Case study and analysis...

This session we discuss about how to handle a case study. Actually I was very sleepy in this session because I didn't have enough sleep the night before T_T.. but nevermind, after Prof. Gilbert asked me to get some coffee, I regained my freshness and energy ehehehe.. ^^v

Okay, let's get back to the topic, case study. First of all, what is case study? After entering "case study" to Wikipedia search book, here is the definition that I get

A case study is a research strategy, sometimes likened to an experiment, a history, or a simulation, though not linked to any particular type of evidence or method of data collection

Case Analysis

Yup, usually case study is used to depict some condition and we, as the analyst, should solve the problem inside the case study. And usually this activity is called case analysis. There are 3 basic parts in composing case analysis :

1. Identification, this part means provide a sharply focused diagnosis of strategic issues and key problems and that you demonstrate a good grasp of the company's present situation.
2. Analysis and evaluation. This is usually the hardest part of the report. Analysis is hard work! Check out the firm's financial ratios, its profit margins and rates of return, and its capital structure, and decide how strong the firm is financially. Look at marketing, production, managerial competence, and other factors underlying the organization's strategic successes and failures. Decide whether the firm has valuable resource strengths and competencies and, if so, whether it is capitalizing on them
3. Recommendation. The final section of the written case analysis should consist of a set of definite recommendations and a plan of action. Your set of recommendations should address all of the problems/issues you identified and analyzed. If the recommendations come as a surprise or do not follow logically from the analysis, the effect is to weaken greatly your suggestions of what to do. Obviously, your recommendations for actions should offer a reasonable prospect of success. State how your recommendations will solve the problems you identified. Be sure the company is financially able to carry out what you recommend; also check to see if your recommendations are workable in terms of acceptance by the persons involved, the organization's competence to implement them, and prevailing market and environmental constraints.

Click here if you want to know more about how to compose a case analysis

Different Approaches in Case Analysis

Let's look at what are different approaches to construct a case analysis. Here they are

1. Value chain or process flow analysis
2. Value system analysis
3. Competitive analysis
4. Market analysis
5. Policy analysis
6. Financial analysis
7. Organizational analysis

In this session, Prof. Gilbert gave us example in value chain analysis and also competitive analysis.

The value chain categorizes the generic value-adding activities of an organization. The "primary activities" include: inbound logistics, operations (production), outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services (maintenance). The "support activities" include: administrative infrastructure management, human resource management, R&D, and procurement. The costs and value drivers are identified for each value activity. The value chain framework quickly made its way to the forefront of management thought as a powerful analysis tool for strategic planning. Its ultimate goal is to maximize value creation while minimizing costs. Here is an example of wireless value chainCompetitive analysis allows you to identify your competitors and evaluate their respective strengths and weaknesses. By knowing the actions of your competitors, you will have a better understanding of what products or services you should offer, how you can market them effectively, and how you can position your business. There are 4 basic steps to conduct competitive analysis

1. Identify your competition
2. Analyze strength and weakness
3. Look at opportunities and threats
4. Determine your position

Click here for more detailed information ^^v

Other than that, I was very happy at that time because there is no assignment for this week ^^v.. laaa laaa laaa... :D.. however don't forget to upload the edited version of the elevator pitch. I can't wait to present our edited elevator pitch. Ciaooo!!!

It's show time!!

It's all about elevator pitch :D

Yup!! It's showtime!!! This session each group presented its elevator pitch!!.. And, this is our group elevator pitch. We managed to upload it to YouTube before our session start ^^
Here it is...



Actually we plan to produce an Integrated Singapore Tourist Information System. We realize that tourists that come to Singapore don't have enough information about Singapore tourist destination, as well as Singapore current tourist event. In this system, we will provide the latest information about Singapore such as shopping places (including information about their special offers or special items), places to stay (including information about special offers from hotel or motel), transport information from one place to another place, exotic eating places, and also Singapore's current events.

Hehehe.. I think that's all for sneak preview about our business plan. Let's get back to the elevator pitch. Our elevator pitch received several critics and suggestions from Prof. Gilbert. Here they are (from what I remember at that time)

1. It's better to use more exciting picture as the opening of elevator pitch. Our elevator pitch uses AMG's logo as the opening and Prof. Gilbert was right, content-related picture will gain more attention that a logo. Prof. Gilbert also suggested that AMG's logo is put at the ending of elevator pitch as closing phase of the elevator pitch.
   
2. Make the elevator pitch pace faster, so we can insert more content.
   
3. Put business model and also revenue model inside the elevator pitch, so that the investor will be more attracted to our idea/business plan.
   

In the end of the session, Prof. Gilbert also suggested all groups to improve their elevator pitch and publish it in the YouTube. :D

Governing the freedom economy: Do we need new rules??

Yup, that's the topic for our discussion this week. Basically we discuss about how technology influence daily norms and convert them into some new laws. Let's see a realistic example, I found an interesting article about MP3 and copyright law. You can read the full article here. In this case, EMI tries to remove copy protection in MP3 so that people can download and play the song easily anytime everywhere. And in my opinion, this is an example of how technology, in this case is MP3, change our norms. Last time, when people still used audio cassette, people hardly copy a song from one audio cassette to another audio cassette since the quality will decrease a lot. However, after MP3 is introduced, people start to rip audio CD and convert them to MP3 format and distribute the songs to their friends. This actions infringe the copyright of song producer and make government to make copyright law to protect the song producer.

In the other hand, now, some recording companies such as EMI, want to remove the copyright protection in their digital music file to get more customers. Hmm.. I think this move may create new norms in the future. Especially in the way people obtain digital songs, maybe this move can reduce the number of pirated music. :D

Jurong Bird Park Information System....

Jurong Bird Park Information System

In this session, our group, AMG (which is the acronym of our names : Arinto, M. Hamidullah and Gabriel) presented our proposed Jurong Bird Park Information Sytem. Actually the objective of this system is to provide unforgettable experience for Jurong Bird Park visitor. And the main obstacle is how to communicate the information about the bird/attraction effectively to the visitor. Jurong Bird Park had installed multilingual broadcasting speaker in its monorail but it is not currently in operation since the contractor is no longer able to maintain the system...

To overcome this problem, we proposed AMG Information System for Jurong Bird Park which use bluetooth technology as the backbone of this solution. We present our solution in a use case diagram. Prof. Gilbert also mentioned this type of diagram during this session. Later I'll give you more information about use case diagram.

Refer to diagram beside, AMG provides 2 main services which called Blue-Info-Counter and Voice Recorded Information Service.

Blue-Info-Counter is a bluetooth-based solution. We plan to install many bluetooth access points in Jurong Bird Park where user with bluetooth capable cellphone can download the information through the bluetooth access point. This service is divided into several features for Jurong Bird Park visitor. Here they are:

• Location Information, this feature will inform the location of the Jurong Bird Park Visitor based on their nearest access point
• Text Information, this feature will send Jurong Bird Park Visitor with text-based information about the animal or other interesting things inside Jurong Bird Park
• Special Event Information, this feature will send information about Jurong Bird Park's special event such as Bird shows or other shows
• Video Information, visitor can download their desired information in video format, so they can stream it or store it in their cellphone
• Image Information, visitor also can download their desired information in image format, such as the image of specific bird or other species in Jurong Bird Park
• Species Locator, visitor can query location of specific species inside Jurong Bird Park, and the system will send the nearest bluetooth access point to the queried species
• Client Application, this is an application that will be installed in visitor's handphone to download the available contents inside all above features

On the other hand, AMG also provides Voice Recorded Service for visitors who don't have bluetooth-capable cellphone. In this feature, visitor can dial specific number, choose what kind of information that they want to hear and listen to them...

Wisdom of Crowd (again)...

Yup yup, and in the start and end of our presentation, Prof. Gilbert gave us suggestion to enlarge the font. Yup, at that time we made the slide using Microsoft Visio and we didn't enlarge the default font. And in when the last group finished their presentation, Prof. Gilbert combined all our ideas into several common main idea using Wisdom of Crowd concept that we learned in our previous session.

Based on our class discussion, the common main idea is by using an application that installed inside the visitor's cellphone when they enter Jurong Bird Park(JBP) for the first time. This aspect is almost similar with OCBC Bank's 2nd factor authentication using cellphone. OCBC provides option to their customer to choose what kind of 2nd factor authentication that they want. One of them is by installing an application inside customer's cellphone. Here are the snapshot.

From my perspective, this approach is quite effective since users only need little configuration to make that things work. Very practical and easy to use :D

Use Case Diagram - from requirements to features... :D

Yup as the title states, Use Case diagram is used for describing all the system's features to fulfill the requirements or objective of the system. Let's go through 3 main ingredients of use case diagram.

• Feature of the system. This features is depicted as an oval shape as shown in our example about JBP information system. We put each feature inside 1 oval shape.
  
• Actor. Then we also have other entities that interact with our system. This outside entity is called actor. In our example the actor is the visitor of JBP. Usually actor is depicted as a human shape as shown in above example.
  
• System boundary. This ingredient is depicted as large rectangle that contains all the oval shape as the feature.

Yup yup, we already cover the 3 basic ingredients of use case diagram. As I state above, use case is just a tool to depict our idea and it usually used for confirm our understanding with customer or people who give the system requirements to us. After all, use case diagram is just a tools, it still depends on our skills to produce good solution :D

The Wisdom of Crowd...

Crowd (n) .. A large number of things or people considered together; "a crowd of insects assembled around the flowers"....

Yup yup... that is one of the definitions of crowd, from Webster's Online Dictionary.... This session was quite interesting, I thought we will discuss about technology, technology and always technology.. but this session starts with The Wisdom a Crowd... something that not related at all with technology!!!.. wowww... what a course!!! :D

Basically this Wisdom of Crowd concept means how to make a group(in this case a 'Crowd') performing optimal at their best.. Like what James Surowiecki said,

"Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, are often smarter than the smartest people in them"

Yup yup.. that's correct, and I was wondering at that time, what the relation of this concept with our course is... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaandddd.. finally I found the relation in the end of the session, when Prof Gilbert explained about Wiki.... yup yup.... Wiki concept will work well under this condition... hey hey.. waaaiit.. do you know about Wiki? yup .. Like Wikipedia... you can refer to my second post about Wiki... When people contribute their knowledge using a Wiki, then resulting Wiki will be a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggeeeeeee source of information, which are bigger than information contained in one person... :D.... so we get more and more information by using The Wisdom of Crowd concept in Wiki technology :D

Besides that, Prof. Gilbert also introduced us with the common problem that may occur in implementation of The Wiki.. They are..

• Cognition Problem, this one is a problem with a definitive solutions/outcomes. For example, "What is the tallest building in Singapore?"
  
• Coordination Problem, we need to figure out how to coordinate the behavior of the "Crowd"
  
• Cooperation Problem, we need to find a way such that people in the "Crowd" willing to work together and overcome self-interest for the common good

Now, let's see from different perspective, what are the ingredients that make a "crowd"(or in another word it's a group) optimal and success?? The answers is PERFORM... and actually it's an acronym from Ken Blanchard's book that I read in the past few days.. the title is High Five!

I put the picture there, if you read this book, you'll be a professional like the person in background :p.. hihihihi.. just kidding.. let's get back to the topic :p



So PERFORM is...

• Purpose and Values
• Empowerment
• Relationships and Communications
• Flexibility
• Optimal Performance
• Recognition and Appreciation
  
• Morale

How to interpret them?? Here is the answer... To get high performance and high morale group (or you can say crowd) required providing clear purpose with shared values and goals, unleashing and developing skills (empowerment and flexibility), creating team power (relationships and communication), and keeping the accent on the positive (recognition and appreciation).

Yup yup, and of the moral of the book is a concise and powerful tag line which is related to James Surowiecki's theory... Here it is...

none of us is as smart as all of us

and this book gives you example how to build a good group or team!! I recommend you to read this book :D

If you don't like reading, don't worry, this book is like a story book... while you enjoy the story, you can get the important point in building a High Five team, as a leader as well as a team member :D

Well, I think that's all for the 3rd session review.. :D..