Assignment 2: Strategy-based essay
12th July
Your essay should be approximately 1600-1800 words.
Use 1.5 spacing with a 12 point Times New Roman font.
Though your paper might draw from the lecture material and readings— you should consult appropriate references from the library and other suitable sources. Citation of sources is mandatory and must be in the Harvard style.
The short paper contributes up to 35% of the overall assessment in this unit. There is an expectation that the tasks associated with this assignment will reflect a professionally written and presented paper.
Topic:
In a world of information technology (IT) abundance, competi¬tive advantage (CA) has little to do with access to technology. Indeed, because enterprise systems (ES) are the most adopted technology by businesses, it would be difficult for a firm to achieve a competitive advantage (CA) purely on the basis of having an ES.
However, companies do use their ES systems to achieve competitive advantage within their industry sector. Hence, discuss three strategic approaches a company can use to achieve competitive advantage and/or differentiation using their ES? Use two case studies for each strategic approach selected to support any discussion. Assume that your firm has an ES in place (the paper should NOT be about introducing or implementing an ES in a firm).
Your essay must include:
Assignment Cover Page: Use the cover sheet provided.
Paper’s title page: Include the Assignment Title, Student Name & Number, Date & Unit name/code (not part of the word count).
Introduction: Introduces the topic and reiterates the question(s) being addressed. Identify the three strategic approaches covered. Include the paper’s structure.
Body: Discuss, compare and/or contrast different perspectives, present arguments supporting the purpose of the paper. Include case study examples.
Conclusion: Summarise the salient points you have made in the body of the paper. These should match your stated purpose.
Word Count: Include a word count at the end of the paper just after the conclusion section.
References/Bibliography Must be consistent in Harvard style (not part of the word count).
Appendix Include a screen image of your final Turnitin similarity score.
The footer must include your name, student ID, and page number. A header should include a short version of the paper’s title.
Given that this will be a current issues paper, references should be not older than 5-7 years. It is recommended that Google Scholar be used as the first search engine to identify relevant articles.
Submission
Your final paper must be submitted via the Assessment Dropbox link in Collaborate.
You can use regularly file submissions to the Assessment Dropbox to check for similarity using Turnitin. The file must contain the whole report, however please DO NOT include the declaration form, headers/footers, title page, etc when checking.
Note: A second Assessment Dropbox option will be created for each person to submit their work including the declaration form.
Name your file the following way— Last Name-9999999.docx and where the 9999999 is replaced by your own student number (for instance Potnis-6543211).
Assignment 2 submission date and time
Assignment 2 is due no later than 12/7/2015 (midnight)— TBC by local LH educator
*Penalties for late submissions will be enforced at 25% of available marks (8.75).
No assignment can be submitted 1 week after the due date.
**Turnitin Similarity
In this assessment task, it is expected that students will achieve a similarity score of less than 10%.
Note: Originality Reports are not plagiarism reports, nor are percentage matches indicative of levels of plagiarism. They are simply a tool to assist in bringing any similarity matching in text to an assessor’s attention. The originality report requires interpretation and interrogation, and a case by case examination of whether plagiarism has occurred or not will be performed. Should similarity breaches occur, penalties will be at the discretion of the LH and VU educators.

Proposed marking for the assignment
Paper has an identified purpose (4 marks) Mark
i) Paper introduces topic (1)
ii) States the purpose of the report restating the assignment question (3)

Body of paper has appropriate content (20 marks)
i) Contains appropriate material— accurate, relevant and interesting (4)
ii) Presents a well-structured discussion (4)
iii) Paper addresses the question(s) posed & justifies the identified strategies (6)
iv) Includes a suitable number of appropriate industry examples (6)

References & Grammar (11 marks)
i) Citations are indicated correctly (Harvard) (4)
ii) Well written; good flow & consistent writing style; Grammar & spelling (5)
iii) Citation are recent— not greater than 5-7 years (2)

Total Score 35