Review the Umar Book Chapter1 on “Digital Enterprises” (Section 1.3 through 1.5) and Chapter 2 on “IT Planning” (Section 2.3 through 2.6). Based on this information, develop a sketch of an IT Plan for the Sample Enterprise described in Exhibit1.Specifically your plan should show the following:

Exhibit 1: Connie’s Clothing Store

Connie’s Clothing Store is a Denver-based store owned by Connie who has always been interested in fashion. In fact, Connie had worked her way through college by designing, sewing, and selling winter sports clothes to the local ski shops in Denver area. After graduating from college, she started a sports clothing manufacturing and distribution business that is now expanding into retail to reach a larger customer base. Connie wants to expand aggressively in the next 3 years. She currently has 60 employees and is partnering with others to strengthen her business. Her plans are:

• Next year, she wants to acquire a small “manufacturing shop” so that she can design, tailor, sell, and repair custom built clothes at large scale. She also wants to open five outlets in different parts of the country to sell the new clothes. She also expects to double the size of her company within a year.

• In two years, she wants to diversify into a wide range of related products (she wants to be like JC Penny). She is partnering with retail stores and manufacturers in the neighborhood. Some items will be brought in from suppliers located in the Far East. Eventually, she is going to acquire a large chain store with outlets in most cities in the US.

Connie is especially interested in integrating and automating the procurement processes (e-procurement) and supply chains to provide custom-built products quickly. Her goal is to eventually become a major digital corporation that will serve as a store-front for multiple shops so that potential customers order a variety of items through her. The store-front will receive the orders and try to fill them, if it can. Otherwise, it will route the orders to one of its business partners.

The company has not used information technology so far. The only technology used is an Excel spreadsheet that is used to keep track of AR/AP and compute payrolls. Connie knows that IT will play an important role in her growth but does not know how – she is confused. She has hired your group to help her develop an IT strategy (she is really confused!).

Required:

• Prepare a report that should contain the following: answers. You must use the posted documents, slides with voice annotations, the tutorials, and any other resources available on the Net to develop this report.

The overall goal of the company (who are the company’s ideal industry leaders, does the company want to be a manufacturer)

A general business strategy Should the NGE model be adopted by this company?

An application plan that supports the business strategy

An IT architecture diagram should include the computers, the databases, and the network shows how they are interconnected. This diagram should put all the pieces together and show how they are interconnected and accessed.

Brief cost-benefit analysis for automation used in the proposed IT plan