Information system assignment

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INSY 2301 – Information Systems 2 – Spring 2017

Group Project

(10% of course grade)

Due: Monday, May 1, 11 PM

Overview:

This group project combines two of the main topics of this semester—the Strategic Use of

Information Technology and Information (Database) Management, while following-up on last

semester's focus on Business Analytics.

There are four steps in this project. In Step One, your team will select a company to study in

terms of its Strategic Use of IT in Step Two. Step Three is not directly connected to the first two

steps, but addresses the challenges of managing a business organization’s information (database)

and is often an important element of the Strategic Use of IT. Read Step Four for submission

guidelines.

Step One: Choose a Company for Research

Go to one of the following two websites and select a company that will be the focus of your

project. Note, some companies may be richer choices than others so this is an important phase of

your project. You may want to divide your team into working groups to consider a number of

companies. Use the following case study repositories to find a suitable company.

• Microsoft Azure’s case studies: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/case-studies/

Azure is Microsoft’s enterprise cloud computing platform. To choose a case study, click

the By Category tab, then in the Solution dropdown list select either Business Intelligence

or Big Data and Analytics.

• Teradata’s case studies: http://www.teradata.com/Resources/case-studies/

Teradata offers database and data warehousing products. To find analytics-related case

studies, in the Solutions dropdown list select either Big Data Analytics or Data Driven

Business.

Before choosing a company, you should read through the entire project description and search

business news articles about the companies under consideration to make sure the company you

choose will enable you to address all of the project requirements well.

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Step Two: Investigate the Strategic Role of IT at the Company You Selected

Based on the case study from one of the two sites, AS WELL AS your team's own, independent

research on this company, discuss how this firm uses IT strategically. You should NOT limit

yourself to just one strategic use of IT, but if the company has many such strategic initiatives you

MAY limit yourself to just a few. In particular, your analysis should include the strategic role of

Business Analytics/Big Data but should not be limited to Business Analytics. Your analysis

should include (but, again, not be limited to) the following:

• An overview of your company (industry, size, performance, competitors, challenges)

• How your company's use of IT relates to its overall strategy (Be sure to describe what it

is about IT that provides the strategic benefit.)

• What is the role of "Information" in implementing the IT-based strategy? For instance

what information is needed (by whom, when, and where)? Where does the information

come from? What challenges does this pose?

• The role of the solution provider (i.e., either Microsoft or Teradata) in implementing the

company's strategy

• Applying Porter's Five Forces appropriately

• Drawing on the Resource-Based View of the firm appropriately

• Other specific concepts from class and from Gallaugher as appropriate (e.g., Value Chain

Analysis, network, platform, social, and mobile)

• The risks your company faces with respect to its IT-related strategies (i.e., what could go

wrong) and what you can do to mitigate those risks (The consequences of IT are not

necessarily positive AND actions matter!)

• Proposing strategic roles for IT other than those that the company currently addresses.

Step Three: Design and Develop a Database

The third step of the project is not directly connected to the first two. It illustrates the challenges

involved in designing a database for an organization. Because database design is both complex

and consequential, and because how you store information affects how you can retrieve it,

corporate databases are typically designed by teams of individuals. Your team's challenge is to

take your knowledge of database design in general, and Microsoft Access in particular, to design

a database for a company that sells a variety of products. You are provided with a "flat file"—an

unstructured list of information in an Excel worksheet—and you must design an appropriate

Microsoft Access database and import the data from the worksheet into it.

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The Excel workbook "INSY 2301 - Group Project Source File Spring 2017.xlsx" can be found on

Blackboard. There are 17 columns in the file, as follows:

Order ID

Order Date

Order Status

Customer ID

Customer Company

Customer Address

Customer State

Customer Zip

Customer Contact First Name

Customer Contact Last Name

Invoice ID

Invoice Date

Invoice Amount

Shipper ID

Shipper Name

Shipper Phone

Shipper Contact Name

Your company sells office supplies, computers, and furniture to corporate clients. Each row in

the worksheet represents an invoice pertaining to an order placed by one of your customers.

Each is characterized by an ID, a date, a status, and, of course, and, the customer placing the

order. Each customer’s information includes an ID, the company name, the company’s address,

as well as the first and last names of your contact person at the company.

Each order is billed through one or more invoices. That is, a given order might be billed in

several installments, where each installment has its own invoice. Details about each invoice

include an ID, a date, and the amount billed. Finally, one shipper handles the delivery of each

order. Information about each shipper includes an ID, the shipping company name, its phone

number, and the name of a contact person.

Your team needs to:

• Determine how many different entities are involved in this database. Since each entity

will need its own Microsoft Access table, also determine which fields (columns, or

attributes) pertain to each entity (table).

• Once your database tables are created, import data into each of the tables. (Note: This

will be more complex than when you imported data from Excel during the tutorials and

cases found in the Lab Manual.)

• Create the appropriate one-to-many relationships by adding foreign keys as needed to the

tables and creating the relationships with the referential integrity enforced. (Note: This

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will be more complex than the Comprehensive Access Assignment, which had only two

tables and one relationship.)

• Create three queries:

o a query qryLargeOrderCountPerStatus that lists each order status in ascending

order together with the number of large orders (those greater than $3,000 in total

invoice amount) currently in that status. (Note: You might want to find out all the

large orders before counting them.)

o a query qryShipmentsEachState that shows the number of shipments each shipper

made to each state with the shipper’s name, the state abbreviation, and the number

of shipment made to that state.

o a query qryOrderStatPerCustomer that shows each customer’s (a) company name,

(b) the number of orders that customer placed, (c) the maximum dollar amount

per order, (d) the average dollar amount per order, and (e) the minimum dollar

amount per order.

• What additional tables/attributes/relationships would be needed to keep track of the

products being purchased in each order? (Hint: This question will require some thought.

Note: Answer this question in the Word document (see below), not the Access database.)

Step Four: Prepare and Submit the Project Deliverables

One member of your team should upload to Blackboard:

• A double-spaced Word document with 12 point font and one-inch margins (i.e., INSY

2301 Group Project Report.doc)

• An Access Database (i.e., INSY 2301 Group Project Database.accdb)

Ensure the Word document contains the following:

1. A cover page containing the names of the team members

2. An Executive Summary of no more than one page summarizing the background,

approaches, and findings of your Step Two analysis (that is, the highlights and key

points).

3. [Step Two Analysis] Reporting on your analysis performed in Step Two of the strategic

role of IT at the company you selected. This should consist of no more than 6 pages

4. [Step Three Analysis] Reporting your team’s design suggestion on expanding the

database capability for keeping track of products in each order.

5. A separate page of references. For example, cite the case study that this project is based

on and list all library databases and news outlets researched.