Term Project Information:
The term project is the most important part of your class grade, corresponding to 40% of the overall grade.
Term projects will be prepared individually. There are no group projects in this class, and each project is graded according to the criteria concerning the work quality of an individual student.
Page & Format Considerations
There are no enforced page count or format guidelines for the project. An easily readable format is expected from the project. A recommended format is double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font format, with different title sizes and figures and tables of varying sizes. These recommendations are not enforced. Regarding the page count, the professor believes that a report consisting of less than 10 double-spaced pages including figures and references may be on the too low side, and a report exceeding 30 pages may be on the excessive side. However, these recommendations are not enforced and no points are taken off for excessive page count.
Content: The term project is about a virtual Business-to-Consumere-commerce company you will establish and expand to B2B and mobile commerce. Each student will study an existing business. They will analyze this business thoroughly and build a fictionalcompany in this business with the goal of determining how the Internet can be used for:
• Starting a B2C electronic commerce company
• Producing guidelines for revenue generation and technology implementation
• Implementation of B2B and m-commerce expansions
You are encouraged to discuss your project topic with the professor. E-mail is the best way but any other communication is also more than welcome.All documents will be returned in .docx format.
Project Deliverable: The project will consist of a report (40%) and presentation (10%).
Project Chapters
1. Industry Analysis (25 points): What is the current business model of this industry you chose? Which company are you basing your e-commerce company on? Who are the other leaders in your business, and what made them leaders? What are the social, organizational, behavioral and legal issues surrounding your company?
2. Infrastructure Analysis (15 points): What is the information technology infrastructure required for your business? What exact hardware and software do you need, and why?
3. Benchmark Analysis (20 points): What constraints do you have concerning competition? What are the criteria for success, and how will you reach them? How would different firms collaborate in a model?
4. Product or Service & Customer Analysis (15 points): What are you selling? Whom are you selling it to? Why did you choose this group as your primary customers? What do your customers potentially think about your business’ and products/services’ strengths and weaknesses? Justify all of your answers.
5. Expansion Planning and Implementation (25 points): Please explain what you will sell and how if you will expand your business to B2B and mobile commerce areas. Now come up with the changes you need to do for this expansion. How canyou implement an expansion into B2B and mobile commerce? How will you make money in this new business focus, and what are the steps of planning? What are the main differences between the old and new plans? What are the newly introduced challenges and risks in your new area? What does your new user interface look like (include screenshots and other illustrations)?
