brief description of research activity/discussion.

Activity B: Presentation to Senior Management

Part 1: Research the background for the Cloud project

Conduct an Internet search to gather relevant background information of Cloud. In particular, you should address the following:

How Cloud is utilised and its associated risks
Experiences of other companies
Advantages and disadvantages
The scope to which you recommend your Company utilise Cloud services
The infrastructure required, and
Best-practice for how Cloud should be managed.

Part 2: Develop the Excel model of the business case

Once you have completed Part 1, develop a spread-sheet model of your business costs over a 6 year period. Some of the materials provided in the MIS Projects may help you to come up with a simple modelling. For the purpose of modelling, assume a discount rate of 10 per cent. Your business model should include the following analysis to ascertain the financial viability of the project:

Payback period
Net present value (NPV)
Internal rate of return (IRR), and
Profitability index

Part 3: Perform a sensitivity analysis for the business case

Using the results you obtained in Part 2 as the base case, conduct a sensitivity analysis to examine the impact of the critical cost and benefit variables on the viability of the Cloud project. Provide three specific scenarios of consideration. You must clearly specify the basis of the three scenarios i.e. which critical cost variables they are examining in the sensitivity analysis

Carefully analyse your results and make appropriate recommendations to the company's senior management as to how the critical cost variables should be managed to ensure that the Cloud project is both viable and sustainable in the long term.

Part 4: Create a presentation to senior management

Consolidate and cross-analyse your results and findings from Part 1, 2 and 3. Then prepare a presentation to the company's senior management to seek their financial support and authorisation to embark on the project.

You will submit a handout for the Executives containing the Journal and Spreadsheet through EASE along with a link to a URL where you recorded audio/visual presentation.