GIT – Living in the IT Era

Guidelines for Business Case

Output: A paper that shows the design of an information system after evaluating the status of a
business/company related to your degree program or future profession. The evaluation will determine the
problem areas that relate to the information system components, discussed in the units of module 3.
These problem areas will serve as a basis for a proposal that contains solutions which would help the
business/company improve their overall operations. The whole proposal will encompass the lectures
learned in this course. This will be the final requirement for the course.

Description of the Business Case

The goal of every company is to acquire a high profit margin and have good market share while
minimizing costs for their operations. Along the way, most companies encounter problems that hinder
them from achieving their goals. Some problems can be answered by simply allocating more budget for
human resources, hardware or software upgrades, other problems would require more than the above-
mentioned solutions.

Simply put, companies will achieve their goals and improve their operations with the best use of computer
technology, this can be done with the right evaluation and proposal of solutions through this business
case.

What should you do in this Business Case?

1. Company Selection

The companies may be proposed by you or have already been pre-selected by your instructor
and would be assigned to each individual or group. The selection of a company should
encompass a solution that would involve the use of an information system. An information system
has components (data, people, hardware, processes, and software) that work together. There are
feasibility factors that can be assessed for the selection of a company: problems encountered,
proposed number of users, company and operation size.

The problems encountered should be more than just hardware and software upgrades; the
number of users for the proposed system should benefit the entire company and the customers,
not just one or two personnel; the target company’s operations should be large enough to have a
good market share in the industry they are in.

2. Planning

Once a company has been assigned to you, prepare a checklist that would aid you in data
gathering. The following should be conducted:

a) Company Profile – A professional introduction about the business operations of the

company. Informs the audience about its products, services, and current status. It sums
up the business plan of the company, how it came about (history) and the reason the
company is in that business venture.

b) Mission – Defines a company’s goal in three important ways: what the company does for
its customers, what the company does for its employees, what the company does for its
owners.

c) Vision – Describes where the company aspires to be upon achieving its mission, states
the desired future position of the company.
 d) Organizational Chart – A diagram that visually conveys a company’s internal structure or
hierarchy by detailing the roles, responsibilities, and relationships between personnel
within an entity.

e) Business Rules – Paragraphs detailing the rules and constraints of the business.
Describes the operations, instructions on how certain day-to-day actions should be
performed.

f) Business Processes – Paragraphs detailing a collection of linked tasks which find their
end in the delivery of a service or product to a client. These are sets of activities and
tasks that, once completed, will accomplish an organizational goal. The business process
discussed here should be about the current system applied by the company.

g) Business Process Diagram (Flowchart) – A graphical representation of the steps

discussed in the previous section will be shown using the proper flowcharting symbols.
The steps are in a sequential order and presents the workflow of the current system of
the company.

Note: The business process and flowchart should focus on the problem areas of the
company, this may be done through email, telephone or video conference. Face-to-face
interaction is not mandatory.

3. Analysis

After the data gathering, an analysis and evaluation of the data should be done. Part of the
analysis, the following outputs should be presented:

a) Problems Encountered – List of problems encountered by the company with a brief

description on their effects. At least three (03) major problems should be discussed.

Example: Miscomputation of time sheets, wages, taxes, and issuing checks

The company does not apply segregation of duties. The clerk in-charge of checking
attendance of employees is also the personnel who computes for the wages and
deductions of the employees.

b) Proposed Solution – A detailed description on what the proposed system would be, how
the proposed system would address the problems stated in the previous section and all
needed components of the system. This section contains the new processes formulated,
the data to be gathered, the people involved and other minute details regarding the
proposed system.

c) Functional Requirements – Defines the intended behavior of the system or its

components. It describes the functions a system must perform or do which addresses the
users’ needs. A function is nothing but inputs, its behavior, and outputs. It can be a
calculation, data manipulation, business process, user interaction, or any other specific
functionality which defines what function a system is likely to perform.

Examples: Print receipt, Display available inventory, add customer, assign a table

d) Non-Functional Requirements – Requirements which describe the general characteristics

of a system, also known as quality attributes. These requirements are connected to other
issues, such as hardware capability and budgetary constraints. Represents a set of
standards used to judge the specific operation of a system. A non-functional requirement
is essential to ensure the usability and effectiveness of the entire software system.
 Examples: performance - response time, scalability - able to handle multiple workloads,
capacity, reliability, security, usability

e) Scope – The scope identifies what topic and areas the researchers intend to cover in
terms of the system being proposed. The scope contains the explanation of what
information or subject is being analyzed.

f) Delimitation – Research usually limited in scope by sample size, time and geographic
area. While the delimitation of study is the description of the scope of study. It will explain
why definite aspects of a subject were chosen and why others were excluded. It also
mentions the research method used as well as the certain theories that applied to the
data.

g) Feasibility – A feasibility study is an analysis that takes all of a project's relevant factors
into account—including economic, technical, operational, and scheduling considerations
—to ascertain the likelihood of completing the project successfully. Project managers use
feasibility studies to discern the pros and cons of undertaking a project before they invest
a lot of time and money into it.
i. Schedule – assessment of the duration of the system development. A Gantt chart
will be utilized to express this.
ii. Technical – The technical assessment helps answer the question such as
whether the technology needed for the system exists, how difficult it will be to
build, and whether the firm has enough experience using that technology.
iii. Operational – assessing operational feasibility is to gain an understanding of
whether the proposed system will likely to solve the business problems, or take
advantage of the opportunities or not. It is important to understand how the new
systems will fit into the current day-to-day operations of the organization.
iv. Economic – used as a method for evaluating a new system or project, also
known as the cost benefit analysis. Comparison of costs of the current system
with the proposed system are calculated. Costs are subdivided based on
categories of these costs: development and operational. Once the costs have
been calculated
v. Return on Investment – equals to net cash receipts of the project divided by the
cash outlays of the system. Companies choose the system that provides the
highest ROI. Study.com has provided the basic ROI formula, ROI = (Net Profit /
Total Investment) * 100
vi. Payback Period – is the amount of time required for an investment to generate
sufficient cash flows to recover its initial cost. There are two ways to calculate the
payback period, which are: averaging method and subtraction method.
vii. Benefits – are subdivided into tangible and intangible. Tangible benefits are
those measured in monetary terms (with computation) and intangible benefits
cannot be measured in monetary terms but they do have a very significant
business impact.

4. Design

The design constitutes placing the results of the data gathering and the analysis into a concrete
plan as part of the proposal. This part will contain the following parts:

a) Decomposition Diagram - Explains the breakdown of processes within a project or

business area or functional area. The purpose is to show all the processes and identify
relationships and dependencies among them. Note that a decomposition diagram doesn’t
drill into the how; it merely outlines the what.
 b) Context Diagram - A visual representation of the proposed system under consideration
as a single high-level process and then shows the relationship that the system has with
other external entities (systems, organizational groups, external data stores, etc.).

A context diagram, sometimes called a level 0 data-flow diagram, is drawn in order to

define and clarify the boundaries of the system. It identifies the flow of information
between the system and external entities. The entire software system is shown as a
single process.

c) Level Diagrams - As described previously, context diagrams (level 0 DFDs) are diagrams
where the whole system is represented as a single process. A level 1 DFD notates each
of the main sub-processes that together form the complete system. We can think of a
level 1 DFD as an “exploded view” of the context diagram. Develop lower level diagrams
as needed.

d) Prototype - A prototype is a rudimentary working model of a product or information

system, usually built for demonstration purposes or as part of the development process.
A basic version of the system is built, tested, and then reworked as necessary until an
acceptable prototype is finally achieved from which the complete system can now be
developed. Several different platforms may be utilized for the development of a prototype
but this should include the user interface design and the outputs or reports generated by
the system.

Note: The prototype shall be done through a tool that would be available to you as a
student and depending on your resources.

5. Business Case Writing

The final phase in this Business Case project is the construction of the proposal, the proposal will
include all previous steps done:

a) Company Overview – Include the ‘Planning’ part developed earlier

b) System Analysis – Include the ‘Analysis’ part developed earlier

c) Proposed Solution Modeling - Include the ‘Design’ part developed earlier

d) Conclusions and Recommendations - The Conclusions section sums up the key points of
your research, the essential features of your design, or the significant outcomes of your
investigation. As its function is to round off the story of your project, it should: be written
to relate directly to the aims of the project as stated in the Introduction, indicate the extent
to which the aims have been achieved, summarize the key findings, outcomes or
information in your report, acknowledge limitations and make recommendations for future
work (where applicable), and highlight the significance or usefulness of your work.

e) Bibliography – A bibliography is a list of all of the sources you have used (whether
referenced or not) in the process of researching your work. In general, a bibliography
should include: the authors' names, the titles of the works, the names and locations of the
companies that published your copies of the sources. Separate resources based from
where they were taken from such as: internet sources, journals, books, conferences, etc.
Utilize APA style appropriately, and arrange alphabetically.

f) Appendices – Appendices contain material that is too detailed to include in the main
report, such as long calculations, detailed technical drawings, tables of raw data,
communication letters, interview questions, and photo documentation. The content
should be summarized and referred to at the appropriate point in the body of the report.
6. Document Guidelines

This proposal shall be written as a report from the data gathering to the development of the
solution. It will be in a letter-sized paper, font size 12 Tahoma, with justified text. The document
should have a 1-inch margin for all sides, double spaced with page numbers at the bottom right of
each page. All sections should have headings which are in bold format, and subheadings should
be aligned to the left.

This shall be in a word document format (.docx) with the following name:
FamilyName_BusinessCase.docx (or doc).

7. Rubric

The proposal will be graded according to the following criteria:

a) Documentation [35 points]

Criteria Description Points

Completeness Comprehensive Content of Documentation 05

Quality Company Overview 05

Cost benefit analysis 05

Proposed Solution Modeling 10

Conclusion, recommendation, bibliography, and appendices 05

Formatting and consistency of formatting throughout the 05

documentation

b) File Format and Submission [35 points]

Criteria Description Points

Presentation Quality/delivery/comprehensiveness of presentation 05
tool

Design and effectiveness of presentation 10

Quality and comprehensiveness of answers/ideas 05

Accuracy and truthfulness of answers/ideas 05

Voice/confidence/discipline/Quality of projection and tone 10

Note: For correspondence learning, you should take a video of yourself presenting the
business case proposal and save it in the thumb drive provided. For online learning, you
may schedule a presentation with your instructor via Zoom, Google meet, Skype or other
video conferencing applications. For both, the duration of the presentation will be a
minimum of 5 minutes and utmost 15 mins. (Correspondence learners may also opt to
present like the online learners if condition permits and vice versa if internet connections
for online learners becomes intermittent.)
 c) Prototype [30 points]

Criteria Description Points

Quality Creativity 05

Concepts and methods used to create prototype 05

Design Completeness of design 10

Quality and effectiveness of prototype 10

Total Points for the Final Requirement:

Description Points

Documentation 35

File Format and Submission 35

Prototype 30

TOTAL 100