$2.(45$ points, $15$ points for each one$)$ Please use posted materials to finish the following

questions from the case study.

Case Study:

You are the CEO of $$esuitcases$.$com,$$ a small but growing niche e$-$commerce business

selling luggage online. After you founded the company three years ago, it has enjoyed

impressive growth of $25\%$ per year. Your implementation of direct$-$email campaigns has

particularly impelled those strong results. Your team includes several young marketers

talented at quantitative analysis, and others with a strong command of creative

messaging. While your BI analysts consult your data and generate reports,

esuitcases.com could not be described as a $$tech$-$first company.$$ Now, your chief

marketer, Tim, proposes turning esuitcases.com into an AI$-$first company. She has

learned that your competitors are all powered by AI$,$ and a third$-$party provider has represented to her that it can deliver a $70\%$ increase in your sales by optimizing your

emails and send times. However, this initiative will require moving your data and all

emails into their pipeline, a course of action about which you have doubts. Your CTO,

Molly, has some different ideas. She has had initial talks with another vendor, a startup,

which is recommending an implementation of AI which will require esuitcases.com$$s

customers to change their behavior significantly. This vendor confidently promises

$$great ROI,$$ but Molly concedes that their track record is thinner than one would hope

to back up their claims. Alternatively, Molly is attracted to the notion of building

esuitcases.com its own AI platform. The first step will be to implement a testing

framework in order to find out which elements are working. That testing would take up

at least a full quarter$$s worth of activity. Then, developing esuitcase.com$$s own in$-$house

expertise would take at least another two quarters. That length of time is comparable to

the time that would be required to integrate with Tim$$s vendor. You are aware that

Molly can be overly optimistic when it comes to planning and deadlines.

Questions:

a$.$ What is your $$gut preference$$ among the three alternatives: Tim$$s outside

vendor; Molly$$s outside vendor; and Molly$$s in$-$house proposal? What factors are

driving that preference?

b$.$ What do you see as the advantages and risks of each alternative? Identify the

one alternative you believe is riskiest, the one you think is safest, and why.

c$.$ To evaluate the alternatives further, what questions should you pose to Molly

about her in$-$house proposal? What questions should you pose to each of the

two vendors?