Q2
You are head of IT for a chain of department stores called ManyGoods. ManyGoods management has decided to take head-on the competition from online vendors. They are rolling out a new business strategy they are calling BrickMatch, which is to match any online offer in their stores. This new business strategy aims to leverage the advantage of touch-and-feel goods and immediate possession by customers. Here are some characteristics of the ManyGoods chain.
1. A competitor to Target and Walmart
2. 80 stores
3. thousands of employees
4. anticipates growing
5. consoles throughout the store with Internet access
6. partnering with specialty stores, providing them space – e.g., bookstores
7. free home delivery of out-of-stock items
8. loyalty program for frequent buyers
9. national campaign advertising BrickMatch
10. in-store, limited time specials
11. preparation for loss-leader response (i.e., online vendors likely to respond by using deep pockets to sell attractive items at a loss)
Where feasible and relevant, account for and emphasize these characteristics in your responses, and state any additional assumptions about ManyGoods and BrickMatch that you make.
Explain whether and how ManyGoods can effectively use outsourcing or offshoring to support their new BrickMatch business strategy. Discuss both business and IT aspects but emphasize IT aspects.
Q3)
You are head of IT for a chain of department stores called ManyGoods. ManyGoods management has decided to take head-on the competition from online vendors. They are rolling out a new business strategy they are calling BrickMatch, which is to match any online offer in their stores. This new business strategy aims to leverage the advantage of touch-and-feel goods and immediate possession by customers. Here are some characteristics of the ManyGoods chain.
1. A competitor to Target and Walmart
2. 80 stores
3. thousands of employees
4. anticipates growing
5. consoles throughout the store with Internet access
6. partnering with specialty stores, providing them space – e.g., bookstores
7. free home delivery of out-of-stock items
8. loyalty program for frequent buyers
9. national campaign advertising BrickMatch
10. in-store, limited time specials
11. preparation for loss-leader response (i.e., online vendors likely to respond by using deep pockets to sell attractive items at a loss)
Where feasible and relevant, account for and emphasize these characteristics in your responses, and state any additional assumptions about ManyGoods and BrickMatch that you make.
Explain whether and how ManyGoods can effectively use enterprise resource planning to support their new BrickMatch business strategy. Discuss both business and IT aspects but emphasize IT aspects.
Q4)
You are a CIO for very large organization called SupportForce which sells a SaaS CRM (customer relationship management) to their consumers. Their consumers are other typically other businesses across all industries. All of the SaaS CRM offerings are on premise and the organization, being on the east coast, was just hit with a flooding natural disaster which incapacitated their main SaaS Datacenter and operations. It took the organization 5 days to get their SaaS CRM fully back online and functional.
The executive team is now looking to you to prevent this from happening again and putting a plan in place to ensure that irrespective of the disaster or risk, they will never have unavailability.
Where feasible and relevant, account for and emphasize these characteristics in your responses, and state any additional assumptions about SupportForce that you make.
Explain how you would create a plan around ensuring that the organization SupportForce would continue their business and address the highest risks to ensure their business endures in the face of disaster.
Q5)
You are head of IT for a chain of department stores called ManyGoods. ManyGoods management has decided to take head-on the competition from online vendors. They are rolling out a new business strategy they are calling BrickMatch, which is to match any online offer in their stores. This new business strategy aims to leverage the advantage of touch-and-feel goods and immediate possession by customers. Here are some characteristics of the ManyGoods chain.
1. A competitor to Target and Walmart
2. 80 stores
3. thousands of employees
4. anticipates growing
5. consoles throughout the store with Internet access
6. partnering with specialty stores, providing them space – e.g., bookstores
7. free home delivery of out-of-stock items
8. loyalty program for frequent buyers
9. national campaign advertising BrickMatch
10. in-store, limited time specials
11. preparation for loss-leader response (i.e., online vendors likely to respond by using deep pockets to sell attractive items at a loss)
Where feasible and relevant, account for and emphasize these characteristics in your responses, and state any additional assumptions about ManyGoods and BrickMatch that you make.
Explain how ManyGoods can integrate social networks to support their new BrickMatch business strategy. Discuss both business and IT aspects but emphasize IT aspects.
