Background/Case Study

Congratulations! It is the year 2017 and you have just received The Young ICT Entrepreneur Award and your face is on the cover of New Scientist magazine!! This is for your digital innovation that exploited current and emerging technologies and created a new e-business/product/service/application/technology/business model that the world had not known about before and one that has delivered tangible benefits to users. You wonder why no-one had thought of the idea before; the media is amazed at its popularity and how quickly it was adopted.

Your task for this assignment is to go back in time to 2014 and write the Proposal/Business Plan for starting your proposed new company that won essential investor capital to commercialise your digital innovation. The Business Plan was presented to “Angel Investors”; very experienced business people who support only a small number of start-up companies based on a unique proposition. It was difficult to get an opportunity to present your Business Plan and even more difficult to convince them of the soundness of your idea. Typically the Angel Investors only invite back for further discussions one out of every 20 entrepreneurs who present to them.

 Length: The total word limit for the assignment has been revised down from an original 4500 to 3500 words (not including Turnitin Report, Executive Summary, references or appendices). The recommended length is 3500 words but your report can be up to 4500 words without penalty.

Learning objectives

This assignment specifically addresses the following learning objectives of the course:

LO2   Identify and explore contemporary challenges and opportunities in information systems and to formulate an opinion or judgement and offer possible solutions.

LO3   Demonstrate ability to identify potential opportunities for creative and sustainable use of information technologies to achieve corporate objectives.

LO4   Demonstrate ability to collaborate with peers to analyse and solve business problems with information technologies, and present the solution in a team report.

LO5   Demonstrate effective communication by composing writing that communicates ideas, meaning and/or argument in a format that broadly follows conventions in the information systems field.

LO6   Apply technology and online skills to locate relevant information for the assignments, analyse the presented problems and data, and engage in the use of the resources provided on UConnect.

Deliverables:

Activity A: Journal (500 words)                                              10%

Prepare a journal which records your activities and progress related to completing this assignment. In date order, list the following:

• Date of research activity/discussion/meeting
• Topic researched or discussed
• Time duration
• Brief description of research activity/discussion.

Submit this journal as an appendix to Activity B.

Activity B: Proposal to Angel Investors (3000 words)         90%

Complete the requirements below by producing the written report that you presented to the CEO of Angel Investors in 2014.

Part 1: Your digital innovation                                                (30%)

Write a summary of your proposed initiative addressing the following (3.75 marks each):

• What your innovation is about
• Current business/social/consumer problems your innovation will address/solve
• competitive products/services and why your initiative is different
• The key areas where your innovation is likely to have impact
• Who your customers will be, how large the market is, what will compel them to buy your innovation, how you will attract and retain them
• Problems and drawbacks of your innovation
• The future of your innovation.
• How you can measure the success of your initiative

Part 2: your company                                                               (20%)

Describe your proposed new company to commercialise your initiative in terms of the following (2.5 marks each):

• the industry (e.g. banking, healthcare, travel, airline etc) it operates within,
• its key products/services,
• corporate vision and mission,
• business strategy,
• corporate structure,
• major business processes, and
• relationship with external entities e.g. other organisations, government etc.
• The risks your proposed new company must consider and how these risks can be mitigated

Part 3: Technology requirements and infrastructure           (15%)

Using relevant sections of the text book, describe and analyse how information systems could assist your company to service your customers, integrate your suppliers and provide operational efficiency, including

• Summarise the information systems requirements (applications)
• Describe the required IT infrastructure

Part 4: Conclusions: finance and key findings                       (10%)

Estimate figures based upon your research and produce an expected Profit & Loss statement for the first 3 years (you can find many examples on-line). Clearly state to Angel Investors how much you are asking them to invest and why; explain the anticipated return they will receive. Clearly state why you have a compelling case for investment.

Presentation of your report                                                     (10%)

Layout, professionalism, cover letter, Table of Contents, use of graphics or other ways to enhance readability and impact.

References – in-text and at the end using Harvard                (5%)

Marking criteria

You are strongly advised to read the marking criteria carefully before starting on your assignment. In particular, note the marks allocation for each part in Activity B. Ensure that the length of your solution should be commensurate with the allocated marks.

General guidelines for Activity B

• Your submission must be submitted to the CEO of the Angel Investors as a report in a single document, not an essay. The format must comply with the report structure detailed in the Communication Skills Handbook Please note from the handbook that reports do have subheadings and an appropriate letter of transmittal is required.
• The word count does not include the following: executive summary, letter of transmittal, table of contents, figures, tables, references or appendices.
• The body of the report should be 3,000 words in length. You can put any additional material into Appendices. You can however submit up to 4,000 words without penalty.
• You must demonstrate additional research from outside the text. Suggestions for other references include other general texts on information systems management, industry journals, periodicals, electronic databases etc. (many of which are available online from the USQ Library at: <http://www.usq.edu.au/library/>.)
• Use the Harvard referencing format for in-text references and the reference list. Your references should include at least one web/electronic link but all the references should not be from the web. Refer to chapter 2 (referencing) of the Communication Skills Handbook for further details.
• Inappropriate referencing or excessive grammar/spelling errors will incur a penalty. You should refrain from cutting and pasting chunks of materials from the Internet as this will be treated as plagiarism. To avoid any allegation of academic misconduct from unintentional plagiarism from Internet sources it is strongly recommended that you use the Turnitin software to check your work before submitting it.

Report formatting instructions

• Major headings should be in upper case, 14 point Times New Roman Bold.
• Minor headings should be in lower-case, 12 point Times New Roman Bold.
• Body text should be formatted to 12 point, Times New Roman.
• Page size should be A4. Allow for a 25 mm margin on both sides of each page, a 25 mm margin at the top of each page and a 25 mm margin at the bottom of each page.
• Use single line spacing and single spaces between words.

Option for team submission

Students may choose to either work alone or team up with another student to complete the assignment. Team work is accepted provided that the conditions for teams in the instructions are strictly followed; in particular that teams must be registered prior to 13 October (no extensions or changes to registration of teams after that date) – you can email me directly with your team nominations (soar@usq.edu.au). For joint submission, the team should:

• Nominate a team leader who will provide the course leader with the details of the team members at least two weeks (13 October) before the official due date regardless of any extensions to the assignment due date, no team registration will be considered after 13 October under any circumstances and
• Submit only one set of report through the EASE system in the name of the Team Leader.
• Clearly state the full details of team members, full names and student numbers

The same marks will be awarded to both team members.

Marking criteria for Assignment 4