The short paper assignment is an opportunity to apply the information systems concepts of data and brand to a real world example. It is my hope that this exercise will allow you to synthesize and solidify your working knowledge of the concepts we are studying.
Please write a paper in which you use a concept from the course to a company (data and brand) to answer the question of whether Alibab will be around in five years. In what follows, I will explain:
how to choose an information systems concept
what to address in your analysis
how I will grade your paper
If you use any text from the book or elsewhere, please quote it and give the source.
Please briefly list any sources you use for your paper. If these are websites, you can simply list them at the end of the paper. This list of sources does not count towards your one page and you should list it on the second page of the paper. The first page should be entirely devoted to your analysis. You do not need to do extensive research for this paper. You may want to reference parts of the textbook and you will certainly want to reference some article about the company or the company’s website, but you do not need to go beyond that unless you find it helpful.
At the start of your paper, please briefly describe the company you are discussing: what business are they in, any other important facts that I should keep in mind when reading your analysis. Please include a link to information about the company (a page on the company website or an article about the company).
This is a short, focused paper. you should be able to make a valuable connection between the course concepts and an actual company. This paper should reflect some significant thinking on your part.
Choosing a Concept
You should choose one information systems concept to use in analyzing your company. If you feel that more than one concept would work better, you can do that, but start with the idea of one concept. It will likely be easier to write a compelling paper if you focus on a single concept.
What do I mean by concept?
Strategic resources, network effects (to be discussed later in the course), Moore’s Law, the long tail, data as an asset, or any other concept we introduced to think about the companies we are studying. You are welcome to use one of the above concepts, which are some of the most generally useful tools we are exploring.
What to Address in the Analysis
Your challenge is to use one of the concepts we have learned about this semester to analyze a company’s technology strategy.
What does this concept tell you about the likelihood the company will be around in five years?
For example, if you choose strategic resources as your concept, you might identify one or more strategic resources the company possesses (say scale and an imitation-resistant value chain) and argue that these resources will give the company a sustainable competitive advantage.
Or…
You might observe that the company’s key resources are not strategic and can be imitated by competitors, which suggests it may not be around in five years.
How I will grade the paper
This paper is graded on a 10 point scale. Your grade will reflect:
Appropriate use of the chosen concept (your discussion demonstrates that you understand the concept and how it applies)
Quality of your writing
Convincing application of concept to company
Arguments backed up with specific details. For example, if you mention “strategic resources,” you give a specific resource and make it clear how it is helping the company.
