Isy3004 E-Business Applications Assignment Sample Answers


  • Internal Code :
  • Subject Code : ISY3004
  • University : Australian Institute of Higher Education
  • Subject Name : Business Plan

E- Business Solutions for Microsoft

Executive Summary

This report was set to discuss the e-business solution proposal for the Microsoft Company. The Microsoft Company was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in the year 1975. They started the company Microsoft for producing software for the Altar 8800 that was an early personal computer. The e-business solution for Microsoft was proposed to be a VirtualShop e-business suite that helps clients and other dealers in trading virtually in an effective manner. This business concluded that this proposed e-business solution for the company is profitable for the business to expand its customer base.

Table of Contents

Introduction.

Company description.

Market Analysis.

Product/ service.

Objectives.

E-business solution.

Financials.

Regulation.

Conclusion.

References.

1. Introduction

E-business refers to the use of ICT (information and communication) for carrying out all the operations of the business. It entails the business processes covering the whole value chain such as cooperating with business partners, processing orders electronically, electronic purchasing, supply chain management, and more. It is a vital necessity for the success of the business in the modern competitive global environment (Luz Martín‐Peña, Díaz‐Garrido & Sánchez‐López, 2018). This business plan discusses the e-business solutions for Microsoft Company. It entails market analysis, products, e-business solution, financials, and regulations.

2. Company Description.

Business name: The Enterprise name is Microsoft

Location: The location of the company in Redmond, Washington

History: The Microsoft Company was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in the year 1975. They started the company Microsoft for producing software for the Altar 8800 that was an early personal computer.

Structure: The corporate structure of an organization can be defined as the framework and arrangement of the business and its apparatuses. The Microsoft Company uses a product type divisional organizational structure that entails segments that are reliant on definite hardware and software products of the computer. The features of this organizational structure are product type segments, global corporate groups, and geographic segments. The product segments of the company are intelligent cloud, business and productivity processes, corporate, and more persona computing. The global corporate groups are legal, human resources, finance, marketing, worldwide commercial business, and more (Mircosoft, 2020).

3. Market Analysis

Market size: Microsoft corporation is undoubtedly an international market leader in software technology especially in cloud computing. Moreover, it is the largest developer of the Windows operating system and the largest player in cloud technology in the world. This company ranks fourth with a big market value of $752 billion in the largest companies in the world. In addition, it also has its largest market share with a 3% gain about the top five service providers of cloud computing. Microsoft Company has its business operations in a total of 190 countries over the globe. 

Customer segments: The customer segments of Microsoft are tabulated as follows:

Type

Criteria

Target customer segment

Geographic

Region

Global market

Demographic

Age

16 plus

Gender

Males and females

Occupation

Professionals, students, and employees

Behavioural

Personality

Determined and ambitious

User status

Potential users, regular users

Psychographic

Lifestyle

Succeeder, Aspirer, Explorer

Social class

Lower, middle, and upper

Competition: It is obvious that the technology industry is marked by penetrating competition and thus Microsoft has acquired certain daunting competitors in the market. The primary competitors of Microsoft Corporation entail the best protuberant technology companies like Google, Apple, Oracle, and IBM. Its competition has become more intense after it diversifies into various products and segments.

Barriers to entry: There is a moderate threat to enter in the computer hardware and software industry. The high cost of the development of technological brand restricts the companies to enter the industry and thereby declines the effects of novel entry on Microsoft Company. The modest cost of switching relatively contributes to the possible victory of the new participants in rival against Microsoft Company. Moreover, this industry requires more investment and reputation that is not a helpful factor to Microsoft as it may have a fear of intense competition (Warner, 2019).

4. Product/ Service

The Microsoft Company offers both the products and services. The top products of the company are Windows 95, Microsoft Azure, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, Xbox 360, Visual Studio, Microsoft solitaire, Bing, and Windows XP. The top services of the company are premier support services, modern applications, business analytics, modern data centre, security & identity, enterprise strategy program, business productivity, cloud vantage services, Microsoft product consulting services, client solutions, dynamics, and more (Mircosoft (2020 a).

Features: The common features of all the products of the company are as follows:

  • Highly innovative and technologically advanced
  • Exclusive quality
  • High effective for meeting the needs of consumers
  • Unique software designed for the businesses
  • One-to-one conversation with co-workers in office apps
  • Clutter feature that organizes emails in an intelligent manner
  • The planner helps to organize workflow for a team
  • Can be used in any device from anywhere
  • Work offline and uploading changes later on
  • Retrieving the correct version of the document
  • New power Business intelligence tab for teams
  • Recording storage
  • New file experience
  • App catalogue
  • Bots gallery
  • Cybersecurity
  • Combine third-party applications
  • Conversation threads
  • Automatics setup for suite
  • Collaborate with suppliers, dealers, and consumers.

Costs: All the products and services of the company are cost-effective.

Availability: The products and services of Microsoft are easily accessible for consumers such as business professionals, and individuals. Most of the marketable and the customer Microsoft products that are pertinent for the software development tasks are made accessible to visual studio subscribers. This feature of Microsoft allows subscribers to access the product and download it long for the future so that they can improve and examine legacy applications and change to novel platforms. There are some circumstances in which the product may not be accessible to consumers. The situations can be redundant software, not available in a particular country is publically accessible, not yet released, not included in subscriptions, and more (Lan, 2018).

Quality: The quality of the products and services is of higher standards in the Microsoft Company. Since it is a technology company, thus the defections and irregularities are unavoidable. However, despite this, the company is well-versed in maintaining higher standards of quality. Moreover, it has an exclusive position regarding the quality of its products. This company has its in-built software that is used to detect any anomalies in the product. In addition, the company has highly skilled workers who take complete care of preserving the best quality in the products and services. Furthermore, the company utilizes a wide range of ratios like defect rejection rate, defect leakage rate, and more to track the efficiency of the development and quality assurance.

5. Objectives

Current: The current objectives of Microsoft Company are as follows:

  • To enable every individual and every company in achieving more.
  • To help businesses and individuals throughout the globe in realizing their full potential (Mircrosoft, 2020).

Future: The future objectives of Microsoft Company are as follows:

  • To increase the customer base through developing an e-business solution
  • To exploit its technology in creating the solution.
  • To encourage the customer service of virtual dealers, increase their customer retention, and upsurge their sales.
  • To offer a software tool that allows retailers to manage the sales concerned with e-commerce.

6. E-Business Solution

VirtualShop E-business suite is an e-business solution to be developed by Microsoft Company that aids its clients and other dealers in trading virtually in an effective manner. This solution helps the businesses to build their online stores even without having awareness of coding needed in it. This solution will have all the solutions and technology to support the basic activities of the business.

Technology: To create an e-business solution, there must be a requirement of advanced technologies and tools. It plays an important role in e-business. The required technologies for the development of the e-business suite for the Microsoft are superconductivity, Nanotechnology, Global e-commerce with EPC (electronic product code) and RFID, Intelligent systems, parallel computing, and more. Some other technological innovations entail augmented reality, the Internet of things (IoT), Blockchain, drones, and more. The VirtualShop E-business suite of Microsoft will be built on the Bootstrap framework that contains the single code that is required to operate it. The other area concerned with technological aspects is a server, programming languages like java, database management, and more.

Input: The inputs for creating this e-business suite will be web-based solutions, application components that customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP). The development of the VirtualShop e-business suite also requires contemporary high-tech technologies with proper access and security. Most importantly, the input to the e-business suite needs the presence of skilled engineers who will develop it inaccurate and efficient manner.

Process: The processes include in this suite are ordering, negotiating, billing, payment & settlement, information processing, knowledge processing, accounting, distribution & receipt, customer service, and advertising & shopping. These processes are divided into four sections that are: applied computing that is useful for e-commerce activities; human-centred computing that includes collaborative computing and its tools; information systems that entail World Wide Web; software and its engineering that include software system structures, organizing principles for web applications, and more.

Output: The output will be a streamlined e-business solution for enterprises to help them in creating own online stores. This will help them in online marketing, online sales, and customer support. Moreover, the benefits of using this suite are increased productivity, reduces costs, improved efficiency & accuracy, and reduced time.

7. Financials

Budget: The budget for the development of e-business solutions is $ 650000. These funds will be utilized for the development of the core of the e-business suite for the companies. Moreover, these are needed for any new hiring of the technical staff for developing it and testing costs. The funds that are to be acquired from equity, as well as debt funding, are tabulated as follows:

Equity as a source of fund

 

Investment of company

$50000

Total equity funding

$50000

Debt as a source of fund

 

Bank loan

$150000

Total debt funding

$150000

Total funding

$650000

Expected ROI: The anticipated Return on investment will be 25% by the end of next year

8. Regulation

As there are certain rules and regulations set for the business to carry on the activities in every country, likewise there are certain guidelines for the e-business plan regulations that are based on the following perspectives:

  • Fair business practices: The business ensures not to make false statements about services and goods.
  • Accessibility and disability access: They need to make sensible regulation in the provision of goods and services to certify that they are available to individuals with a disability.
  • Advertising and marketing: They ensure that advertising material to be recognizable.
  • Engaging with minors: Special care for children targeted marketing and promotion
  • Disclosure of a business’s identity and location: must provide consumers with precise and easily available information
  • Disclosure of a contract’s terms and conditions: Must provide information with proper terms and conditions and the cost of transactions so that consumers may make informed decisions.
  • Implementation of mechanisms for concluding contracts: Must bring procedures that allow consumers to identify and correct the errors.
  • Adopting privacy principles: must safeguard the privacy of the consumers.

9. Conclusion

From the above e-business solution plan for the Microsoft Company, it can be concluded that the company is going to create and develop its e-business solution that helps other businesses to create online stores and integrate customers and suppliers for the business. The e-business solution will be named as VirtualShop e-business suite that aids its clients and other dealers in trading virtually in an effective manner. Moreover, the technologies that will be used in this project are contemporary like artificial intelligence, RFID, Intelligent systems, parallel computing, Internet of things (IoT), Blockchain, drones, and others.

Furthermore, the input to the e-business suite needs the presence of skilled engineers who will develop it inaccurate and efficient manner. The processes include in this suite are ordering, negotiating, billing, payment & settlement, information processing, knowledge processing, accounting, distribution & receipt, customer service, and advertising & shopping. This e-business solution will bring numerous benefits to the company like the expansion of its business in all countries. 

10. References

Lan (2018). New benefits in visual studio subscriptions. Retrieved from https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/new-benefits-in-visual-studio-subscriptions-2/

Luz Martín‐Peña, M., Díaz‐Garrido, E., & Sánchez‐López, J. M. (2018). The digitalization and servitization of manufacturing: A review on digital business models. Strategic Change27(2), 91-99.

Mircosoft (2020a). Microsoft privacy statement. Retrieved from https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement

Mircosoft (2020). About us. Retrieved from https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/about/

Warner, J. P. (2019). Microsoft: A Strategic Audit.

Remember, at the center of any academic work, lies clarity and evidence. Should you need further assistance, do look up to our Business Plan Assignment Help


Book Online Sessions for Isy3004 E-Business Applications Assignment Sample Answers Online

Submit Your Assignment Here