Part A - IS-Enabled Firms Proposal
The "IS-Enabled Firms" project will have students identify a traditional (i.e., incumbent) firm whose productivity (and, by extension, results) are being overtaken by an IS-driven firm (e.g., amazon.ca has challenged Pages Books in Kensington). Students will be asked to analyze and describe the incumbent firm, its IS-driven challenger, and propose operational and IS suggestions for how the incumbent firm may be able to effectively respond to an IS-driven one by improving its productivity.
The IS-enabled firms assignment is designed to be the integrative capstone project for this course, and enables you to critically analyze opportunities and threats associated with IS-enabled and non-IS-enabled businesses. The best assignments are those which use multiple analysis lenses for the incumbent and challenger and provide a coherent, capability-driven set of suggestions for competitive strategy and technology options.
Keys to Success
- Explain why the industry is of interest to you; also, explain why you've chosen the particular firms within the industry.
- Are there any lines of thinking you might pursue? For example, you may have some initial thoughts about analytical lenses or operational and/or IS suggestions. These may help me to guide your research and analysis by providing specific feedback on data sources or analytical tools and techniques.
- Students who choose an incumbent firm to which they have greater access tend to do better on this assignment.
Part B - IS-Enabled Firms
The "IS-Enabled Firms" project will have students identify a traditional (i.e., incumbent) firm whose productivity (and, by extension, results) are being overtaken by an IS-driven firm (e.g., amazon.ca has challenged Pages Books in Kensington). Students will be asked to analyze and describe the incumbent firm, its IS-driven challenger, and propose operational and IS suggestions for how the incumbent firm may be able to effectively respond to an IS-driven one by improving its productivity.
The IS-enabled firms assignment is designed to be the integrative capstone project for this course, and enables you to critically analyze opportunities and threats associated with IS-enabled and non-IS-enabled businesses. The best assignments are those which use multiple analysis lenses for the incumbent and challenger and provide a coherent, capability-driven set of suggestions for competitive strategy and technology options.
Keys to Success -
Use the rubric as your guide. Ensure you are clear about your incumbent firm and your IS-enabled firm. Ensure you identify one firm as an incumbent and one firm as an IS-enabled challenger.
The analysis is not where the meat of the paper is-the strategy and IS elements are where the meat of the paper should be.
Do not suggest IS for the sake of IS. Determine a strategy for the incumbent firm and craft your IS ideas and concepts to support the strategy.
- Strategy is as much about what to do as it is about what not to do.
- A collection of tactics is not a strategy.
The more detail you can provide about the feasibility and potential implementation considerations associated with your proposed strategy, the higher you'll score. In practice, this could include a high-level project plan, an ROI calculation, or an appropriate diagram or two.
- Students who choose an incumbent firm to which they have greater access tend to do better on this front.
- Every firm is an incumbent in some field-including some of the biggest firms in the world.
When developing the paper, remember the question, "so what?" For example, a SWOT analysis means nothing without understanding the implications stemming from it.
Attachment:- Assignment Files.rar