The Essay Explores The Impact Of Digital Technology On Business Activities, Focusing On Project Management And Primary Research.

How degital technology has transformmed business activities.

You are required to use the Project Management Plan' template to complete this task

You are not required to produce an additional document but rather incorporate this level of detail into the 'Pro. Management Plan.

Evidence: Project Log Book You are required to use the 'Project Log Book' template to complete this task. 

This task provides you with the opportunity to achieve: Parry out small scale research by applying qualitative and quantitative research methods appropriate for meeting project alms and objectives.

Development in technology has affected each and every aspect of society and brought efficiency in different kinds of activities performed by a person. It is important for a business organization to adapt to these changes because the level of competition has increased with such advancements. Cost efficiency is one of the most important factors that is brought in by advancement in technology. Cost-cutting measures are becoming management tools that are used by the business organization in order to bring efficiency in business operations and gaining a competitive advantage over other organizations. This report is concerned with analyzing the impact of information technology development on business organizations (Scarborough, 2016). Project management tools will be used in this report in order to the main objectives of this report. This report will also conduct small primary research on 20 business organizations to identify the impact of Information Technology. Results of the primary result will be analyzed with the help of different analytical tools and analysis will be communicated to stakeholders of this report in form of a formal report. Different project management tool such as work breakdown structure and Gantt chart will be used in order to successfully complete this project within given time and budget.

Aim, and objective of the project 

Before starting any project it is important to decide the final objective that is expected from a project. Deciding aims and objective of the project give a sense of direction in which project has to been moved in order to successfully achieve the objectives. There is a distinct difference between aim and objective that should be identified before selecting aim and objective for a particular project. In can be defined as a broader perspective of a final outcome that is expected from a project. It focuses on what is required to be achieved irrespective of how it would be achieved (Burns and Dewhurst, 2016). On the other hand, the object is smaller milestones that are required to achieve in order to accomplish the overall aim of the project.

The aim of this report is to identify the impact of digital technology advancement on business organizations.

Objective

1. Conduct a primary research in order to identify the impact of Information Technology on business organization.
2. Identify impact on the profitability of the company due to such changes.
3. Completing the research in a given time period and allocated budget (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017).
4. Analysing the results of the research conducted in order to prepare a formal report.

Project management plan is a formal document that is prepared by the manager of a project in order to define, integrate and coordinate different type of activity that will be conducted in a particular project. This project management plan will be focused on some of the most important factors such as cost, scope, time, quality, communication, risk, and resources. Identification of all of these factors is essential because resources availability with any type of project is the limited and overall objective of the project should be completed with such limited resources (Larson et.al, 2014). This project management plan can also be conveyed stakeholders of the project so that all the detailed information can be provided to such stakeholders.

Aim and Objectives

The scope of the project- Scope of this project is being limited to medium size and small size organization that has limited financial resources to spend on the advancement of Technology and digitalization of all the activities in a business organization. Large organizations generally have financial resources to upgrade their business model according to latest technology but due to limitations of financial resources, this becomes very hard for small and medium-size organizations. These organizations are in dilemma but whether the financial resources should be used for investment in primary business activities to enhance the digital technology in the business (Tuition, E. and Fees, 2016).

Cost- Financial resources available to conduct this research are limited to £150 which is contributed by the team that is conducting this research. Therefore it is important that all the activities should be and in such a manner that this was it is not exceeded. Majority of this budget will be dedicated to conducting a small scale primary research on small and medium-sized business organization (Nicholas and Steyn, 2017). This market research will require members of the project management team to prepare a set of questionnaire and visit business organizations in order to find responses from different managers. These activities will require money which will be contributed by the budget of the project.

Quality- Quality of this report will be very high and the quality of primary research to be conducted all to be very high. Maintenance of quality is the main reason that primary sources of Data Collection are used instant of secondary sources in order to achieve the Project objectives. Quality will also be maintained in the report prepared to address the stakeholders about the conclusions and recommendations to be made at the end of the project (Harrison and Lock, 2017).

Communication- Communication to the stakeholder will be done on a formal basis and report will be prepared at the completion of the project in order to provide recommendation and conclusion.

Risk- Risk involved in this project is associated with the time and budget. There is a risk that is project will not be able to complete in the given time period and different time management tools such as Gantt chart and work breakdown structure are used for such purpose (Schaper et.al, 2014).

Resources- there is two type of resources that will be required in this process i.e. human resources and financial resources. Human resources will be required in order to conduct the primary research that is proposed in this project (Larson and Gray, 2015). Three members of project management are will be required to conduct the primary research and visit various organizations in order to get responses to questions mentioned in a questionnaire developed by the project management team.

Work breakdown structure and Gantt chart

It is important for every project management team to achieve the even objective of a project in a given time period otherwise there is a possibility that the overall budget of the project will exceed be decided visit. Different type of project management tools can be used by the business organization in order to oversee the timeline for each activity that is required to be conducted in a particular project (Mir and Pinnington, 2014).

Work breakdown structure

Work breakdown structure can be defined as a tabular representation of all the activities that will be conducted in a particular project. Therefore it can be said that this tool helps in dividing the whole project into particular activities so that the timeline can be attached to every activity (Hans, 2013).

P4- Small-scale Research 

There are two distinct methods that can be used for collection of data for a particular project that are primary sources of data and secondary sources of data. Research methodology can also be divided into two categories i.e. quantitative Research and qualitative research. It is important to understand these concepts before selecting a particular research methodology or type of data collection method (Tarone, Gass and Cohen, 2013).

Qualitative methodology is focused on maintaining a quality of data in a particular project. For example, if the aim of a project is to identify the customer satisfaction from a particular service provided by a company then qualitative methodology should be used as it is important to identify the level of customer satisfaction achieved by consuming a particular service. Type of data resources used in this type of methodology is dependent on the nature of research and the overall objective of a project. Generally, primary sources are used in qualitative methodology because these data collected directly from the respondents and feedback question can be asked to directly from such respondent. Accuracy and reliability are considered to be more in the case of primary data (Novikov and Novikov, 2013). In addition to that relevance to a particular project is also higher in the case of primary data as compared to secondary data.  

Quantitative methodologies are concerned with collecting as much data as possible which can be very useful in certain situations. For example, if life expectancy is to be calculated in a particular area and it would not be feasible for the researcher to collect primary data. In such cases, the researcher can collect data from the last census conducted by the government. Generally, secondary sources are used in this type of data because the collection of such a large amount of data can create limitations for the project (Glesne, 2015). In this research, both main focus will be on collecting primary data but secondary data will also be analyzed in order to support the analysis done on the primary data.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that information technology has become an integral part of business management and over the period of time, it has provided various advantages to the business. This development has affected the manner in which business organizations are conducting business. The business model of every organization is changed according to changes in information technology and today business organizations are more effective as compared to the previous business model. These advancements are changing rapidly and business organizations are changing their operations according to these changes.    

References 

Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.

Burns, P. and Dewhurst, J. eds., 2016. Small business and entrepreneurship. Macmillan International Higher Education.

De Waal, A., 2013. Strategic Performance Management: A managerial and behavioral approach. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Glesne, C., 2015. Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction. Pearson.

Hans, R.T., 2013. Work breakdown structure: A tool for software project scope verification. arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.2876.

Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach. Routledge.

Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Larson, E.W. and Gray, C.F., 2015. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK (®) Guide. Project Management Institute.

Larson, E.W., Gray, C.F., Danlin, U., Honig, B. and Bacarini, D., 2014. Project management: The managerial process (Vol. 6). Grandview Heights, OH: McGraw-Hill Education.

Luftman, J., Lyytinen, K. and ben Zvi, T., 2017. Enhancing the measurement of information technology (IT) business alignment and its influence on company performance. Journal of Information Technology, 32(1), pp.26-46.

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.

Novikov, A.M. and Novikov, D.A., 2013. Research methodology: From philosophy of science to research design. CRC Press.

Ofori, D.F., 2013. Project management practices and critical success factors–a developing country perspective. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(21), p.14.

Scarborough, N.M., 2016. Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management. Pearson.

Schaper, M.T., Volery, T., Weber, P.C. and Gibson, B., 2014. Entrepreneurship and small business.

Tarone, E.E., Gass, S.M. and Cohen, A.D. eds., 2013. Research methodology in second-language acquisition. Routledge.

Tuition, E. and Fees, C.H., 2016. Small Business Management.

Wu, S.P.J., Straub, D.W. and Liang, T.P., 2015. How information technology governance mechanisms and strategic alignment influence organizational performance: Insights from a matched survey of business and IT managers. Mis Quarterly, 39(2), pp.497-518.