Business Model - Case Study Example

Topic: Business Model Develop an activity model for a Business as described in primary assignment. The business is about “Internet Marketing” by ‘ResearchArchive’ Introduction The ResearchArchive aims to establish a place in virtual world for providing access to all kinds of academic information to customers. For doing any business we first need to establish business needs, the flow of business, the volume of customers, the funding arrangement, the employees, the action plan and inter-linkages between different activities involved in the business. To suffice all these purposes, we first develop an activity model for ResearchArchive’s business. Keywords: activity model, business, tasks, levels, service, system, process, stage, e-material, resources, costing, availability, communication Why is business activity modeling necessary? The technique provides a pictorial representation of the business which helps tease out the requirements, focus on the areas of concern and put the system into perspective. When used properly, Business Activity Modelling can increase user participation and encourage users to build a sense of ownership for the future system. For any distinct activity to happen, it has to undergo following steps: Change requests Fig.: Stages through an activity Initiation marks the beginning of an activity. It can mean handing over the responsibility of certain activity formally for further execution. It deals with understanding of entire activity’s purpose and means to achieve goals. Planning rightly comes after initiation and deals with entire planning of different sub activities involved in the process. Efficient planning gives us an efficient activity execution plan, cost management plan, resources management plan, time management plan, risk analysis, etc. Execution is the stage where actual action takes place of planned/ unplanned activities. Monitoring and control of activities is very essential throughout the process. It provides for approving change requests generated during the process. It is responsible for co-ordination between various activities. Closure is the final step of any activity. With the end of every sub activity and a final draft prepared, we can mark the activity end. The IDEF0 stage for ResearchArchive will be as follows: Customer registration and Authenticity check E-material availability check request E-material access status E-material access request Database Service Fig.: IDEF0 stage (basic activity model for ResearchArchive) ResearchArchive aims at providing best service of required E-material such as E-books, E-journals, E-newspapers, etc. So, making the material available to concerned customers forms its basic activity the inputs to which can be material availability check by customers and access requests. The output gives the access status which can be positive or negative depending upon the customer authenticity check and material availability with ResearchArchive which is done through its huge database. The IDEF0 model can be broken down to different intermediary levels which are again interlinked with each other. Those different levels constitute: organisation establishment, acquiring resources-human and non-human, managing costing-internal and external, providing efficient service, managing communication, consistent quality checks, and risk management. An Activity can be broken-up into tasks. The tasks involved in completing an activity may vary according to different conditions. When an activity is complicated, we may analyse the activity by breaking it into tasks and then reconstructing these tasks. All sub activities/ tasks and their inter linkages are as below: Registration process Publicity/advertisement rights Objective summary Regular registration Check and updates Registration as ResearchArchive Designations HR management plan Environmental Roles, responsibilities factors Publicity/ advertisement responses Acquisition strategies Organizational Environmental factors. HR team recruited Geographic locations. HR performance Inputs from costing reports team Scan portfolios Work performance appraisals Communication and Rewards Networking strategies Cash inflow details Customer feedback Roles and Responsibilities HR mgmt plan Fig.: Activity model for acquiring, developing and maintaining HR team Human resources are crucial to any organization. As can be seen in the diagram above, we have developed an activity model for acquiring, developing and maintaining HR team which will be based on the type of need for HR, virtual/ direct team requirement, designations, type of work, efficiency to do work and so on. This strong HR support is ultimately responsible for execution of organization’s task. At gross level we define these tasks as acquiring all possible E-material and making it available to customers as and when needed. For all this we develop another activity model that of execution. E-material E-material availability status HR team E-material availability conditions Customer Information Sources HR team Material Material details, information library details Requirement list Add/delete Requests. HR team Log management Methodology Communication need Communication mgmt plan, Customer acquisition plans availability status. Efficient communication modes. Communication policy Material status Internal/ external Need Communication. Evaluation. Service type Customer information Alternative solutions E-material availability Service policy Fig.: Activity model for acquiring and providing E-material Importance of activity model and its functioning: Activity models are important from the point of view of efficient functioning in an organization. They help us in breakdown of tasks into simpler forms for better understanding. It is always important to know what all inputs will be required to do a certain process; what all techniques will be employed and what the expected output is. For instance, the costing department has to be active throughout the activity. It has to provide inputs to resources department, it also has to keep track of expenses, arrange for future budgets, look for sponsors, etc. Activity models also help us in keeping track of expected output and achieved output/goals. Proper communication forms an important aspect. Procuring e-material, arranging it properly and making it available to its customers needs a high grade communication skill set and facility. Lapse of it at any stage can cause tremendous losses to the company. Simultaneously it is also important to achieve and maintain a time schedule; different parts of world have different timings and a centralized system has to be present which gives service for 24 hrs and 365 days to serve customers promptly and keep them happy. As people will be trading through internet and it won’t be possible to visually be present in front of each other; hence a reliability assurance is necessary from time to time. This can be achieved through a strong human resource base. As in the activity models above, we can understand the required information about an activity just by looking at it. Logically speaking every activity is dependent on many activities. If we imagine costing department or resources department collapsing; we cannot estimate in a go the kind of loss it can create for an organization. Hence it is essential to have harmony amongst all the modules and hence is very essential to have a comprehensive study of all sizes of activity modules involved in a business; however small the module might be. References PPT: Business Activity Modelling, DCU School of Computing, Dublin, Available from: www.computing.dcu.ie/~renaat/ca2/ca214/wvr/BusinessActivityModelling.ppt [27 April, 2009] Read More