Overview: When you are in a market and researching if and how new technologies can help your business, it is important to examine what your competitors are doing with the same technologies, and how successful they are implementing them.
This assignment is the second milestone that you will complete for your final project. In this milestone, you will address the following:
You will begin drafting parts of your final project, focusing on your business requirements, competitors, and technology.
This assignment is an important practice opportunity for you to create a draft, and to get feedback from your instructor to improve your final draft.
The rubric reflects that this is a practice opportunity. You should focus on getting the necessary information into your draft. No draft is perfect.
This milestone aligns with sections I, II, and III of your final project. Use the questions in the critical elements as a guide.
You are free to work in the Final Project Template document or on a separate word document for your drafts. It is recommended you use the template to ensure you do not miss any items you need to address. The critical elements are highlighted in yellow in the template.
You will submit the Decision Matrix document you used to conduct your research as part of this assignment. For guidance on completing the decision matrix, refer to these learning resources:
Decision Matrix: What It Is and How to Use It: This article defines the decision matrix and discusses how leaders evaluate and prioritize all of their options when considering solutions to a difficult task.
Decision Matrix Analysis: This article explains how to use a decision matrix analysis, a useful technique for making a choice when many factors must be balanced.
Decision Matrix Example: Use this resource to view an example of a completed decision matrix.
Prompt: Remember that you have immersed yourself in the role of an IT professional. Imagine that you work for the small brick-and-mortar business described in the final project case scenario.
The owner of your business wants to focus on generating new revenue through e-commerce, but she knows that this change in operations requires the company to integrate new technology.
To gain an understanding of what the business might need for technology, she has asked you to create a business systems analysis. In this part of your drafted analysis, you will focus on solutions and recommendations based on your research for your first milestone.
Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:
III. Technology Solutions: In this section, you will discuss how each of the two technologies meets the technology requirements that you identified in section
II. Use your decision matrix to guide your responses.
A. Technology One: Explain how well this technology meets the technology requirements of your business. Be sure to address which technology requirements the technology meets, and where there are gaps.
B. Technology Two: Explain how well this technology meets the technology requirements of your business. Be sure to address which technology requirements the technology meets, and where there are gaps.
IV. Recommendations: In this section, you will recommend the technology solution that you believe is most appropriate for your business based on how well each technology meets your business's technology requirements.
A. Recommend a technology solution for your business, and defend why that solution is appropriate. You could recommend only one technology, or you could recommend any combination of the two that you investigated.
B. Explain the overall benefit of your recommended technology solution to your business. Consider the following: i. How will it enhance efficiency? ii. How will it position your business for future growth as you move online?