Responses must meet the deadline of
August 18th, 2013 no later than 12:00PM; otherwise this is voided
and charges will be disputed.

Instructions:

Use
the Case Study presented here to answer the questions below. Your responses should demonstrate your
understanding of the content and your analysis and critical thinking.

Answers
will be in the form of a list or short answers, as indicated in the questions. Proper APA style must be used for any
citations and references that you use. You
must mention the Case Study throughout your responses.

Case Study
You
have been working for some time at UMUC Pizza, a pizza restaurant located near
the UMUC campus. The owner, Bill, is
very interested in expanding his successful business. He has just bought Priority Pizza, a pizza shop
in a good location across town, and has hired a store manager. He has decided to name the new business (at
both locations) UMUC Pizza. Bill’s
research shows that there are many other local stores that sell pizza: outlets for major pizza chains in malls and
other locations, small outlets and specialty shops, and larger
restaurants. While Bill has been keeping
all his records of orders, sales and inventory on paper, the records at Priority
Pizza are located on the manager’s PC in Excel files. Bill realizes that he must treat the two
stores as a single business, with one set of accounts, one billing system,
etc. He thinks this is also a good time
to stop using paper records for his orders, sales and inventory. Bill really hopes to continue to expand his
business by buying other pizza outlets, but he will need good information about
his current businesses to know when he should make his next acquisition. He has asked you to help him develop the
business strategy and IT Plan to accomplish his goals. You know that there are methodologies for
analyzing the business environment and that there are multiple ways to expand
the business. You also recognize that IT
is an important component for achieving Bill’s goals.

1.
Explain
Porter’s Five Forces Model and how Bill can use it to analyze his current
business and his expansion. Be sure to
address each of the 5 forces and explain to Bill what they mean for his UMUC
Pizza business.

2.
Based
on your analysis in question #1, select one of the five forces and explain how Bill
can incorporate his analysis of that force into his Strategic Business Plan
(SBP).

3.
List
and describe three business areas and/or processes used in the UMUC Pizza shops
that could be supported by an IT solution.
a.

b.

c.

4.
List
and describe (in two or three sentences each) three IT projects that should be
a part of Bill’s IT Plan – one project to support each area and/or process
identified in question #3 above.
a.

b.

c.

5.
Explain
how each IT project listed above specifically improves and/or supports Bill’s UMUC
Pizza business.
a.

b.

c.

6.
If Bill decides to enter the world of
eCommerce, which of the eCommerce models (business-to-business,
customer-to-business, business-to-customer, or customer-to-customer) would you
recommend to him as a best fit for his business and how would it benefit his
business?

7.
Describe
for Bill what a Supply Chain Management (SCM) solution would look like for his
UMUC Pizza business and how his business could benefit from implementing an SCM
solution.

8.
Describe
for Bill what an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution would look like
for his UMUC Pizza business and how his business could benefit from
implementing an ERP solution.

9.
What
benefits would Bill get for his business from implementing a relational
database? Your response must be tied
directly to Bill’s pizza stores.

10.
Make
a list and describe five ways that Bill could protect the data and systems that
he is going to put in place. Consider
the type of data and systems that would be relevant to Bill’s pizza stores.
a.

b.

c.

d.

e.