Problem:
My organization has determined that its e-Business functions are not "cutting edge" and, thus, the organization is losing its competitive edge. The organization's business development department has done some preliminary market and competitive intelligence research and identified the following business projects that should be investigated:
1. Develop and implement a new website or enhance an existing website to include online catalog sales.
2. Develop and implement a new website or enhance an existing website to include customer service. This might include features for self-service or use of real-time customer support.
3. Develop and implement an EDI system to receive requirements/orders from large customers and send requirements/orders to vendors.
4. Develop and implement a new website or enhance an existing website to show real-time inventory available for sale and customer order status.
5. Develop and implement a new intranet-based system or enhance an existing intranet-based system that supports employee human resource features such as viewing/modifying benefits, payroll viewing and deduction modification, viewing/modifying 401(k) benefit, etc.
6. Add m-business capabilities to existing Internet infrastructure.
7. Add audio/video capabilities to existing Internet infrastructure
8. Add Internet-based advertising capabilities (e.g. pop-ups, banners, pop-overs, etc.).
9. Develop and implement a new website or enhance an existing website to support the organization's inside and outside sales force.
10. Develop and implement a new website or enhance an existing website to provide ERP capabilities.
11. Select your own. Based on research, students will select a business requirement not already covered in this list.
Each business requirement should be something that the organization either does not have or has but could improve with new technology. Review each business requirement to determine which ones your organization might implement. You must select at least two to be implemented.
Write a Business Requirements Analysis that clearly defines the two requirements you selected and the rationale for your selection. Include all the 'use cases' that an IT department would need to know about in order to analyze and design technology solutions for the requirements.
The 'use case' is a technique for capturing system requirements. Use cases are scenarios written in regular (non-technical) terminology to describe how a system interacts with a user or another system. For example, a use case for an ordering process might include the following steps: (1) customer places order, (2) order requests item, (3) item bills invoice, (4) customer receives invoice, (5) customer sends payment, (6) payment closes invoice.
Company Background
My organization is a small government run office that is responsible for ensuring the effective and efficient implementation of federal pensions law and regulations. It has all the usual small government problems. Lack of man-power, lack of funding, lagging behind the times, etc.
There main areas of focus of the office are: 1) ensuring employers are registering pension plans with pension administrators in a timely fashion. 2) investigating complaints of non-compliance with pensions law and prosecuting where appropriate. 3) developing public awareness campaigns for both employers and employees. 4) provide appropriate advice to pension administrators, employers and employees.
Being a government entity, there is no real competition, but rather that a service must be offered to employees, employers and pension administrators to ensure compliance of appropriate law.
Our office does not have very effective tech capabilities. Being part of government our office does not have its own IT Dept, but rather a shared one that is spread out between all government offices, so they must meet many demands. Our technology consists of internet, intranet and e-mail, nothing more.
It may be ideal to consider being able to access other agencies software, such as immigration, the pension plan administrators, the prosecutors office, the business license office, etc., so that research can be done 'in office' rather than making constant requests to external agencies. Also, there is an office website, but it is poorly developed. Other areas to consider are ways to reach the 'public' more efficiently and increase internal communication as well.