Question

All projects begin by answering one of two questions:

1. How can I make business scenario ABC better or more efficient?
2. What business scenario can I automate to benefit organization XYZ?

For this assignment, select a business scenario you would like to develop into a project over the next five weeks. You have two options:

1. You may select one of the two business scenarios described in the Select a Business Scenario document.
2. You may select a business scenario of your own choosing.

This can be a scenario from your workplace; for example, a frustrating process you have been eager to rework or a potential process you have been thinking of that does not exist yet but that you think would be valuable to your organization if it were developed into an IT project.

Note: If you decide to select a business scenario of your own choosing, you must obtain approval from your instructor for your scenario before beginning the project proposal assignment, which is also due this week. This why I want this assignment due on Thursday, so you have time to work on the Project Proposal assignment after it is approved.

Download Select a Business Scenario.

Read through the options.

Type your selection (Scenario A, Scenario B, or Scenario C) directly into the Select a Business Scenario document (on the space provided next to each scenario). If you select Scenario C, you must include a scenario description as outlined in the document.

University of Phoenix Material

Select a Business Scenario

For this assignment, you will select the business scenario for which you wish to analyze and develop a technical architecture. The purpose of the technical architecture, which you will be developing during this 5-week capstone course, is to automate the business scenario and its processes.

In this course, you will develop a project based on (choose one):

• Scenario A: Financial Services ____
• Scenario B: Internet Bank ____
• Scenario C: Student-defined* ____

*Note: If you choose Scenario C, you must include a description of your scenario in sufficient detail for your instructor to evaluate its appropriateness for this capstone project. Before you can begin the next assignment in this course, you must obtain approval for your business scenario from your instructor.

Use the information below to make your selection. As you do so, keep in mind that the technical architecture you will develop will need to include network and cloud infrastructures, database management systems, software applications, cloud services, and cyber security solutions. The software applications and technology you decide to incorporate into your architecture must be accessible by businesses and/or individuals; that is, it must exist on the market today.

Here are the three business scenarios in detail:

Scenario A: Financial Services You work in the IT department of a financial services company that sells investments to, and manages investment portfolios for, high net worth individuals. Your organization uses custom-built legacy software applications and systems to support its sales processes. The sales software applications and systems are not integrated, and they do not support an enterprise view of the sales processes throughout the organization. Management is frustrated because the sales applications and systems do not provide the information and reports necessary for them to measure, monitor, and manage sales production in the organization. Sales executives and account managers are frustrated because the sales software applications and systems do not support the sales cycle for the products and services that the organization sells.

You have been assigned to analyze your organization’s sales processes and identify an IT system capable of improving the sales processes of your organization. In addition, your organization is looking for an easy-to-use, cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution to generate more leads, increase sales, improve customer service, reduce the cost of sales for the organization, and increase revenue.

Scenario B: Internet Bank You work for a startup company that is launching an internet bank. The internet bank will provide the following financial products and services to its customers:

• Accounts and deposits
• Credit, debit, and travel cards
• Loans
• Insurance
• Investments
• Tax services

Senior management and investors have identified the following key technical factors for the success of the internet bank:

• Scalability - The technology and software application infrastructure must accommodate high growth and new users without impacting the service levels delivered to existing users.
• Availability - Users must be supported with robust, consistent, and reliable access; excellent performance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Security – Industry-accepted security practices and a multi-level authentication systems have to be put in place to authenticate and identify each user before they access their accounts and initiate transactions.
• Manageability – The technology and software applications infrastructure must be easy to manage, support, and update.

You have been assigned to analyze your organization and develop a technical architecture to support the business processes of this internet bank.

Scenario C: Student-Defined: Describe a business scenario (including short descriptions of the related business processes that make up that scenario, which can be similar to the descriptions in Scenario A and Scenario B) that you are interested in developing into a project. Remember to submit your description to your instructor for approval as soon as possible.

Answer 1

Explanation :

Systems design :

It is the process of defining the architecture, components, modules, interfaces, and data for a system to satisfy specified requirements. Systems design implies a systematic approach to the design of a system.

Architecture :

It is a set of structuring principles that enables a system to be comprised of a set of simpler systems each with its own local context that is independent of but not inconsistent with the context of the larger system as a whole.

The Process of System Design Architecture :

To build a high-level architecture, start by identifying the constraints and use cases, then identifying the major components and the relationships between them, thinking about the system’s bottlenecks and considering the service level requirements in the design. By following these steps, you can create a fully functional system architecture which can work as clear roadmap for improving the performance of your infrastructure.

Service Level Requirements :

• Performance : This requirement is usually measured in terms of response time for a given screen transaction per user. In addition to response time, performance can also be measured in transaction throughput, which is the number of transactions in a given time period, usually one second.
• Scalability : It is the ability to support the required quality of service as the system load increases without changing the system. A system can be considered scalable if, as the load increases, the system still responds within the acceptable limits.
• Reliability : It ensures the integrity and consistency of the application and all its transactions. As the load increases on your system, your system must continue to process requests and handle transactions as accurately as it did before the load increased. Reliability can have a negative impact on scalability.
• Availability : It ensures that a service/resource is always accessible. Reliability can contribute to availability, but availability can be achieved even if components fail.
• Extensibility : It is the ability to add additional functionality or modify existing functionality without impacting existing system functionality.
• Maintainability : It is the ability to correct flaws in the existing functionality without impacting other components of the system.
• Manageability : It is the ability to manage the system to ensure the continued health of a system with respect to scalability, reliability, availability, performance, and security.

In the light of the above discussions, the solution to the selected set of scenario is outlined as follows:

The Solution :

Selected Scenario :- Scenario B: Internet Bank

A. Objective :

The objective of this project is to automate the Internet Banking Sevices of the startup company.

B. Scope :

The scope of the project is to offer a bouquet of internet banking services to all the customers, which is expected to increase at a fast rate, of the startup company.

C. How can the business scenario be made more efficient ?

The domain of this project is financial banking services for a new company and in this perspective, the key focus areas to make the system more efficient can be listed as follows:

• Stringent Security: As this sytem is meant to deal with financial transactions of the customers of the company dealing with confidential data, the primary focus of this project is safety and security of financial data of the customers of the company.
• Reliability: As the system is expected to provide the services to the customers round the clock 24/7, it must be reliable in operation with minimum breakdown or maintenance time.:
• Scalability : As the company is a start up venture, it might have very less customers at the initial stage but the number of customers is expected to grow at a very fast rate and hence, the system design must accomodate the scalability issues very well in order to accomodate a fast growing number of customers without any effect on the reliability of the system.

D. What business scenario can be  automated to benefit organization ?

In this scenario, the organisation is a start up venture and so perhaps with limited number of employees but has the scope to generate a high number of customers in a short period of time. Consequently the system should ideally accomodate automation of as many systems and processes as would be practically and logically possible for greater benefit of the organisation. Moreover the system should be easily manageable by minimal human resources and thus maximising automation, howver without compromising on the reliability or the security fronts. Therefore, in addition to the bouquet of financial services, a host of other related services can be automated as listed below for the benefit of the startup company:

• Automated genaration and later modification of customer id and passwords online as per user choice
• Automated generation of portfolio, transaction or statement details of the customers at any point of time
• Automated linking of different accounts of the customers and transactions thereon
• Automated linking with national transaction gateways for transactions of the customers beyond the domain of the company

E. Bouquet of Services:

The system is designed to provide the following fundamental internet banking services which can be upgraded at the future easily:

• Accounts and deposits
• Credit, debit, and travel cards
• Loans
• Insurance
• Investments
• Tax services

F. Technical Considerations :

In line with the views of the senior management and the investors the following technical considerations have been given prime importance in the system design procedure :

1. Scalability - The technology and software application infrastructure must accommodate high growth and new users without impacting the service levels delivered to existing users.Thus the system in spite of starting with fewer number of customers can accomodate addition of customers very easily and quickly without affecting the performance of the system by any means.
2. Availability - Users must be supported with robust, consistent, and reliable access; excellent performance round the clock 24/7.Thus the system must be tested thoroughly for its intended use before it is made to use in order to ensure consistent reliability and also provide regular short predeclared maintenence times to ensure smooth operation 24/7.
3. Security – Industry-accepted security practices and a multi-level authentication systems have to be put in place to authenticate and identify each user before they access their accounts and initiate transactions. Thus in order to ensure this, the system should implement and use the best data encryption standards to maintain confidentiality and ensure secure transactions by using only appropriate modes of operation, topology and protocols such as https.
4. Manageability – The technology and software applications infrastructure must be easy to manage, support, and update. Thus the hardware and software components of the system should be wisely decided upon to ensure smooth operation with minimum human intervention and easy and fast upgradation facilities with minimal intervention.

This concludes the discussion on a brief outline of the internet banking system of the startup company along with the necessary explanations.

Please do not forget to like the answer if it helps you. Thank you.