Business Communication Final Project

COMM 310 – Final Project Assignment 2014 Overview 1. This assignment is due by 6:00pm, Tuesday, June 17, 2014. It is important that you submit it on time so

that I will be able to grade it and submit your final marks to UCW in timely fashion. 2. Before undertaking this assignment, you may wish to review Chapter 13 of your textbook, and my Week

10 Forum posting. 3. Your project must reflect the Scenario described below; you may nonetheless invent any details you think

necessary. While fictitious, those details must be plausible within the context of the scenario and of your overall project.

4. You will note that a number of the details of the scenario I have provided are similar to details in some of the chapters of your textbook, and similar to those in some of your earlier COMM 310 assignments. However, this Final Project is completely unrelated to any other COMM 310 assignments.

5. You must submit the project in electronic format as an e-mail attachment, through UCW’s DropBox. 6. Your project must comprise three files: two word-processed documents that I will open in MS Word

2010, and a set of slides that I will open in MS PowerPoint 2010. 7. Combined (without being zipped), the files may not exceed 2.0 MB. I would prefer that you send three

separate files rather than a zip archive. UCW’s DropBox allows you to attach multiple files. The files’ contents are described under Project Content, below.

8. To allow me to identify your files, every filename must include your surname and initial, and the file’s “topic”—for example, IngreD-CMAPP.docx. (Your software will automatically include the file name extension, here “.docx”)

Scenario Note: This scenario is, in part, a “Canadianized” derivation of information in your textbook.

You are a systems analyst, working as a Consulting Associate in the Vancouver office of Accelerated Enterprises Ltd. (AEL), a consulting firm actually headquartered in Winnipeg. AEL has now been approached by Radisson Automobiles Incorporated (RAI), for whom AEL has done previous work.

RAI: Background Headquartered in Ottawa, and with locations in Halifax, Moncton, Montreal, Winnipeg, Regina, and Vancouver, RAI is a successful automobile dealership chain. Its President and Chief Executive Officer is Gilles Radisson, the son of the company’s founder. He holds an Automotive Service Technician certificate from BCIT, and an MBA from the University of Toronto. He also has a reputation as a tough, workaholic micro-manager, known to wield a sometimes heavy hand. Nonetheless, he is highly capable, having built his father’s original small Ottawa dealership into a highly profitable national network.

RAI: Organization RAI’s organization chart appears as Figure 1 on the following page:

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Project Background Recognizing that the company’s still largely manual administration system is out of date and very inefficient, RAI’s Board of Directors had decided to computerize the firm’s operations, and had entrusted the project to the Vancouver VP, Howard Blumen. During a vice-presidents’ teleconference, Lorna Hildebrande, RAI’s Winnipeg VP, had recommended AEL, who had recently submitted a very well received engineering proposal for expansion of the Winnipeg dealership. Blumen had contacted Nabata in Winnipeg, who had recommended you. Your subsequent conversations with Blumen have led you to understand that RAI have four general requirements: • inter-connected communication among Head Office and all dealerships; • full Internet access for each office; • accurate tracking of new and used car sales, regular and incidental service visits, warrantee and non-

warrantee repair calls, all inventory and supplies billings and payments, and all HR functions such as salaries, benefits, and sick leave; and,

• easy access to standardized reports. Project Task Your boss, Frank Nabata in Winnipeg, has assigned you the project. RAI’s Vancouver Vice-President, Howard Blumen, has informed you that the RAI President and Vice-Presidents will be having their semi-annual

Radisson Automobiles Radisson

William McGregor Executive Secretary

Radisson Automobiles Board of Directors

Head Office Ottawa

Francoise Desormais Executive Assistant

Bonnie Olender V-P Service

Gary Castagno V-P Sales

Allan Wong Assistant Manager

Head Office

Sales Service

Tina Trann General Manager Radisson Halifax

Sales Service

Phillip Osterhous General Manager Radisson Regina

Sales Service

Michel Gagne General Manager

Radisson Montreal

Sales Service

Sukinder Sharma General Manager

Radisson Moncton

Sales Service

George Finlay General Manager Radisson Ottawa

Sales Service

Corinne Chin General Manager

Radisson Vancouver

Sales Service

Carole Schusterman General Manager

Radisson Winnipeg

Celine Robillard Company Manager

Victor Liepert Vice-President

Radisson Halifax

Francine Deshotels Vice-President

Radisson Montreal

Alberto Chavez Vice-President

Radisson Ottawa

Lorna Hildebrande Vice-President

Radisson Winnipeg

Melinda Shaw Vice-President

Radisson Regina

Red Haliburton Vice-President

Radisson Moncton

Howard Blumen Vice-President

Radisson Vancouver

Gilles Radisson Chief Executive Officer

Board President

Figure 1: RAI Organization Chart

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meeting in Vancouver next month. He has asked you to attend part of their meeting and, taking no more than one hour, make a presentation to them, in which you should:

• explain how you see their situation; • propose the system that AEL would design for them and train them on; • answer any questions they may have.

Project Content Your term project reflects what would be the preparation for this presentation—which is, effectively a solicited external proposal. Your presentation, of course, will be extemporaneous, as explained beginning on page 188 of your textbook. Remember that this Final Project is unrelated to your earlier assignments.

The content of the three files mentioned above will be:

CMAPP Analysis (filename: Surname Initial-CMAPP.docx) • This must be the CMAPP analysis that you would have conducted in preparation for your

presentation to the RAI executives. • You must devise relevant questions regarding all five elements, and provide answers that are brief,

clear, precise, concise, and cohesive—with each other and with the project details. • All answers must reflect parallel structure. • The CMAPP analysis document may not exceed two pages. • You need not follow APA format. Remember, however, the CMAPP complementary attribute of

accessibility: I should be able to readily relate answers to their questions, and refer to them later.

Presentation Multi-level Outline (filename: Surname Initial-Outline.docx) • This must be the formal, multi-level outline that you would have prepared during the presentation

development process. (You might wish to review Chapters 5 and 13 of your textbook.) • This outline should be of the type shown in Chapter 5 of your textbook; you should use the

Alphanumeric System illustrated in Figure 5.1 on page 55 of that text. It must include clear, specific references to your visuals, and be of sufficient detail to provide a good understanding of the presentation’s contents. It must also respect the principles of subordination, division, and parallelism.

• It must be preceded by a thesis statement (see pages 186 and 200 of your textbook), identifying the presentation’s topic, primary purpose, and primary audience.

• While it is not likely to exceed three pages, it must contain an appropriate level of detail for the development of a presentation of close to an hour.

Intended Visuals (filename: Surname Initial-Visuals.pptx) • This file will contain the PowerPoint slides with which you would have illustrated parts of your

presentation. • You might wish to review Chapters 6 and 13 of your textbook before finalizing this element.

Assignment Particulars This assignment has two assignment particulars:

• Adherence to the scenario, including all appropriate details that you develop. • Adherence to the file types and the combined size indicated above.

Lack of adherence to assignment particulars carries a penalty of 15% of the total available mark.

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