Week 9

Reflection 

We had a guest lecturer in this week called James Whittingham who wanted to talk to us about sustainability and how business are being sustainable or how other business can make changes to their operations to make them more sustainable for the future. 

Th lecture started with a quick fire quiz then went onto explain what sustainability actually means, which is how a we can all make the world a better place environmentally for the future and live the best we can rather than ruining the planet like we have been doing through deforestation and CO2 emissions for example. 

we then looked at sustainability and businesses, it is one of the biggest business risks a company could ever face as the main goal for a lot of big name companys is to make profits, however being more environmentally friendly to be sustainable can sometimes come at a higher cost which can make managers reluctant to try. Some companys even believe that their operations are so far away from being anything to do with the environment that they don't even consider changing in order benefit the environment, therefore becoming more sustainable. 

Fortunately, being sustainable is being popular with some big name brands and a lot of advances are being made, such as Tesla and their electronic cars and places such as wholefood who supply customers with organic food rather than processed foods. 

Teamwork

Over the holidays we all came up with our own scripts for what we would be saying during the presentation. We have a group chat which we have been using throughout the whole project but this especially came in handy over Easter as we didn't have any chances to meet as a group due to us all going home for the three weeks and we all live in different parts of the country. Every time one member would finish a part of their script or need help, they would send it into the group chat and the rest of us would give them some feedback on what they want to say or help them if they were struggling. 


Right now we have everything sorted for the presentation, all we need to do is actually film it which is what we will be doing straight after this seminar and Kealan is happy to edit the video tonight ready for us all to submit all our work on time tomorrow.

Easter Break

Reflection of the whole coursework

I believe that my group worked incredibly well together for many reasons, for example we set ourselves deadlines for each bit of the project and we managed to keep to those deadlines which overall helped us finish this whole project on time without it being rushed.

This leads me on to the standard of work we have produced, as we wasn't rushed we feel like we have been able to produce a high standard of work for this project because we took our time on researching each problem and each solution and we also had time to be able to sit down altogether as a group on many occasions and work together to produce the best solutions, rather than just doing work separately and putting together through a group chat or once a week in class.

The actual Teamwork aspect of this presentation was majorly important, we managed to work well as a team, using each persons strengths in different area to come up with the bets solutions and never arguing as a group, we respected each others opinions and when two or more people felt differently to one another we would find a way to bring their points together or a way to use the information fairly in the presentation.

Overall, I think I am lucky to have been with a team who all genuinely wanted to do well on this project and a team in which we all got along, as if there were arguments within the group it would not have been a fun experience. However I did genuinely enjoy this project as we worked together to all find out as much as we could about a company we did't previously know, expect from Chloe, and a topic none of us had learnt much about before doing this IS module.

Week 8

Reflection 

We went back to business in this weeks lecture as it was about business models in a digital world where we focused mainly on how IS systems effect different structures and decision making in each section of the company's hierarchy. 

The first model we looked at was Mintzberg's 5 types of organisational structures which are:
1) Entrepreneurial - A small start up - often forward thinking and enthusiastic but has limited structure and poor task discipline.

2) Machine Bureaucracy - Government agencies - structured and consistent but are often not open to new perspectives.

3) Divisional Bureaucracy - Large corporations containing divisions that each have a centralised control.

4) Professional Bureaucracy - Schools, hospitals etc - Skilled knowledgeable staff who can be trusted to make decisions by themselves, resulting in the company being decentralised.

5) Adhocracy (Innovative) - lack of any type of formal structure which allows authority to be shared effectively horizontally and vertically through out the whole company.

There are many different source of competitive advantages and each business must find which works best for the themselves, as seen with Aldi and their low prices, Apple being one of the most innovative companys in the market and Adidas using the brand they have created to be more competitive in the sports market.

IS can help give a company an even better competitive advantage, the main two ways being: Automating allows things to be done quicker, cheaper and more accurately than human hand and tactical managers can use IS to learn, improve and support processes. Both of these can be used when creating strategies to boost the company giving them a better advantage over competitors who are not using IS.

Teamwork

Now we have all the problems chosen, research done and solutions decided on, our group have created the power point which will be with us during the presentation. We gave it a theme that kept the power point simple, with small bullet points and only limited colour as we want to ensure that throughout the presentation the focus is on each person as we speak and not the slides projected behind us. We kept the bullet points small as little prompts on each bit but not full sentences to avoid any of the group reading from the screen making the presentation less professional. Now we have the power point created, our work for over Easter is to write our own little scripts for the parts we would be speaking and remember them for when we come back and actually film the presentation. Each group member has one slide during the introduction, either introducing Kinetic Consultancies, the client or the whole business. Each member also has a problem each and three solutions to their problem to talk about during the presentation.

Week 7

Reflection

The lecture this week was focused primarily on the importance of developing our presentation skills and how to create the perfect professional slides which will help to boost our presentation. We went through everything we should and should not do with a power point presentation, from which fonts to use to which images not to use. A few should and should not's that I think will help me most are

   Should : Be Simple

                  Key words and phrases only, keep it in point form

                  Illustrate with images and animations to keep the attention captured

   Should : Overboard with images and animations

     not        Paragraph

                  Use a complicated font that could be hard to read

   This lecture helped me a lot as I have never been confident with presenting anything in front of a crowd of people, no matter how big or small. I feel that I will be able to use the knowledge & skills taught in this lecture for self improvement because by using this to create slides that I know are professional, concise and effective, I will become more confident in my presentation skills as a whole.

Teamwork

We spent our time finding our final solutions for the chosen problems which became a lot easier now we have the extra information from Chloe's dad about JTI and about their problems. We have 4 problems our group decided to find solutions to and we decided our goal would be to have at least three solutions for each problem. Last week we managed to come up with a few solutions however after our group received the extra information from Chloe's dad we could finish researching and creating solutions which will let us reach our target amount of 3 solutions per problem. 

Week 6

Reflection

Our lecture this week was based on Cloud Computing then ended on the topic of Relational Databases.

   Cloud Computing was created to help and aid the increase of virtualization. The model allows network access to shared networks from one device to provide the convenience of all a persons data on one device whether is be saved to another.

   It's characteristics include access to any shared network whenever it is needed, at anytime while the person may be anywhere. Cloud Computing is a measure service so you only pay for what you use.

   However, CC does also have some management issues, mainly connecting to viability, can the system continue surviving and providing whatever needs and high demand there will be in the future?

   The final part of CC was going through 3 advanced cloud applications:

1) Grid Computing = Complex tasks are broken down into smaller tasks, each task is done on and individual computer, all of which connect together to make a super computer.

2)Content Delivery Networks = Moving processing & data storage away from the center to the edge of the network to improve performance

3)Green Computing = Practice & study of environmentally sustainable computing

    The lecture then ended with slides teaching us how to create a table in datasheet view, opening a database and then creating a query, form and report from the database.

Teamwork

This week we decided to come up with a few more question that Chloe could take back to her dad about JTI to help us get a better insight into his company so we can create more valid solutions to JTI's problems. We decided that the main problem we want to focus on is with the growing popularity of vaping which is lowering JTI's sales of tobacco products, therefore the questions we have for Chloe's dad is mainly about this problem. However, we did research and begin creating some solutions with the information we had and help from the internet to help us research how businesses solve these problems in the real world.

Week 5

Reflection 

This weeks lecture was based on information system crimes and ways of preventing these crimes from happening.
   The more dependent a company is on IS the more vulnerable they are to security disasters, the most common being unauthorized people going through electronic data by hacking or stealing computers/media storage.
   We then went on to look at different viruses such as Worms that replicate endlessly across the network and Trojans which can either be time bombs or logic bombs, both designed to to be set off by different things, either an action or a specific time.
   Finally, we looked at some of the biggest cyber threats which include: cyber harassment, cyber stalking, cyber bullying, cyber predators, cyber war and cyber terrorism. Cyber terrorism is a likely weapon of choice as it can be launched from anywhere in the world, spreading masses of fear, panic and disruption. There are many ways to react if affected by any of these cyber threats, however the best ways are
   . Risk Reduction
   . Risk Acceptance
   . Risk Transference
   . Risk Avoidance
Fortunatley, the government made laws in 1986 which still stand today to help people fight against cyber crime, the two biggest being the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Teamwork

Our team began designating roles this week, this will help split the work between the four of us so we can each focus on our own part more precisely rather than us all trying to do the whole project individually. Splitting the work will help us be more efficient with the time scale we have and get the work completed to a high standard. The roles we have designated are:

Jess - Manager - Jess has taken on the lead role in this project which is why we have decided to make her a manager.

Chloe - Analyst -  The Analyst is a person who researches the company and interviews the business, as Chloe already had knowledge of the company due to her dad being the interviewee we thought she would be most suited the role.

Kealan - Researcher - In a real consultancy firm this would be the person who spends their time researching which solutions are possible, which would work the best and how they would benefit the company in the long run. As this is only a project not a real business all of us did research into the solutions individually but Kealan was the one to bring all this information together.

Lauren (me) - Consultant - My job would be to go into the company with the solutions and present them to the managers and convince them believe our firm on which solutions are most suited to their business. Again, as this is a project for us all we will all be doing the presentation.

Week 4

Reflection 

In the lecture this week we learnt how and why Business Intelligence is so crucial to organisations. This includes reacting to threats and opportunities, gather and analysing 'Big Data' so decisions will become much more better suited to the company therefore being more effective. The final reason why BI is so important is because it allows continuous planning of a company as it continuously analyses and monitors the company's processes so the results given by BI improves decision making across all levels of hierarchy and the company's business plans can have on going adjustments to allows be the most efficient.

We also went into depth about systems data bases, the advantages of a database and how to effectively manage them.

Teamwork 

Now we have the answers to our questions about JTI our group were able to start roughly planning the beginning of our presentation, including how we will introduce the business and the best way to describe the businesses problems with the information we have gathered.

One of the biggest problems the company is facing is the restrictions that the UK government have been placing on smoking since 2007. This majorly affecting the company's revenue as the governments aim is to discourage the public to smoke which in turn decreases sales of tobacco.

Our next priority for this project is finding possible solutions to pitch to the company, looking at the expected outcomes of each solution then determining which solution is the most suitable to JTI.