Using 1,800-2,000 words, write an individual research paper on the project you have chosen for Activities 1-6.

As a minimum, the research paper will include the following areas:

1. What is the background of your problem statement?

2. Why did you select the specific problem statement?

3. The decision to perform an acquisition is heavily influenced by how it relates to the strategic business goals of an organization. Explain why you think the acquisition you are detailing in your submitted Activities potentially supports the strategic business goals of the organization.

4. Risk analysis is a critical part of the acquisition process and is often not done very well. Looking back at the risks you identified for your submitted project, which ones do you believe would be most likely to be identified and accurately measured and which ones either less likely to be identified at all or measured correctly. Explain why. Does your analysis allow you to draw general conclusions on the type of risk that would be likely to be overlooked or mis-analyzed in future projects you might work on?

5. Most scenarios submitted for your alternative solutions included either a COTS product or a SaaS based solution. Gartner is a top analyst that provides great insights on IT solutions across a wide range of business needs. Go to http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp or leverage on another research DB to look at articles related to the IT solution you are acquiring and share the analysis on key vendors, product trends, and market potential.

6. In Session 5 lecture notes, under the heading Commercial Acquisitions, there are references to three readings. Determine if any of them apply to your project. If so, why? If not, why not?