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

adopting e-commerce practices because they already have invested on new technologies which is
enough for the company improvement. Apart from that, it has been analysed that it become more
important and long lasting goal which is more beneficial and implementing source of channel.
Theme 2: Department that highly benefited by applying digital technology practices
2. In which of the following department would highly benefit by implementing
digital technology ? Frequency
Human resource department 5
Financial department 3
Marketing department 8
Production department 4
Interpretation : As per the analyses of this present survey it has been found out by
researcher that, as per the all respondent reviews, large number of employees suggested that
marketing department is the highly benefited department in order to implement the digital
technology in order to sustain with the long lasting way. 5 respondents of them states that human
resource department of the company is benefited to hire effective hiring process of employees.
Apart from that, number of three respondents suggested that, financial department getting benefit
to find out the best way of arranging funds for the company. Apart from that, it will help to re
control the long term goals in order to meet out the funds into more appropriate manner. 4 of
11
5
3
8
4
Human resource
department
Financial
department
Marketing
department
Production
department

them said that by applying e-commerce production department can easily identify the needs and
wants of the customers.
Theme 3: E-commerce helps to identify the current customer traffic on the company web-
site
3. Does e-commerce helps to identify the current customer traffic on the company
web-site ? Frequency
Yes 15
No 5
Interpretation : As per the analyses of this interpretation process it has been found out
that large number of respondents or employees of Coal Hut suggested yes and positive towards
identifying the current traffic on company websites which is very much helpful to identify the
interest of buyers. Only 5 of them respond negatively due to vague interpretation a long lasting
materialistic growth. In order to meet out the best possible action plan. Moreover, it also very
helpful to deal with long term goals. Apart from that, it also discovers the long term growth and
major goal oriented task.
Theme 4: Digital technology helps to improve the working atmosphere within Coal Hut
4. Does digital technology helps to improve the working atmosphere within Coal
Hut ? Frequency
12
Yes No
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16 15
5
Column B

Yes 8
No 7
Don't know 5
Interpretation : As per the analyses of this present task it has been concluded that, how
respondent react towards the improvement of working atmosphere within Coal Hut with the help
of digital technology. Apart from that, managing successful business growth will help to re
control the best form of results. 8 number of respondents suggested that, yes digital technology
improves the working atmosphere within Coal Hut. On the other hand, 7 number of employees
suggested no that, company does not get improve the working atmosphere within Coal Hut by
applying digital technology within business environment. Besides, 5 of them stated that they
don't know about the process goals and leading.
Theme 5: Digital technology tools enhance the customer engagement process
5. Does digital technology tools enhance the customer engagement process ? Frequency
Yes 15
No 5
Don't know 0
13
Yes No Don't know
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
8
7
5
Column B

Interpretation : As per the sated this question or survey questionnaire, it has been
concluded that digital technology tool helps to enhance the customer engagement process which
is more effective and implementing process goals that affect the business operation and leading
source. Moreover, out of 20 respondents, 15 of them were suggested yes that yes digital
technology tool helps to enhance the customer engagement process in order to meet out the goal
and best source full performances. Besides, 5 of them were suggested negatively towards
implementation process of customer engagement process.
Theme 6: E-commerce influence the sales of Coal Hut
6. Does e-commerce influence the sales of Coal Hut ? Frequency
Highly 8
Lower 10
Moderate 2
14
15
5
Yes
No
Don't know

Interpretation : As per the analysing this process or goals in order to meet out the best
possible action plan in order to meet out the best source of action. As per the stated questionnaire
survey when researcher asked question that whether digital technology influence the sales of
Coal Hut or not. So according to 8 respondents suggests that sales has been highly influenced by
new technologies and growth. Apart from that, 10 respondents of them were stated lower and 2
of them were responded moderately.
Theme 7: Suggesting some ways or strategies to introduce new digital technologies within
Coal Hut
Interpretation : As per the stated of this interpretation process respondents were
suggesting the best form of results. Moreover, it also helps to discover the new challenging and
developing task. Apart from that, large number of employees referred to the new technology
based on strategy that helps to teach new developing task and goals.
P6 Communicate a recommendation and conclusion on the basis of data analysis.
Small businesses has taken huge benefits from the new technologies of customer
advancement, customer engagement, employee interventions, quality enhancement etc. it helps
to provide the best final results and outcomes to get the customer high retention power and their
15
Highly Lower Moderate
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
8
10
2
Column B

satisfaction as well. It helps to collect the long lasting results and best form of result outcomes
with the helps of moving high advantageous results goals. Present study has been conducted
research on the topic that helps to determine the impact of e-commerce on SMEs. Coal Hut
acquires the benefit of online stores through they get orders from different locations across the
world (Ali, Murphy and Nadkarni, 2018). E-commerce helps to enhance the customer reach
directly with the company. Present study has been discussed the role of e-commerce on small
scale industries which is very much essential to develop economic development of the country as
well. With the help of present study it has been cleared that, digital technology is very much
essential and necessary for the small scale businesses to operate at global level. Study has been
used different qualitative methods or techniques to conduct the overall research study and goals.
Apart from that, it helps to make the long term process and make the good impact of learning
goals (Ratzinger and et.al., 2018).
In order to recommended some study and strategies for the company. Coal Hut needs to
update their E-commerce studies into deeper manner. Apart from that, it also helps to re control
the long term process and target marketing goals to upgrade the new forming results. Company
should also need to performed with the help of a digital plan strategy consultant qualified to
review current digital assets and programmes. This might be present new forming results and
new growth full challenge. Reassess current digital marketing this strategy would helpful to
review current digital assets and programs to identify gaps and opportunities. Besides, Coal Hut
also needs to require update version of new technologies in order to meet out the goals and long
term process. It makes work easier which driven long term effects of the study into the best
possible manner. This strategy also very helpful to analyse customer data into more appropriate
manner.
Integrate new options and technologies is hard for many marketers, because of the
perceived difficulty and uncertainty. Integrates new options helps to engage new customer
attracting and new managing successful business. New digital technologies are driving leapfrog
innovations in productivity and profits (Entman and Usher, 2018).
Budget changes is the another helpful strategy to implement effective digital technology.
Digital technology are less expensive which is can be the low effectively implemented.
16

LO 4
P7 Reflective on the value of undertaking research.
On the basis of conduct this research, I have learned different areas of digital
technologies in order to specify the importance within small scale business. I have analysed
different tools and techniques of research through I gained by knowledge and skills to perform
the specific research task. Through this present goals and objectives, way of implementing new
development area and goal challenging. Throughout this process I have gained so many skills
and knowledge in order to meet out the result and goals in order to meet out the best forming
results. Overall, the biggest challenge that I observed is to implement the digital technology after
identifying different aspects of it. I got to learn new approaches and strategies that could have
been adopted by company for the betterment. I have observed that, buying and selling online
involves better efficiency and long term source which uses in different effective manner.
Moreover, I have learned that new adoption of technology within business function is very much
necessary for the company to implemented into proper manner (Bouwman and et.al., 2018).
This present research helped me to gain new research skills, technical and presentable skills
which helps me for my next research topic. Overall, I have gained different skills and learning
material. Contrary, from this study I also got to know my some weaknesses and goals. Apart
from that, it discovers the new technological up gradation and new source full challenge. To get
rid out my weaknesses, I need to prepare my own professional development plan which helps me
to keep going ahead towards my goals (Entman and Usher, 2018). Some of my weaknesses on
which I need to look upon is analytical, data collection, interpersonal skills, time management.
This present study also helped me to achieve present aims and objectives which gives me
a new opportunity and growth for my new development areas.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above report it has been found out that, digital technology is very much
effective and play a potential role within the small scale business organisation. Present research
has been based on the case study of Coal Hut which is small based company in UK. It takes long
term objectives and long term growth in order to meet out the best outcome results. It also helps
moreover, it brings new advancement result goals. Study also described the research aims and
objectives in order to define the importance of digital technology.
17

18

REFERENCES
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