Description
This assignment is due on September 29 by 11:59 pm. This assignment is designed to develop your understanding of the opportunities related to e-commerce. For this assignment, you need to do the items that follow. Don't worry if some of the requirements seem improbable. They are designed for an extreme solution that forces one to consider a broad range of e-commerce possibilities. 1. Make up a company. While it can be any type of company, the assignment may be more valuable if you pick a company that’s relevant to your area of interest. Your company can’t have any employees, other than managers that strategize, manage, negotiate, and make contracts (they can’t do anything else). Next, identify about the many and various needs your company needs if it is to succeed. These needs must meet all of your company's needs--not just those related to MIS. The introductory paragraph needs to include your company's departments, and the goods it sells and/or the services it provides. This paragraph will provide part of the foundation for grading the paper. The departments need to be sufficient for the company, and the e-commerce solutions need to meet your company's comprehensive needs. Your paper should include no more than one brief paragraph about your company. Mention of your employees should be very brief or absent. 2. List e-commerce solutions for your company (there will be many solutions, since your employees do so little). For each solution, you need to identify and include the following: a. The solution's problem or opportunity (the reason your company has a need for the solution). i. If you're having trouble with this, think about your company's product(s) and/or service(s), the departments, infrastructure, and issues related to infrastructure. Also, remember that you will outsource all of your needs. ii. Also, look at Chapters 4 and 5, which include many e-commerce solutions (e.g., design work, payment solutions, etc.). These examples may jump-start some ideas for solutions. However, you’ll need to go beyond the examples. You’ll need to find some solutions that aren’t in the textbook or in the Blackboard material. b. The name of and URL for the company that will provide the solution (your company is the recipient of the solution, not the provider). c. The price for the good or service. While this may not be possible for every solution, an accurate or closely estimated price should be possible for most solutions. d. A brief description of how the solution how will help your company For example, the manufacturing entrepreneur in the example wants to use PayPal: PayPal www.paypal.com 2.9% of the transaction plus 30 cents Customers may use PayPal for purchases. PayPal processes the financial transactions, and provides better overall security for the transaction details and for credit card information than most small businesses. If you're having difficulty in thinking about this assignment, look at the at the Electronic Commerce Defined slides. There, you'll find an manufacturing entrepreneur who used crowdspring, PayPal, square card reader, and other solutions. The example in the slides is limited, since it does not provide solutions for all of the company's needs. You will need to cover all of your company's needs (which is a reason this assignment is worth 35 points). Explanations need to be complete, but not necessarily lengthy. Also, while a budget is not provided, cost-effective solutions tend to be better for this assignment. More is better than less. Papers that include more needs and a larger variety of solutions will score better than those that include fewer. Each solution must be provided by a unique company (i.e., not one you've already listed). This assignment is worth much more than the previous assignments, because much more is expected. Your company must have many needs and solutions. Don’t provide four solutions and expect a high score. Thirty-five points is a lot, and you’re required to think about ALL of the needs of your company. Papers that ignore many needs will receive very low scores.