Digital Technology Impact on Coal Hut: A Small Business Analysis

This report investigates the impact of digital technology on small businesses, using Coal Hut as a case study. The study begins with an introduction to the benefits of digital technologies for small businesses, particularly focusing on e-commerce. The report then outlines project aims, objectives, and a detailed project management plan, including a work breakdown structure and Gantt chart. It delves into research methodology, discussing research philosophy, approach, design, sampling, data collection, and analysis techniques, using a mixed-methods approach with an emphasis on qualitative analysis of survey data. The findings are presented, followed by conclusions and recommendations regarding the adoption of digital technology. The report also includes ethical considerations and a reflective section on the value of undertaking research, culminating in a comprehensive understanding of digital technology's influence on small business operations.

Managing successful
business project

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
P1 Devise project aims and objectives...................................................................................1
P2 Produce a Project management plan.................................................................................2
P3 Work breakdown structure and Gantt chart to provide time frames and stages for
completion..............................................................................................................................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P4 Carrying out a small results to carrying out a qualitative and quantitative methods of
approaches..............................................................................................................................6
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................9
P5 Analyse research and data using appropriate tools and techniques..................................9
P6 Communicate a recommendation and conclusion on the basis of data analysis.............14
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................16
P7 Reflective on the value of undertaking research.............................................................16
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, Small business firm rely its business functions on technologies to help them
to operate in faster manner. With the help of new advanced laptops computers with internet
capabilities to printers, online file storage and web based applications, technological advantages
impact small businesses across various industries. Present research will be based on impact of
digital technologies on small businesses. For that, study will be taking Coal Hut which is an
online purchasing or order of Coal of different variety such as Five star, house coal, Homefire,
Slack, Wonder coal, Heat logs & many other fuel products etc. Present study will collect primary
and secondary data to identify the impact of digital technology on small medium based
businesses. Present study will be covered the important aspects of E-commerce in order to
explain the important aspects of the benefited environment.
LO 1
P1 Devise project aims and objectives
Background
Small businesses work closely with their clients to provide them the best quality of
products and services. The benefits of digital technology would help small companies to make
fast connectivity with the clients or suppliers (Vigdor, Ladd and Martinez, 2014). Flexible work
environments is the another benefit of E-commerce through which employees can easily work in
the office environment (7 ways to use technology with purpose. 2015). Affording small business
individuals have a great opportunity to hire talented employees from different corner of the
world with the help of new techniques that helps to hire talented employees. Instant connection
with customer is the another beneficial impact of modern technology on the businesses. It helps
to recover the new managing environment and best dealing channels at effective price rates. Now
small companies don't have to worry about the connectivity issues with customers nor wait for
weeks for client replies. Nowadays, technologies gives huge possibility to connect with buyers
through e-mails, through blogs, social networks and forums. Present study will help to identify
the scope of E-commerce within the business environment. For taking this study further Coal
Hut provides the different variety of coal to the dealers or the clients online at affordable price.
With the help of online services and advanced technologies it becomes profitable for the
company (Sundararajan, 2014).
1

Aims: “To identify the impact of Digital technology on small scale businesses”. Case study
based on Coal Hut.
Objectives
 To identify the importance of Digital technology
 To determine the impact of Digital technology on different business functions
 To analyse the challenges that faced by company while implementing the Digital
technology
P2 Produce a Project management plan
2

Design 1 day Fri 4/13/18 Fri 4/13/18
Development of Project
Initiation Document 15 days Mon 4/16/18 Fri 5/4/18 1
Determining resources of
project 10 days Mon 5/7/18 Fri 5/18/18 2
Formulation of goals and
objectives 6 days Mon 5/21/18 Mon 5/28/18 2,3
Setting deadlines 1 day Tue 5/29/18 Tue 5/29/18 4
Gathering Team 15 days Wed 5/30/18 Tue 6/19/18 5
Develop 1 day Wed 6/20/18 Wed 6/20/18 6
Conducting meeting 10 days Thu 6/21/18 Wed 7/4/18 5,7
Scope of project 5 days Thu 7/5/18 Wed 7/11/18 8
Collection of data 10 days Thu 7/12/18 Wed 7/25/18 9
WBS structuring 10 days Thu 7/26/18 Wed 8/8/18 10
Planning of budget 14 days Thu 8/9/18 Tue 8/28/18 11
Implement 1 day Wed 8/29/18 Wed 8/29/18 12
Assuring quality 20 days Thu 8/30/18 Wed 9/26/18 13
Training of team 10 days Thu 9/27/18 Wed 10/10/18 14
Evaluate 1 day Thu 10/11/18 Thu 10/11/18 15
Change control integration 21 days Fri 10/12/18 Fri 11/9/18 16
Monitoring and control of
project 10 days Mon 11/12/18 Fri 11/23/18 17
Checking of quality 15 days Mon 11/26/18 Fri 12/14/18 18
Closure 1 day Mon 12/17/18 Mon 12/17/18 19

Evaluation of project 15 days Tue 12/18/18 Mon 1/7/19 20
Areas of modification 10 days Tue 1/8/19 Mon 1/21/19 21

Cost : Estimates are required for the project duration. It helps to implement the all
required task effectively and in efficient manner (Jones, Borgman and Ulusoy, 2015). It is the
basic rule for the project management to be implementing the long lasting firms and goals.
Present project management will take cost of £400.00.
Resources : In order to produce project management plan, it is required for the manager
to arrange all required resources or management sources which helps to achieve the task. Such as
staff time, employees skill set, money, buying software and new technical machines. All required
resources will help Coal hut to implement all technological implementation in systematic
manner.
Risk : Simply, risk involves in every part of functions within business environment such
as what could happen that would damage the outcomes or delivery the project. Risk involved in
this project management is employees certainty, security risk, data protection risk etc.
Communication: Communication helps to define the functioning or activity needs to be
performed by employees (Ku, 2017). Communication channel helps to pass all required
necessary information via different modes. It helps to keep the flow of information continuously.
Communication helps employees to communicate about new software and techniques in
order to identify the new development growth.
Quality : Quality of project management depends on the input variables. However,
project manager needs to ensure all inputs and have knowledge of software, technologies that
helps to cope up with the amount of traffic going over it.
Scope : Scope of the study is essential to know the in-depth knowledge of specifics area.
Such as impact of E-commerce helps to Coal Hut to define the best effective source full idea and
channel to perform the effective output performance (Kane and et.al., 2015). This strategy of
new development will help company to grow in different area.
P3 Work breakdown structure and Gantt chart to provide time frames and stages for completion.
Work breakdown structure
Work breakdown structure is the process or activity which perform the task or a project
in a systematic engineering manner. Besides, it is also deliverable-oriented breakdown of a
project task into smaller components. Apart from that, it involves the activities to be performed
as per the prioritised manner (Loebbecke and Picot, 2015). Apart from that, it also involves the
better background results and goals.
5

Gantt Chart
Gantt Chart is the process or a type of bar chart that helps to illustrate a project schedule
with named or resources (Ali, Murphy and Nadkarni, 2018). Modern type of Gantt chart also
show the dependency relationships between activities and current schedule status.
6

LO 2
P4 Carrying out a small results to carrying out a qualitative and quantitative methods of
approaches.
Research philosophy : Research philology is the vast or vital way to perform a research
process. Philosophy is all about values and beliefs which gathered in different manner for
analysing. There are two types of research philosophy Positivism and Interpretivism. Positivism
acknowledged the difficulty to be explained into more detailed manner. It is challenging to
explained the research topic in a precise and succinct manner (De Pelsmacker, van Tilburg and
Holthof, 2018). On the other hand, Interpretivism involves researches to interpret the elements of
the study by getting the involvement of human interest. For present study researcher uses
Interpretivism method to analyse the study interest.
Research approach : it is the another necessary term or type of research which is a
basically a plan or the procedure that consists of the steps of broad assumptions to detailed
method of data collection, analysis and interpretation. Research approach divides into two parts
Deductive and inductive research approaches (Entman and Usher, 2018). Inductive research
approach basically based on reasoning and observations proposed towards the end of the
7

research process. Besides, Deductive approach based on developing hypothetical knowledge or
idea to perform a specific research method or style.
Research Design: Research design is the most vital element of research process which
helps to define the meaning of research. Basically, researchers chooses designs between
qualitative and quantitative research method (Geissinger, Laurell and Sandström, 2018). But it
has been argued to be refers to the choice of specific methods of data collection and analysis.
Research design further divided into two designs Exploratory and Conclusive. Exploratory
design aim, is to explore the research questions and does not intend ton offer final conclusive
solutions to existing problems. On the contrary, Conclusive type of research design aims to
generate research findings which is practically useful in reaching conclusions or end with
decision making. Present study will be taking exploratory research design to explore the impact
of e-commerce on Coal Hut or on the small scale businesses.
Sampling : Sampling defines or has been based on principles to be used some
respondents to conduct the study. It helps to collect different data techniques and goals in order
to perform the different task of process implementation. Due to large size of population,
researcher select one research design to conduct the survey or study to get the final outcomes and
results. There are two types of research designs probability sampling and non-probability
sampling (Bughin and Manyika, 2018). Probability sampling gives chance to participate in the
study. Contrary, non probability sampling chooses some specific groups of members as a
respondent. Present study will be uses probability simple random sampling technique which
select 20 employees of Coal Hut for survey.
Data collection : Data collection is the process where researcher collects all required
specific data from selected number of respondents. Data has been select with two different
method first is primary data collection or second one is secondary data. Primary research has
been based on survey questionnaire, group discussion, interviews. Apart from that, secondary
data collection has been based on literature review which collected through internet, books,
journals etc. Present study uses both method of data collection. Present study will be uses
primary data as followed by questionnaire survey with 20 employees of Coal Hut.
Data analysis : Once researcher collects data or information, Next process is that to
analyse that data into systematic manner by taking help of two methods either with qualitative or
quantitative (Quinlan and et.al., 2018). Qualitative technique based on thematic presentation. On
8

the other hand, quantitative technique based on mathematical or numeracy style such as mean,
median mode. Present study will use qualitative data analysis technique by conducting
questionnaire.
Ethical consideration : Ethical consideration is the most required and vital element to
identify the negative factors in the conduct study. It helps to define the importance of research
ethics what should be do or what not to be do. Ethical consideration is very much essential for
researcher to conduct the study into legal manner (Bughin and Manyika, 2018). Researcher
needs to away participants from harm, investigator also needs to give dignity of research
participants should be prioritised.
Questionnaire
Name :
Occupation :
1. Does Coal Hut needs to adopt Advanced digital technologies ?
 Yes
 No
2. In which of the following department would highly benefit by implementing digital
technology ?
 Human resource department
 Financial department
 Marketing department
 Production department
3. Does e-commerce helps to identify the current customer tariff on the company site ?
 Yes
 No
4. Does digital technology helps to improve the working atmosphere within Coal Hut ?
 Yes
 No
 Don't know
5. Does digital technology tools enhance the customer engagement process ?
 Yes
9

 No
 Don't know
6. Does e-commerce influence the sales of Coal Hut ?
 Highly
 Lower
 Moderate
7. Suggesting some ways or strategies to introduce new digital technologies within Coal Hut ?
LO 3
P5 Analyse research and data using appropriate tools and techniques.
Theme 1: Coal Hut needs to adopt Advanced digital technologies
1. Does Coal Hut needs to adopt Advanced digital technologies ? Frequency
Yes 15
No 5
Interpretation : On the basis of above table or graph it has been analysed that out of all
20 respondents 15 of them stated yes. They suggested that Coal Hut can get different benefits by
applying digital technology approach in order to meet out the customer engagement and sales
enhancement. On the other hand, 5 of them would suggest that no company does not require
10
Yes No
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16 15
5
Column B