Carson Ltd. E-Commerce Implementation Project: Business Plan

The assignment presents a comprehensive project plan for Carson Ltd., a UK retail store, aiming to implement an E-commerce system to expand its business. The plan outlines the project's aim, objectives, and a detailed timeframe, including a budget of approximately $5 million and a 6-month implementation schedule. It emphasizes digital transformation, focusing on identifying transformation objectives, studying enabling technologies, creating digital platforms, and supervising the lifecycle of digital services. The project addresses various aspects like cost, scope, quality, communication, and risk assessment, categorizing risks into information, technological, and business-related areas. The plan also highlights resource allocation, solution assurance, functional design, and technical development. Survey results are included, showing the impact of innovation, e-commerce activities, and the best ways to contact and follow up on digital transformation assessments. The project aims to enhance customer experience, streamline management, and leverage online and offline integration for improved business performance.

UNIT 6 MANAGING SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
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TASK 1:
LO1: Establishment of a project aim, objective and time frame based on a chosen theme
[P1, P2, P3]
❏ Overview
Carson Ltd. is a UK retail store with less than 150 staffs. The company is going to implement an
E-Commerce project in it business process. This retail store has chosen a plan for implementing
E-commerce for increasing the business span. Apart from spreading the business span, E-
commerce has some other advantage also. By implementing an E-Commerce, a retail store can
faster it’s buying and selling procedure, the procedure can be maintained for round the clock
irrespective of location and time. Implementation of E-Commerce keeps hardly any geographical
boundary of a business span. The business store can run without any physical store or set up
(Fernandez and Rainey, 2016). Business management becomes also easier to the managerial
people. The main advantage of involving the E-Commerce in the business is that without visiting
a retail store physically a buyer can order the needed product from the store. Implementing E-
Commerce in the business process ha1s also some disadvantage also. Mechanical failure of the
process can happen more due to the unpredictable effect of the total process. As the business is
becoming an online retail store. The server must be strong; otherwise, it will lose all of it assets
by any severe cyber-attack.
❏ Aim and Objective
Mainly digital transformation is taking place in the business process. Innovative strategy
development has to some architectural framework. The framework is described as follows:
Firstly, Identification of transformation objective:
Mainly target business outcome should look down. Redesigning and rethinking are some of the
main objectives of implementing a digital sector in a business (Gottschalk and Solli-Saether,
2016). If the customer is transferred to digital and end user will facilitate more productivity,
revenue, and loyalty. Cost reduction, productivity improvement, reduction complexity in service
management, increase the flexibility in the business operation is some of the objectives that are
essential for successful implementation of E-Commerce in a business. A transformational
objective is to be set after aligned the organizational structure.
Secondly, technology studies to enable it in the market:
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SMAC stack, heavy efficient automation, a collaboration of human-machine has to well study
before implementing the e-commerce in the business. Apart from these, the company needs to
identify the latest trends in internet technology, cyber security has to be studied. The advanced
study should be involved with the emerging technology of security. The software-driven data
center, Hybrid IT system have to be taken into consideration (Christensen and Christensen,
2013).
Thirdly, create platform and infrastructure for digital business:
On-demand, service is the main advantage of the implementation of digital business. The
concept of high distribution and high virtualization should be involved in the business planning.
Mainly by implementing new technology target business outcome should be emphasized by
proving the customer experience and simplifying management.
Fourthly, lifecycle of digital services should be supervised;
For the implementation of an E-commerce, the company should have to found an IT department
in the business management system. The IT wing has to implement the whole planning, what to
be implemented and how to be implemented (Brush, 2014). Mainly there are six approaches to
shaping an IT service. Some of them are intelligent automation, Agile, Personas and As-a as
service. Organizational mastery should be involved with interaction, digital touch [point and
interaction.
Fifthly, a Digital business innovation process should be organized:
The organization has to build block for enabling and disruptive technology. All the working
should be done based on the target business outcome. In the next some key topics are given
following which the digital business innovation process should be organized:
~An approach driven by persona should have to be practice that will support new work
preferences and patterns
~ Integration related to Omni channel should be involved and business process should be faster
(Aguilar, 2015)
~ The organization has to incorporate cloud computing, social and mobile centricity work
structure.
Sixthly, in the future platform it is important to execute an Agile Journey:
For the implementation of new IT world, execution of a hybrid platform is essential. If the
business organization wants to maintain their present work procedure in near future, co-existence
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of other material should be integrated. The main important topic is the managerial people have
not change the business from grass root level rather than him; lamenting a change management
in the business process (Sarasvathy et al. 2016).
Apart from the above-written objective, in brief, some steps can be concluded. Such as planning
for implementing E-Commerce strategy, business audit, Selection of technology, Acquisition of
customer, engagement of the customer, retention of customer, key metrics optimization is
essential.
 Cost: E-commerce implementation is involving the process of booking of the
current order, service after sales, business structure changing and retraining,
development of several prototypes and rests other activities. The whole process
will cost approximately 5 million dollars.
 Scope: the main objective of implementing an e-commerce in a business is to
meet the requirements of individual customers. By implementing an Ecommerce
system in a retail store it will facilitate the consumer from the interactive fitting
room, which upgrades the overall shopping experience of the customers
(Leymann and Altenhuber, 2015). Apart from this digital POS system should be
involved in this process by the implementation of E-Commerce. Check in and
check out the system in the kiosk would be automated in this process. Apart from
the implementation of POS system the sales staffs ar54e to be employed for
customer satisfaction. The main advantage is with the implementation of E-
commerce process the online apps are connected in offline stores. In this location-
based technology, online customer is identified. And after identification, the
greeting is sent to the customer to attract them towards the specific retail store.
 Time: as designed above, the total implementation of E-commerce in a small
scale business organization will take approximately 6 months,
 Quality: for control and quality assurance of the implementation process some
practice is to done. Such as monitoring the strategy, deliverables repeated testing
of the plan, and functionality of the whole system (Ritter et al. 2014).
 Communication:
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 Risk: the risk of an Ecommerce can be categorized into three topics. First one is
information risk. The second one is a Technological risk and the third one is the
business risk.
Risk type Impact
Information Risk For any type of unauthorized access of
server, customer personal information
be stolen, digital morphing and
scanning should meet the privacy
suits, no defamatory statement should
contain in secret infringement,
electronic bulletin board should not
contain any nasty information,
information on the credit card should
be not be disclosed to any
unauthorized person. Intellectual
property should be lighted due to
moving of the company staff towards
its competitor (Davenport and Short,
2015).
Technological Risk In software design, no error should be
neglected unless it will create an error.
The website may be deformed due to
unauthorized access. There is a risk of
crashing the internet service provider.
Software error due to Unauthorized
access can happen. Third party
interception is also incorporated in this
study (Archer and Yuan, 2016). The
poor performance of ISP service
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provider will also count as a risk of
implementing E-Commerce. Poor
performance and poor design of the
website will also be counted as a
failure of E-commerce
implementation.
Business Risk Any defamatory statement containing
in the electronic bulletin board will be
counted as a risk factor for E-
Commerce implementation. Any type
of break in between the developer and
the clients will be counted as a risk of
ecommerce implementation. Poor
communication due to our stock of
product will be treated as a risk factor.
For online use, the unprotected
domain name will act as a risk of
Ecommerce implementation.
Insufficient designing in supply chain
channel will be treated as a risk of
implementation of E-Commerce. By
the wrong implementation of E-
commerce, customer relationship
management will also be hampered
and return policy is inconvenient
(Anupindi et al. 2015).
Table 1: Risk Assessment
(Source: Created by author)
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 Resource: for implementing a new strategy in the ongoing business strategy the
main need to analyze the resource working. For Implementing an E-Commerce
system in a business process, the following are would new work as a resource for
the taken project:
 Assurance of Solution: if a situation occurs where cross team
design takes place, then the team will be skilled sufficient for
solution assurance.
 Design of the function: E-commerce implementation is not
someday project. It is a long-term process. For proper
implementation of this project, the work and responsibility of each
team will be distributed. For practicing this, functional designing is
highly important (Neely et al. 2014).
 Technical development: the main objective of implementation of a
E-commerce project is to technically upgrade the whole system.
For proper implementation of this thing, the company staffs, the
employee should be technically upgraded.
 UX design: for proper implementation of E-commerce process,
document's functional specification is highly essential. UX design
is such a topic that will do the pre-assigned job and satisfy teg
business requirement.
 Lead the project: for successful implementation, the requirements
of a team leader and a business project leader are highly solicited
(Helfert and Helfert, 2015).
 Change the managers: it is evident with the proper and
successful implementation of an E-commerce project; the end
user will be facilitated a lot. Therefore, from the starting of the
journey, the end user should be involved in the implementation
process also.
Task Mode Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Auto
Schedule
d
Research Project 0 days Fri 8/17/18 Fri 8/17/18
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Auto
Schedule
d
Planning 0 days Fri 8/17/18 Fri 8/17/18
Auto
Schedule
d
Finding of the topic 3 days Mon 8/20/18 Wed 8/22/18 1,2
Auto
Schedule
d
Statements of problems 1 day Thu 8/23/18 Thu 8/23/18 2,3
Auto
Schedule
d
Time frame and
allocation of resources 2 days Fri 8/24/18 Mon 8/27/18 3,4
Auto
Schedule
d
Implementation 1 day Tue 8/28/18 Tue 8/28/18 4,5
Auto
Schedule
d
Literature review 5 days Wed 8/29/18 Tue 9/4/18 5,6
Auto
Schedule
d
Selection of correct
research methodologies 1 day Wed 9/5/18 Wed 9/5/18 6,7
Auto
Schedule
d
Data analysis and
interpretation 2 days Thu 9/6/18 Fri 9/7/18 7,8
Auto
Schedule
d
Evaluation of results and
outcomes 2 days Mon 9/10/18 Tue 9/11/18 8,9
Auto
Schedule
d
Project closer 1 day Wed 9/12/18 Wed 9/12/18 9,10
Auto
Schedule
d
Giving conclusion and
recommendation 1 day Thu 9/13/18 Thu 9/13/18 10,11
Auto
Schedule
d
Results of documentation 1 day Fri 9/14/18 Fri 9/14/18 11,12
❏ Work Breakdown Structure:
An E-Commerce project management team should be organized internally for in time
implementation of the project.
The team has to identify the work package of the project beside of identifying the project
deliverable and requirement of the stakeholders. The total amount of daily work that is necessary
for producing them in the meantime deliverables will also be analyzed. An upper level
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decomposed work should be created. For this separate work responsibility for every staff will
also to be organized.
Some techniques are to be followed, as followed:
~ Current situation is to be determined
~ The requirement of ten users and the requirement of the system are to be determined\
~ The database has to designed according to the user requirements (Aguilar, 2014)
~ A work interface should be designed
~ The implementation process should be involved with the security, database and system
integration.
Apart from creating WBS, the creation of process breakdown structure should also be created.
The first step of process breakdown structure is proper website designing for E-commerce
implementation. The network diagram structure is to be created for the proper implementation of
process breakdown structure (Goldman, 2016).
Illustration 1: Work break down structure
❏ Gantt Chart:(Time Frame and Stage)
In the process of providing the deliverable following working should be completed. The steps
are:
1. Documentation of the Project esteem
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2. Assignment of the project staff
1. Development of scope management
3. Work breakdown structure creation
4. Plan breakdown structure creation
5. Network diagram should be created (North and Macal, 2016)
6. Milestone creation for in time completion of the project
7. Risk assessment
8. Evaluation of the current business situation
9. Analysis of the system
10. Full analysis of the system
11. List the hardware \and software requirements
12. Required database should be designed
13. The interface of the webpage should be created
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14. The security should be implemented
15. The system which is involved in the process should be analyzed regularly
16. User guide should be created for the newly implemented technology (Velasquez and
Velazquez, 2014)
17. Weekly report should be taken to analyze the response of the newly implemented system
18. Finally, a project management report should be prepared
19. Further development should be done to eradicate the existing problem
Based on the taken actions, in the next a Gantt chart is prepared so that the project can be
completed in time.
Figure 1: Gantt chart
(Source: Created by Author)
TASK 2
LO2: Conduction of small-scale research, information gathering and data collection,
generating knowledge to support the specific project [P4]
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