Learning objectives This assignment specifically addresses the following learning objectives of the course: 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. 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. Individual submission Students should . You are encouraged to discuss the assignment with others to improve your understanding and clarify requirements but you should develop the solution to the assignment on your own. Case Study You are the CIO of a successful insurance firm with offices in cities across the nation. You provide all major categories of insurance to consumers who include companies and individuals. You recently attended a technology seminar on Cloud computing. It occurred to you that this would offer potential benefits to your organisation and would be well-received by management and staff. At the seminar you learnt there were many issues to consider, policies to be developed or modified, and new investments to be made to manage a Cloud environment. These included upgrading your ICT Data Security System to accommodate Cloud Computing to protect clients and your firms data; this needs to synchronise and ensure the integrity of data on servers and end-user devices. You plan to present your Business Case for Cloud to your CEO, Board and executives. You are required to research the background for a project to implement and manage Cloud, determine the scope for the extent to which you recommend use of the Cloud, use Microsoft Excel to model a business plan, perform sensitivity analysis to validate assumptions, and create a presentation to seek funding and authorisation from senior management to implement and manage Cloud Computing. As Board members and executives are dispersed across the nation you plan to use YouTube or other medium for your presentation. You will also prepare an Executive Handout containing your spreadsheet and will provide this along with the link to the URL which is where the Executives can access your presentation. Activity A: Journal (maximum 500 words) Prepare a journal which records your activities and progress related to completing this assignment. In date order, clearly list the following: ? Date of research activity/discussion ? Topic researched or discussed ? Time duration ? Brief description of research activity/discussion. Submit this journal as a through EASE. A sample of the journal will be provided in the Study Desk. Activity B: Presentation to Senior Management Conduct an Internet search to gather relevant background information of Cloud. In particular, you should address the following: Once you have completed Part 1, develop a spread-sheet model of your business costs . Some of the materials provided in the MIS Projects may help you to come up with a simple modelling. For the purpose of modelling, assume a of 10 per cent. Your business model should include the following analysis to ascertain the financial viability of the project: : To obtain the payback period you would first need to calculate the . Use the NPV and IRR functions provided in Microsoft Excel. You may need to search the Internet for information if you are not familiar with how to use these functions. Interpret your results. Using the results you obtained in Part 2 as the base case, conduct a sensitivity analysis to examine the impact
of the critical cost and benefit variables on the viability of the Cloud project. Provide specific scenarios of consideration. You must clearly specify the basis of the three scenarios i.e. which critical cost variables they are examining in the sensitivity analysis Carefully analyse your results and make appropriate recommendations to the companys senior management as to how the critical cost variables should be managed to ensure that the Cloud project is both viable and sustainable in the long term. 4.1 Consolidate and cross-analyse your results and findings from Part 1, 2 and 3. Then prepare a presentation to the companys senior management to seek their financial support and authorisation to embark on the project. You will submit a handout for the Executives containing the Journal and Spreadsheet through EASE along with a link to a URL where you recorded audio/visual presentation YouTube is the preferred mode for submission; if you are in a country that does not have access to YouTube or there are other issues preventing you from posting to YouTube then you submit a PowerPoint presentation with embedded autoplaying audio through EASE. If you do not wish for your video in YouTube or other system to be publically available then you may explore security features or options of YouTube such as having your video in a closed group. You are responsible for ensuring the link to your presentation will work for the Examiner marking your assignment you should ask someone to test it. What needs to be submitted to EASE is: Format: Provided your Examiner can click on the URL and it works then any common video format is OK; for example you can save ppt as wmv and YouTube will accept that. If you do not feel comfortable with YouTube you may wish to explore the many alternatives (Vimeo, Viddler, Sprout, Vzaar etc); the markers need only to be able to link to a URL to see your presentation. It does not need to be professionally produced and you can use a mobile phone, movie camera, the video tools that are available to download to use your PC, voice capture in Powerpoint or whatever. There is the option of submitting Powerpoint and some people have no alternative but to do that as they are in circumstances where they cant do video note the file size limits in EASE. The purpose of the presentation is to present a compelling business case to the executive management team to persuade them to adopt the new initiative (the financial analysis is a key part of the business case) Lessons learned there will be many things that you would have learned that you did not know before that you might want to share with your executive management team? As a guide, your presentation should be around 15 slides and should be , it should be developed and structured according to the following: : your FIRST slide should show the title of your presentation and details of the author(s); the SECOND slide should provide the agenda i.e. outline of your presentation; the THIRD slide should clearly state the purpose of your presentation and what you want to achieve from it. : contains the results and findings from Part 1, 2 and 3. : recaps the main points and summarises your recommendations. : Two slides highlighting lessons learned from conducting this project. Marking criteria You are strongly advised to before starting on your assignment. Note that the journal, the organisation of the PowerPoint presentation and slide design and layout are each worth 10% of the total marks. Your speaker note or embedded voice recording is worth 15%. CIS8000 Assigment 2 (MIS Project) marking sheet