ICTICT507 Select New Technology Models for Business: A Project Report

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ICTICT 507 SELECT NEW
TECHNOLOGY MODELS FOR BUSINESS
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Table of Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................7
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................10
Task 5.............................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................19
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Task 1
Your First task is to identify processes that need to be improved by the application of a new
business model.
a. Firstly, you will need to map the existing administration process in the flowchart and
identify at least 2 areas that may need improvement.
Below is the flowchart depicting the whole process:
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Areas for improvement:
 Sending a letter of offer: this process should be done as soon as possible. After receiving
this letter the student will start and complete all the further required process. This matters
a lot for the international students as migrating to a different country requires a lot of
verification processes to be completed. It also involves buying and packing of different
stuff by the students for the journey.
 Academic requirements: a centralized repository should be made available to the students
where they can easily submit their all the academic documents for verification. Having a
secure portal will also help the college administration to easily retrieve the documents
and perform a verification process for the particular students. This will also help in
providing a safe place for the students to upload their personal information which cannot
be misused.
b. Now you need to identify and outline the emerging business models and processes of
Ransford and record your findings below.
c. Due to the high volume of student enrolments, there are many changes that need to be
implemented on the current process of Ransford College on a technological, client and
supply chain environment. Identify the changes that need to be implemented.
Field of change Changes that need to be implemented
Technological Environment The technology should be updated at
regular intervals so that the college can
easily manage the increasing number of
students in the college. As it will become
hectic for the system administrator to
manually enter all the entries in the system
and perform queries on the database of
such large no of students.
Clients Environment The clients must provide and upload their
documents only on the portal as provided
by the college. They must not mail their
documents separately to the college
administration as it will be very hard for
them to evaluate the documents for further
process for verification of each student.
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Supply chain Environment As the college is providing the services to
the various users, therefore it must be up to
the mark. The student management system
must provide a flexible user interface and
the navigation on the site must be easy. All
the details related to various subjects must
be clearly mentioned on the website. This
will increase the market value of the
college and will easily attract the students
to visit the website and their college.
Task 2
Your second task is to appraise the existing business models. To achieve this you will need to
complete the steps below:
a. Firstly, you will need to research and analyze the existing business models. Research on
the web, find and analyze at least 2 business models.
The 2 existing business models are:
 Manufacturing model: it is also called as the direct model. It is the most aged
business model used for small firms. Using this model, the owner itself
manufacturers the service or any product and then without any interference of the
third party sells it to the end user or the customer by issuing the license or by
using the option of onetime payment.
 Advertiser model: this type of model focuses on making the finance or revenues
by marketing and advertising the business process of the others. E.g.: Billboards
used by small firms for the marketing of their products. Some marketing and
advertising can also be done using search engines like Google and Yahoo. (“List
of Business Models,” 2008)
b. As an IT Coordinator, part of your role is to assess other industry practices. You will
need to investigate what business models are being used in other similar businesses.
Some of the business models being used by other industry fields are:
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 Data Licensing/ Data selling: as people are growing on the internet so is the
statistics of their data and their activities. As a result, a new business model
known as the data licensing business model is developed. Many social media
firms like Twitter forwards or make license of their data with third-party
companies which use this data for future advertising or analysis.
 Crowdsourcing: this type of business model makes use of different users to put
their efforts on the value which is supplied to them. This type of business model
can be associated with any other type of businesses to provide the best solution to
the customers. E.g.: Wikipedia, Duolingo etc. (Das, 2017)
c. You also need to research business models that are being used, or that they are under
development, in other industry sectors (e.g., universities or schools), determine the
relevance of these models to Ransford College.
Type of Business model Description Relevance with the
Ransford college.
University business models Model A: known as
Minerva. This type of
model focuses on the
online education of
people. It was
founded 3 years ago
by Ben Nelson. The
teaching is done
through a dedicated
video by designated
professors from
across the globe. It
also consists of some
students living in the
same city who at
regular interval meet
and greet and perform
activities face to face.
A drawback of this
type of model is the
concern for
conducting hands-on
practical related to
different subjects. (“4
radical new business
Ransford College also
conducts various activities
which include the
participation of students.
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models in higher
education,” 2017)
School Business models Online courses and
live classes. This type
of model can be
useful for students
living in remote areas
and wish to study and
grow themselves.
Such type of business
model provides apt
knowledge to the
student which is
required for them. It
can be achieved using
software like Skype.
(“How to Make
Money in Education:
Popular Business
Models for Learning
Entrepreneurs,” 2018)
Ransford College also
provides knowledge in a
sufficient amount to their
students. Their teaching
proves to be very useful in
the future.
d. Lastly, you will need to map the existing models in other parts of Ranford’s supply chain
such as the marketing and academic department. Map those models in the diagrams
below.
Task 3
a. Research and describe at least 2 new business models and explain how these new models
can improve your current system.
S.NO. Description Improvement opportunities
Business model 1 Product as a service model
(PAAS). This type of model
is used typically by low
capital and profit margin
organizations. They rent the
services using this model
This can be useful for
improving and managing the
finance costs of the college.
Also, this model works on
the internet it will be easier
to provide services to users
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with no capital investment
from their side.
from anywhere.
Business model 2 Time-sharing business
model. In this type of model
the user buys a service for a
certain amount of time and
uses it with some group of
people.
It can be helpful in
providing the same
set of services to a
particular group of
people for a defined
time period. (“8
innovative business
models to navigate
the digital era,”
2018)
b. Now you will need to evaluate the opportunities identified in the table against Ransford
College’s requirements. Evaluate at least 3 opportunities.
Opportunity Ransford requirements Improvements in current
system
Financial stability. (PAAS
MODEL)
The college wants to buy a
student management system
that is affordable for them.
Using a PAAS model will
help the college to easily
handle a large amount of
data at a low cost.
Time-sharing business
model.
With the increase in the
number of students, their
management must be done
at a good level.
Using such a model will
help the college in
managing a large no of
students from their
admission to their last day.
Multi-sided platform model To enable communication
between different
departments.
Using this model, it will
help the college to easily
transfer any information
from one department to
another.
c. Prioritize the opportunities identified above; document them in the right order below.
Opportunity 1: PAAS model for financial stability.
Opportunity 2: Multi-sided platform model.
Opportunity 3: Time sharing business model.
Reason to prioritize the opportunities in the order above is: for any organization,
managing finance is a very important task and they always need a solution that can easily
reduce their cost without affecting their services. An organization consists of various
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departments and for the successful working of any firm, there must be communication
among the departments to achieve a specific goal. At the same time, an organization
wants that multiple people can access their services at the same time seamlessly.
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Task 4
a. Select a business technology model-more specifically determine which will be your new
student management system- that improves the business process and describe it.
Some of the open source software available for the administration department in colleges
is:
 Fedena
 Fekera
 Gibbon
 OpenSIS Open Source
This software will improve the business process of the college in the following ways:
 Will keep a track of the attendance of the students.
 Enables the faculty members to message the students and inform them about the class
timings if any change is there.
 Will help in the process of admission as data will be stored online and can be easily
retrieved when required.
 It will on regular intervals inform the students about the examination dates and the
assignment submission guidelines. (Morpus, 2015)
Task 5
Question 1: Describe and explain in the space provided below case diagrams, business
process model and notation, and activity diagrams.
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A use case diagram is used to depict the different functionalities of the organization and their
working with each other. This diagram comprises of different use cases and various actors. The
use cases show the functions performed by the organization and actors represent the users
performing those functions. A specific use case diagram is used to achieve a goal associated with
the organization. (“Design Patterns and Refactoring,” 2007)
A Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is used to help business understand the
procedure of their inside business working with the help of visual diagrams and help the
organization to easily communicate with different departments and understand their working. It
is the most efficient way to easily implement any solution in the organization. The current
version of this model being used is BPMN v2.0. (“BPMN Specification - Business Process
Model and Notation,” 2019)
An activity diagram is used to depict the flow of tasks or activities which are to be performed in
the system. It shows how one activity is associated with the other. It describes the flow of
different use cases and the operation flow between them. The activity diagram does not include
any type of messages which are to be transferred between different actors. Different objects in an
activity diagram are represented with different shapes and the direction of flow of the activity is
shown with the help of an arrow.
Question 2: Explain the difference between business-to-business and business-to-customer
interface and liaison.
Business-to-business can be abbreviated as B2B and Business-to-consumer as B2C. The
difference between the 2 is shown in the table below:
Points for comparison B2B B2C
Definition It refers to the process of
exchange of goods among 2
business entities.
It refers to the process of
exchange of goods directly
from business to the
consumer.
Purchaser Organization Client
Emphasis on Connection End products
Amount of product Huge Small
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Connection duration Long term Short term
Duration of Trade cycle Lengthy Short
Purchase resolution Completely based on logical
needs planned effectively.
Based on the requirements of
the customer and their needs.
Brand image creation Based on the relationship and
mutual trust between the
entities.
Dependent on the process of
endorsement and promotion of
the products.
Example of B2B: the process of making a shoe is a perfect example of this type of business
model. Firstly, the leather is chosen then the designing of the shoe takes place by cutting and
shaping it and finally providing it a complete look. Then they are packed in various boxes and
shipped at different shops where it is easy for us to buy the product.
Example of B2C: for this type of business model, we can take an example of any shop where we
order our food and it directly reaches to us without any interference of the third party. Like
Dominos, Pizza Hut etc. (Surbhi S, 2018)
Question 3: Research on the web and identify copyright and intellectual property issues
that are relevant to the scenario and record your findings below.
To buy a Student Management System from a vendor, the system will include the copyrights of
the manufacturer. Copyright refers to the protection given to the original creator of the work.
When buying the system from a vendor, the copyright must be also bought from the vendor.
Having copyright of the work ensures that only you are responsible for the outcomes of that
particular work. It can also expire after a certain period of time. One can renew its license to use
it legally. It provides complete freedom to the user to use the product anyway and make various
distributions of it. Copyright comes under intellectual property. An intellectual property supplies
the user right to easily and freely use their ideas and inventions for specific purposes. After the
purchase of a Student Management System, the college will have full intellectual property rights
on it by using copyright on it. This will ensure the college that they are free from any illegal use
of software in their organization and have full accessibility over it. It will also ensure the college
that no other college is using the same type of system. Having these rights on your system, the
college can easily modify it and use it for various purposes accordingly. (Law, 2016)
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