Description of Assignment:
Student teams (4-5 students) will prepare a 5000 word report (not including title page, executive summary, table of contents, table of figures, list of tables, or references) and present the key findings and recommendations of the team's research at a class presentation. The assignment MUST be completed as a team. The report and presentation MUST be based upon the country that has been assigned to each team by their lecturer or tutor. This project will require you to analyse the country assigned within the parameters found below.
The purpose of this assignment is to for students to analyse the expansion capability of an existing Australian company, JB Hi-Fi (https://www.jbhifi.com.au/) to another country (NOT New Zealand) using e-business and/or e-commerce, and to communicate these key issues through a written report and in-class presentation. Do NOT prepare a generic report or presentation: your report and presentation must be focused on your assigned country or your marks will be severely reduced. The report and presentation should incorporate visual techniques (e.g. maps, graphs, tables) that enhance the report and adequately communicate the required information.
The submission document must take the form of a well-researched academic report. Your discussion is to be well-supported by references from respected sources. You should include academic journals, books, and well-respected sources of related Internet material that you find relevant (IMPORTANT: at least ten references and a good reference distribution are expected). Note: Wikipedia is not considered to be a valid reference.
You are required to conform to the report layout described below. If your submission document does not conform to the following report structure, your marks will be severely reduced.
Country Allocation:
The assignment is given out and countries assigned (NOT New Zealand) by the lecturer or tutor. It is important to note that students MUST NOT make contact with any real organisation for the duration of this project. Students should choose only reliable information that is readily available: using libraries to identify relevant and useful books, journals, trade magazines, and archived print and online news media; as well as using the web to identify relevant and useful information from corporate websites, relevant industry, professional and technical websites, and online academic, government and professional reports, etc. The following websites may help your preparation:
https://www.internetworldstats.com/
https://home.aisnet.org/associations/7499/files/Index_Markup.cfm
https://www.itmarketer.com.au/index.php
https://www.ibisworld.com.au/
https://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/ema_uk_he_chaffey_ebus_2
https://www.davechaffey.com/E-business
Report on the use of eBusiness and eCommerce in the Organisation and Industry:
The report MUST include the following detail and sections:
I. Title Page (course, student and assignment details, with name of organisation and report word count)
II. Executive Summary (no more than one page in length précising the entire report).
III. Table of Contents (with additional Table of Figures and List of Tables, as appropriate).
IV. Introduction.
• An introductory paragraph, restating, in your team's own words, your understanding of the goals of the project.
V. General Overview.
• A description of your assigned country, including a variety of relevant statistics such as population, percentage of Internet usage within the country, Internet infrastructure, political issues that may impact the project, and the possible increase in Internet presence in the past five years. Student teams should build a profile of the country that could be used to present this country to a meeting of a board of directors.
• A description of JB Hi-Fi including a brief history, goals and mission, and relevant industry information.
VI. Analysis of suitability of e-business venture.
• Conduct the analysis using the information obtained on JB Hi-Fi, as well as on the country you have been assigned. This analysis must be performed using Competitive Environment Analysis (Note: You are expected to research this technique as part of this assignment, and write this section up in a format in keeping with this type of analysis.)
• Provide the details of another organisation of this type that is currently operating within your assigned country and engaged in e-commerce or e-business. This comparator organisation can be either local or global. Include information about the scope of their operations in the assigned country, such as how long they have been in the country, if they are successful, problems they have
encountered, etc.
VII. Analysis of suitability of e-commerce implementation.
• Using the information obtained in research, consider as many factors as you can identify that would impact on the ability or inability of JB Hi-Fi to implement e-commerce within your assigned country. Factors will include items such as social, legal and ethical constraints within the country, and micro-environmental factors within JB Hi-Fi.
• Identify some of the barriers and constraints to e-business and e-commerce that must be considered in the match between your assigned country and JB Hi-Fi.
• Outline the business challenges of introducing e-business and e-commerce within the assigned country by JB Hi-Fi.
VIII. e-Supply Chain Management and e-Procurement.
• Provide a brief overview of how e-supply chain management and e-procurement are most likely to work within JB Hi-Fi, based upon what you know from your research and from lectures.
• Include a discussion of potential e-supply chain management issues related to the implementation of e-business and e-commerce by JB Hi-Fi in your assigned country. Be specific and provide solutions, where possible.
• Include a discussion of e-procurement issues related to the implementation of e-business and e-commerce for JB Hi-Fi in your assigned country.
IX. e-Marketing and e-Customer Relationship Management.
• Outline a plan for the marketing of JB Hi-Fi within your assigned country. Be sure to include a discussion of the preferred advertising medium in that country and the reach that this preferred medium has within that country. This will require you to research the country sufficiently to discover the preferred advertising medium.
• Discuss e-CRM issues and opportunities for JB Hi-Fi, with regard to ecommerce and e-business within your assigned country.
X. Localisation Issues and Change Management.
• Do you plan to use any consultants from the assigned country that you are expanding into during your implementation? If so, why and what will be their role(s)? Will they be IT experts, Organisation Development experts, or other types of consultants?
• Discuss localisation issues within the assigned country and environment that you are entering.
• Discuss the need for change management for JB Hi-Fi in expanding into your assigned country. Provide a plan for communication and management of the changes most likely to occur within JB Hi-Fi. Suggest strategies for effective management of this change.
XI. Conclusion.
• Summarise and evaluate your analyses, the feasibility of success of an e-business or e-commerce initiative in your assigned country for JB Hi-Fi, your projections about the success of this project, and the potential costs and benefits to JB Hi-Fi. Discuss what is different about your assigned country for implementation purposes, and why you think the initiative would be a success or
failure.
• Close by briefly summarising your report (key issues and recommendations).
XII. (Optional) Appendices (only for material essential for supporting report but considered unnecessary in body of report - this material is included in word count)
XIII. Reference List (include only those resources cited in your report - all citations and references must be in correct APA format).