Final project-cm_bing

Goodwill Cloud Software

Viktoryia Parris

Kaplan University

CM 220

Sean Froyd

Goodwill stores always stay one step ahead of its competitors, thus they are implementing a cloud based software to standardize the operations of the company. This upgrade will ensure that the customers can easily access the stores through proper branding. The current system of managing financial and operational affairs at Goodwill stores is not very efficient; a cloud based software system should be used to standardize store operations and train employees to help Goodwill overcome these difficulties. Comment by Sean Froyd: Their. Since you used the word “stores” it is plural.

Now a day, every aspect of life is becoming primarily or secondarily cyber dependent and the process of automation is continuously evolving. In this process of advancement, the main focus has shifted from using time-sharing systems to using distant data centers with internet. The idea of cloud computing will bring a revolution to the conventional computation practice. According to the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) definition, “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (Mell, 2011). Basically, the cloud computing architecture has "a core and a fringe" setup (Hayes, 2008), The main target is to concentrate the major computation and the storage in the core. On the fringe, the end user (Goodwill Stores) will initiate the requests for those computations and storage operations (Hayes, 2008). On the other hand, if a company wants to totally control the computing procedures, there are some disadvantages to that. Firstly, State of the art software must be installed and updated periodically. Secondly, the huge hardware infrastructure needs continuous maintenance (Hayes, 2008). A single computer with access to the clouds can access multiple servers at the same time. Following this revolutionary idea, the race for possession of more and more efficient computing resources has ended and every other company is opting for third party computation service providers through cloud. The cloud based approach is also useful for the software vendors, who will provide the IT services for goodwill stores. The vendors can develop, debug and test drive the software on a convenient platform of their choice and they can offer a readily available solution to Goodwill stores (Hayes, 2008). Comment by Sean Froyd: Avoid the informal tone, also it should be “nowadays” as I’ve pointed out in previous writings. Comment by Sean Froyd: You need to start a new paragraph with a new topic sentence here, Viktoryia. When you switch to an extended example of cloud computing, you’ve moved beyond the cyber-dependent automation.

Cloud computing ensures a more flexible and efficient solution to operational needs. Most companies want a hassle free IT infrastructure where they don’t have to deal with “middle-of-the-night-emergencies, vendor management, and procurement cycle” etc. (Leavitt, 2009). As an added benefit, some of the software vendors allow users to incorporate certain offline operations. When the client goes online, the system automatically uploads the changes to the server and establishes synchronization (Pocatilu, 2010). Thus, cloud computing is regarded as the leading technology for the future.

According to Paul Pocatilu, Cloud computing includes these three following layers: a) infrastructure as a service (IaaS), b) platform as a service (PaaS), c) software as a service (SaaS) (Pocatilu, 2010). Goodwill stores will opt for IaaS and PaaS services for the standardization procedure. However, to make this approach work, proper research will be carried out by a selected professional team. The research team will conduct surveys on the various operations of different goodwill stores and create a universal strategy with them. According to the research, a common training program will be created for employees of every goodwill store. This training program will be made available online on the company server. The employees can simply log in to their respective accounts and access the material at their convenient time. This approach will be very effective in saving company resources and giving an exclusive training opportunity to every individual employee. A proper evaluation technique with the customer feedback scheme will be implemented to monitor the effectiveness of each and every employee. Special training will be provided to the underachieved employees. The E-learning approach will be effective in training the personnel on the same operations so that the services can be standardized in all the stores.

With such a system, it will be very smooth for branding of the store. This cloud computing approach will ensure that the services provided are the same and equally reliable in spite of the location of the store. With the implementation of this new idea, the customers will be comfortable to visit any store in different locations and it will help to increase total sales figure of the store significantly and in turn the stock prices will go up. Thus, it is in the best interest of shareholders to endorse this system upgrade. It is indeed true that the changing of operations in some of the stores will be a new thing for the customer, but this approach is aimed to ensure that their specific needs are suited. It is expected that they will embrace it positively.

It is absolutely necessary to consider the costs incurred in implementing the procedure. To maintain a viable business model, the expenditure should not exceed the generated revenue. Realizing cloud based software for goodwill will have a fresh expenditure scenario. This all around system upgrade will surely cost a lot during installation, and it will require a certain periodic maintenance cost. But a properly functioning mechanism for Goodwill stores will generate a lot of revenue over time and more importantly the cloud based approach will open a new market for the company; the operations will be made better and errors will be corrected to suit the needs of the customers. To reduce the expenditure in terms of electricity, network bandwidth, operations, software and hardware, and thus to generate more revenues, the data centers will be housed at low cost locations; additionally the data centers should be very large scale and ensure proper backing up capability (Armbrust et al., 2010). Goodwill stores will be more easily accessible and acceptable to the youths and this approach will be aimed to ensure that the regular customers transit smoothly through the change. Comment by Sean Froyd: Find some research on numbers, Viktoryia.

It is obligatory to consider the disadvantages before implementing a plan. It helps to spot out the possible vulnerabilities of the business model. There are some distinct disadvantages of cloud computing. First of all, the disturbance in Internet connection can potentially affect the overall performances. Secondly, if the system is used in a very long term basis, then the sum of periodic subscription fee along with the establishment cost (including distributed servers, dynamic infrastructure software, bandwidth cost, security and privacy) can exceed the price of buying the hardware. Requirement of backup is very important in terms of data security (Pocatilu, 2010). Additionally, confidential and secure material will be stored in a third party vendor's server. According to Kalyvas, "A cloud computing provider may possess a customer's most sensitive data, including data that may be subjected to state or federal regulations" (Kalyvas, 2013). It might expose the company to some potential threats because the end user (Goodwill Stores) is ultimately responsible for maintaining security and privacy laws (Kalyvas, 2013). These threats can be minimized by taking proper measures. As already mentioned, some cloud vendors provide the option to uninterruptedly conduct essential operations even in offline mode. The generated revenues and cost saving due to system simplicity prevails over the expenditure factor. However, Goodwill stores will have to rely on the reputations of the vendor and the contractual agreement for data security and server outage scenarios.

Goodwill stores are one of the most reputed organizations of this country, and the foundations of Goodwill’s reputation are built on the pillars of customer satisfaction. There is a Japanese philosophy, Kaizen. According to the Oxford dictionary, Kaizen means “continuous improvement of working practices, personal efficiency, etc…” (Oxford, n.d.). The company must follow the principles of Kaizen (i.e. Implement continuous development practices), to stay on top of the national market and expand its market to a global perspective. The advantages of cloud software clearly outweigh the shortcomings of this course of action. The Implementing Cloud Computing approach will effectively standardize the operations of Goodwill stores and this approach will help to attract more and more customers to the company.

References:

Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. D., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., & Lee, G.

(2010, April). A view of cloud computing [Electronic version]. Communications of the ACM, 53 (4), 50-58.

Hayes, B. (2008). Cloud Computing [Electronic version]. Communications of the ACM,

51(7).

Kalyvas, J. R., Overly, M. R., & Karlyn, M. A. (2013). Cloud Computing: A Practical

Framework for Managing Cloud Computing Risk--Part II. Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal, 25(4), 19-27.

Leavitt, N. (2009). Is cloud computing really ready for prime time. Growth, 27(5).

Mell, P., & Grance, T. (2009). The NIST definition of cloud computing.

National Institute of Standards and Technology, 53 (6), 50.

Oxford Dictionaries. (Online Edition). (2014). Oxford University Press.

Pocatilu, P., Alecu, F., & Vetrici, M. (2010). Measuring the efficiency of the cloud

Computing for e-learning systems. WSEAS transactions on computers, 9 (1), 42-51.

Very good work here, Viktoryia! I don’t have a lot of suggestions for Unit 9, but I did make a comment or two through the paper on smaller grammar things, and on the first body paragraph where you needed to split the paragraph since you moved to a different point.

What I do need to see for Unit 9, though, is a discussion of what Goodwill has now: you don’t really define the problems that need solutions in the form of cloud computing. Really getting into detail on the problem that the nationwide chain has now will make it a slam dunk for Unit 9. Adding a bit more research on one of your paragraphs will help too (specifically the costs). Other than that, just don’t forget to set up the APA correctly: make sure the titles are capitalized appropriately (the first word, first word after a colon or dash, and proper nouns will be the only things capitalized), and that the periodical title and volume number is italicized.

Otherwise, a fine job here!

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UNIT 6 PROJECT RUBRIC: (150 points)