Updated in Jan.

2017

MM2422 Group Project (15%)

1. Purpose

The goal of this project is to provide students with an opportunity to apply what they have
learned in the subject to a real business case. Students are expected to investigate upon
the IT application(s) adopted by a company, and evaluate its effectiveness and
managerial implications. Upon completion, students are able to fulfil the learning
outcomes of the subject of MM2422. The final deliverable is a group-based written report
(15%).

2. Project description

Suppose that you and your group members are the management team of a particular
company, and you are writing this report from a manager’s standpoint.

Company selection:

Identify a company from the industry you are assigned in. Group one, please choose a
company from industry type No. 1; group two, industry No.2, etc.

Your preferred company should be the one you are familiar with and have more
information accessibility. Please send your lecturer as early as possible on the industry
and particular company you intend to investigate.

Notes: In each category, there will be hundreds or even thousands of such companies in
Hong Kong, China, or overseas countries. For example, there are hundreds of small and
medium sized logistics companies in Hong Kong, thus you may not need to focus on the
most famous or large companies. Students should avoid choosing the companies that have
been frequently studied previously (see the frequently reported companies in the table).
Frequently reported
NO. Industries Examples (but not limited to)
companies
Investment banks, Commercial
Financial HSBC, Bank of China,
1 banks, Insurance companies,
Services Hang Seng Bank.
Accounting/auditing firms, etc.
Cloth, Automobile, Beverage and
Toyota, Dell, Boeing, Coca
2 Manufacturing Food manufacturers, Consumer
Cola.
electronics, etc.
Information &
Intel, SAP, Facebook, China Mobile,
3 Communication Apple, Facebook, Taobao
Norton,etc.
Tech.
Wal-Mart, Carrefour, bossini, Sogo, Welcome, PARKnSHOP,
4 Retailing
Amazon, Taobao, etc. Wal-Mart
Logistics and Fedex, Kerry logistics, Bus, Train, UPS, Fedex, DHL, Cathy
5
transportation Truck companies, etc. Pacific
Non-profit
Education, Government,
6 organizations PolyU.
Environmental, Religious, Arts.
(NPO)

*You can demonstrate your creativity via not only the chosen of the company but also the
selection of the IT application(s)! Please refer to the next part.

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3. Project written report

3.1 Content

In this project, you should complete the following tasks:

A: Identify a company and its IT application(s) (may be or may not be taught in

our lectures) that has been adopted; after a general introduction of all the IT
applications the company is using, please focus on ONE major IT application
in the company, and give an in-depth study of it.
— this is an introductory part of the whole project report. Please include the
company’s general information, a brief implementation story on the selected IT
and some basic study on that IT.
The IT application could be any ONE in the following list:
- TPS/MIS/DSS/ESS (Support decision making)
- Social media/social network technology (Enterprise 2.0)
- Big data/Business Intelligence applications
- Enterprise portal
- E-Commerce/L-Commerce/S-Commerce
- Supply Chain Management (SCM)
- Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP)
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Wireless technologies (e.g., RFID applications, IoT, NFC)
- Cloud computing
- Knowledge management
- Web 2.0 technologies
- Any other IT applications
(Note: Please communicate with your lecturer for comment. Innovative ideas
are highly encouraged!)
B: Evaluate the effectiveness of the particular IT application
— this is a major part of this project which analyses the benefits and problems
of the IT application to your company. The analysis can be based on the
information you collected.
Analyses should be comprehensive and critical. It should be a full demonstration
of your understanding on the impact of IT on an organization.
C: Recommendations or Suggestions
— another key part of this project. You should relate the suggestions on
improvement or solutions with the problems identified and discussed in part B.
Be creative in problem-solving and forecasting.
* Please note that more research and analysis on your own is required. Necessary supports
and references are needed.
3.2 Format & referencing
- Length: no more than 20 pages, including tables, figures and references.
- Font: 12 size
- Line space: 1.5 or double
- Margins: 1 inch all around
- Cover page: list group name, all members’ name and student ID.
Group name example: LTL301, represents Lecture 003, Group 1;
LTL606, means Lecture 006, Group 6.
- Reference: Please follow APA reference style
http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx

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3.3 Deadline
April 25th (Tuesday), 2017, 6:00 pm (Late submission leads to mark reduction.)
3.4 Submission matters
- Softcopy – Blackboard – Assessments – Group report (Turnitin)
* Name the document(s) with your group number, as exemplified in Point 3.2, in your
e-submission
- Hardcopy of the project report + Turitin originality report (information page and
index number page) – To the box outside Dr. Laurel Qi’s office (M1023)

- Both softcopy and hardcopy are needed.

- One submission ONLY for each group.
3.5 NO plagiarism!
The originality report from Turnitin software should be submitted together with your
group report. Similarity index >15% is hardly acceptable; index > 20% will lead to
“0” mark automatically.

Note: Originality Reports for initial submissions will be generated immediately. For the
second and subsequent submissions, Originality Reports will require at least 24 hours to
process.

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