As organisations pursue to exploit the business value of their information systems and
technology (IS/IT), Business Intelligence (BI) has become a topic of great interest to businesses.
One of the main advantages of BI is its ability to provide businesses with more insights that can
contribute directly towards strategies, and in particular decision making, and create business
value. Furthermore, BI can also offer businesses the required support to improve their efficiency
through an array of activities including capabilities and process automation and streamlining.
Hence, greater reliance is placed on BI as an infrastructure for information generation and
gathering, seen as a paradigm shift, making BI a topic of great interest to industries and
academics alike. This innovative driven technology has strategically transformed business
processes towards a more effective, proactive and dynamic service model for computation,
communication and information capabilities responding to the needs of the markets. In this
respect, this assignment is focusing on examining how Business Intelligence can be deployed as
a driver for organizations towards strategically supporting their decision making in order to
sustain their competitive advantage.
As an IT director of a retail company focusing on selling soft furnishing products from
international providers, your task in this assignment is to:
- Verify how Business Intelligence solutions can be aligned with overall strategy for the
organisation. - Examine Business Intelligence value creation for organisations; in particular how BI can be
utilised as a vehicle in strategically supporting maintaining a competitive advantage for this
organisation - As part of your discussions, you will need to provide a number of
recommendations/concluding remarks which will be expected to offer how you foresee such
technological solution can offer the opportunity for the organisation to improve its overall
performance
Your report should provide the required discussion and analysis on how to address the above
issues. Where possible, you are encouraged to utilize a walkthrough example with a local
case/company for your work in this assignment. Otherwise, you can present your work based on
a hypothetical organizational sittings (i.e. Qx). Your work for this assignment should not exceed
1500 words.
Assessment basis:
Clear and logical assignment structure
Application and understanding of any relevant concepts and/or theory
Identification, use and depth of relevant evidence to substantiate discussion/analysis
Justification for statements/assumptions made
Critical evaluation, rather than descriptive stance
Awareness to the context of the problem
Citation and referencing (sources, relevance, range, citation accuracy)
Professional standards of presentation
MIST360 – Spring 2019 Assignment One
2
The submission deadline for this assignment is 12:00PM Sunday 10th March 2019
Assignment Marking Scheme
The marking scheme below should provide you with the required guidance on preparing your
work for this assignment.
Performance Area 1: Fails to Meet
Expectations
2: Needs Improvement
Sample Solution
