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INFOSYS.110 BUSINESS SYSTEMS:

DELIVERABLE 2: BUSINESS SECTION
2014

Name Ernest John Quimba
NetID Equi629
Group Number: 164
Website Link: http://infosys1102014s1group164.blogspot.co.nz/
Tutorial Details
Tutor: Day: Time:
Olivia Tutor Sunday 12am
Time Spent on
Assignment:
15 hours Word Count: 1645

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E-DESKS
INTRODUCTION
E-desks is a revolutionising product designed for schools around the world. The e-desk is a
workstation for students, with an innovative and versatile tablet/laptop system fused with a
custom desk. It will feature a ten-point touch screen that is stylus compatible for note taking
and also includes an on screen touch keyboard. This system will be connected wirelessly to
the schools network and database so that students can access information when they login
on the E-desks. The E-desks can be implemented in classrooms, lecture rooms, study rooms,
and school libraries. These will replace traditional desks and students will have no need for
notebooks, coursebooks and textbooks. The E in our E-desks not only stands for electronic
and educational, it also stands for environmental as it will save a lot of paper and in turn
help with the sustainability of trees. E-desks is the perfect product for our todays schools.
3. BUSINESS SECTION
3.1 Vision
To provide schools a product they can trust and effectively utilise, enabling them to satisfy
their students values and academic success while at the same time directly helping with the
worlds environmental sustainability.
3.2 Industry Analysis: School Electronic-Desk producers industry
Industry: School Electronic-Desk industry. In this industry, there are currently no electronic
desks that are readily available to schools. The designing and testing stages are the furthest
that organisations have achieved and the actual finalised, ready-to-sell products are not in
the picture. Therefore by creating a viable and finalised product we will be the industry
leader with the benefit of a first-mover advantage.



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Force: High/Low: Justification:
Buyer power: Low Our buyers will be primary, secondary and
tertiary schools. The buyer power in this industry
is significantly low as there are currently no
viable, finalised and readily available electronic
desks sold to schools. Choices for buyers are very
low.
Supplier power: High Although the tablets/laptop machine unit has
many choices in terms of suppliers,the supplier
power is still relatively high because there is only
a few desk designers and producers that
specifically caters for school situations and one of
them is SMARTdesks. SMARTdesks offers a
configured solution for different environments,
one being a classroom environment (SMARTDesks
website).
Threat of new entrants: Low This is a very narrow market with little research
and testing on the actual feasibility and
implementation of the products in school. A
project on the next generation of school desks
was carried out by Durham university and their
results show that implenting these type of desks
around the world seems improbable because of
the high set-up and maintenance costs and the
level of support from schools needed (Star Trek
Classroom: the next generation of school desks,
November 2012)
Threat of substitutes: High The threats of substitutes are very high because
other portable devices such as tablets and
laptops can be used and are owned by most

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student in schools today.
Rivalry among existing
competitors:
Low As mentioned before there is currently no
finalised product that is ready to sell to schools as
of now and thus having little to no rivalry in the
industry.
Overall attractiveness of the industry: This is a very tough industry to evaluate as it is a very
recent industry with little to no organisations involved as of current. Extensive research and
testing is still being done involving schools. I would say that currently this industry is not an
attractive industry because of uncertainties in buyer interests and because of the narrow
market segment that it is targeting is a risk that could lead to losses for companies involved
in this industry. However, this is an industry to watchout for in the future.
3.3 Customers and Thei r Needs
The target customers identified is primary schools, secondary schools, and tertiary schools
around the world. The schools needs are having trustworthy technologies that they could
utilise to ensure that their students needs are satisfied and that academic success is
maximised.
3.4 The Product and Service
The E-desk is our product and it will ensure that the schools needs are met through our well
designed user-interface and extensive functionalities that will excite and enhance students
learning. A similar product was tested on 400 pupils ranging from ages of 8-10 in U.K schools
by Durham University.
This research and testing was a 3 year project specifically targeting maths to find out the
benefits to students using their smart desk brings compared to doing maths on paper, at
the end of the project 45% of the studentshave increased their number of unque
mathematical expressions using the smart desk compared to the 16% who used paper
(Star Trek Classroom: the next generation of school desks, November 2012)
3.5 Suppliers and Partners

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Suppliers are the ones that will supply us our raw materials enabling us to produce our
product and we will actually have to pay them money for the raw materials while partners
are other organisations that we could establish a mutual beneficial relationship with.
Suppliers:
Desk suppliers- SMARTdesks will provide us with the specially designed desk needed to
integrate our unit on.
Tablet/laptop unit suppliers- Global Sources Tablet PC manufacturers and Tablet PC
suppliers
Partners:
Government- we can establish government as partners to grant us support with our product
and persuading schools to implement our product in the school environment
Ebook school subscriptions- we can establish relationships with ebooks school subscriptions
companies because schools will need ebooks for academic textbooks when they use our
product. EBSCO eBook publishers could be our potential partners and through this
partnership we can promot both our products effectively.

3.6 Strategy: Focused High Cost
Since we are targeting a very niche market where we only target primary up to tertiary
schools, our market is very narrow. The costing of our E-desks will be at a higher premium
than that of normal desks and tablet/ipads that schools could implement because obviously
it will have both components that will be conveniently combined together into one unit,
making it easy for schools to maintain and update content and decreasing the risk of
damaging and theft when handing out tablet/ipads to students. A high premium is needed
to ensure that the business is profitable as we are targeting a narrow market.
The overall strategy is therefore Focused High Cost

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3.7 Value Chain Activity: Technology development (and R&D)
The most important value chain activity for this business is Technology development (and
R&D)
Since there is currently no refined and finalised electronic/smart desk type product that is
readily and realistically available for schools to purchase, technology development will be
the value chain activity that should be the most important as it will add the most value. If
we are the first company that could enter the market with this product we will gain a first-
mover advantage and lead the industry from there, consistently thinking of ways to keep
adding value to our product and maintain competitive advantage.
3.8 Business Processes
3.8.1. INVENTORY ORDERING PROCESS Our suppliers consists of SMARTdesks and Global
Sources Tablet PC manufacturers and Tablet PC suppliers. Firstly we will create purchase
requistion calculating the amount of raw materials needed from each supplier and then
sending each supplier a purchase order. From this the supplier will ship the raw materials to
our warehouse which will be our storage space and then we will receive the invoice for the
raw materials and from there we will send a payment through bank transfer.


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INVENTORY ORDERING PROCESS

3.8.2. PRODUCTION PROCESS To start our production process off we will obtain our raw
materials from our warehouse, we will then get employees to categorise the raw materials
to each part of the e-desk. The custom built desk acquired from SMARTdesk along with the
tablet/laptop unit will be quality ensured through our quality ensurance frameworks that
we have established. After this stage the raw materials are combined firstly mounting the

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tablet/laptop unit unto the desk and testing that all the components are well placed and
tight knit. Further checking of the final product takes place to get it ready for distribution.
PRODUCTI ONPROCESS


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3.9 Functionalities
3.9.1. INVENTORY ORDERING PROCESS
Ability to record stock levels through bar code scanners
Stock levels are recorded in database and automatic re-ordering
3.9.2. PRODUCTION PROCESS
Checking the quality of raw material
Refine the product for distribution
3.10 Systems

3.10. 1. INVENTORY ORDERING SYSTEM When raw materials arrive in the warehouse the
items are scanned and output into the inventory database. From the data base queries are
carried out to find out if stock is ator above the pre-set level If it is below stock is
automatically ordered.
3.10. 2. CUSTOMER PURCHASE SYSTEM Orders come from our online website, schools order
stating the amount of e-desks and we will record this in the database automatically taking
away the number of stock that are ordered and if the pre-set levels of stock falls below after
purchase the system direct it to the inventory ordering system. Payment is through bank
transfer or mediums such as paypal.
3.10. 3. DELIVERY SYSTEM The orders are recorded in the database and in the database it
will show the amount ordered and the drop off place. Through this system we are confident
that the products will arrive in full, on time, in spec.

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3.11. Summary Table: Value Chain to Systems

Value Chain
Activity
Processes Functionalities Specific Information
System(s)
Broad Information
System(s)

Technology
development
1. Inventory
ordering
process
1. Ability to record stock levels through bar
code scanners
2. Stock levels recorded in database and
automatic-reordering
Inventory management
system

Inventory management
system

Transaction processing
system

Transaction processing
system

2. Production
process
1. Checking the quality of raw material

2. Refine product for distribution
Quality assurance system

Quality assurance system
Supply chain management
system

Supply chain management
system


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CONCLUSION
In conclusion the E-desk is a product that is good on paper and the problems for schools
that it is trying to solve is important however the feasibility is looking dim with barriers that
can potentially cause failure.

REFERENCES

1. SMARTdesks website
http://www.smartdesks.com/

2. Star Trek Classroom: the next generation of school desks, November 2012
https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=15991

3. The Kindles Are Coming: Ereaders and Tablets Are Springing up in Schools--And
Librarians Are Leading the Way
School Library Journal, v57 n3 p58-60 Mar 2011
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ927217

4. Star Trek Classroom: the next generation of school desks, November 2012number
https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=15991