MGD 415 EBusiness Strategies

	MGD 415 / MGT 471
	*E-Business Strategies*
Final Group Project

last updated 2011 Jan 17

http://people.senecac.on.ca/tim.richardson/video/projecttips.avi

A short video clip (500 MB) of Prof. Richardson giving a few tips about laying out your project and some of the things he looks for in marking these types of assignments
youtube.com/watch?v=LxguksrUZfk

WTGR made a short video with some tips about using "mature language" when you are composing the sentances in written assignments.

It is well worth viewing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7e9WSnC0Tk

A short video clip from a student project in April 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNg5-bTqous
This clip is something the students made to showcase the features of their invention

For this project you will
1. write a marketing oriented Goal for a company selling a product or service, preferrably an IT product or service, or a product or service that services IT
- preferable a product that easily lends itself to marketing in the e-business arena (so don't be thinking about maple syrup)
- it is expected that you will write some reasons and explanation as to how you arrived at the specific wording of the Goal and how it suits the purpose of the company
- it is expected that some considerable reflection and thought will go into the creation of a well worded Goal

2. to reach that goal you will create several measurable and quantifiable Objectives
- these Objectives will need explanation and you may use web-sourced material to justify your wording of the Objective
- there may also be some research you conduct to substantiate why a particular Objective needs to be achieved
- it should be relatively easy for the reader (me, Prof. Richardson) to understand how the Objectives are measurable and quantifiable

3. those Objectives will be fulfilled with Plans you create
- a business Plan according to classic marketing is the Marketing Strategy + the time related details

4. the Plans will be affected by a sequences of Strategies
- according to classic marketing theory, a Marketing Strategy is the 4P's + the Target Market segment
- in order for your plans to have some focus, you need to define your target market segment
- you should also think of strategies in terms of "an organized sequence of action items and activities carried out to accomplish a plan"
- for example, ".. we wanted to achieve a lot of hits on the site but could not pay for banner ads or pay for click throughs so we looked at getting "uniques" through a kewl publicity campaign that piggybacked on...."
- it is expected that you will use considerable imagination and breadth in creating some Strategies

5. the Strategies will be executed with specific Tactics
- you should explain some tactics in detail and the more specific you can be, comparatively, the better

As you are taught various units of the course, you will apply that information and understanding to the Plans, Tactics and Strategies you must concoct for this project.
For example, one plan may have to do with some aspect of Domain Name Registration and Hosting - you'll take the information you learned in that lecture, + any other material, and create a plan for that and fit it into one of your Objectives

5% - pre-Report
submit a 2 or 3 page description of progress to date, who is in the group doing what, and convince me you are embarking on something that is "useful and interesting"

15% - in class group Presentation
You will make a presentation to the class in the final two classes of the course
- each group will be allocated about 10-15 minutes
- for the past several years this Presentation in class has been very very good - in order to obtain a high mark, your group should be prepared to be better than most of the class
- here are some specific presentation tips www.witiger.com/tips.htm

20% - Written Report
Judged on how you can coordinate various bits of information
Quantity is not as important as your organizational ability
Always think about how the information all fits together - more than just collecting a lot of things to write about.
The key thing is to convince the reader that you truly understand the concept of a Strategy and the ability to fit it into the context of a Plan that leads to Objectives.
If you asked me "how long is the report", I'd say 10 pages is too short for what you need space to discuss, and 30 pages is way too long because in the "real world" few people read beyond 20 pages.
You need to appreciate the consequences of a Competitive Environment and the challenges of getting your message across succinctly, yet completely without gaps.
It is expected that this project will have all the formatting, appearances, quality and structure of a typical 4th year UofT final project for an undergrad course.

Caution - for those of you that took, or are taking, CCT 322 - this project is NOT the same as the 322 project - You may use the same company for 322 as 415, but understand that the 322 project is oriented towards the marketing aspects, the 415 project is oriented to thinking about the strategic use of different e-commerce situations, and how knowing about those things can lead to accomplishing certain plans, which lead to measurable objectives. In your writing for the 415 project there will be language oriented to things such as "of the two options, we chose.... because this might....", or "there are 3 ways to do..... and based on ...... we selected ...... because if ....... happens then...."

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