FORMAL EXAMINATION PERIOD: SESSION 2, November 2021 COMP3760-6760 Enterprise Systems Integration 

2.5 hours window exam Four (4) comprising 100 marks Ten (10) EXAMINATION INSTRUCTIONS: ALL FOUR (4) questions should be attempted. This examination will be marked out of 100 marks. Section A = 50 marks Section B = 50 marks PDF your section A and submit to that iLearn submission site PDF your section B and submit to that iLearn submission site Note: Not all questions are of equal value. The value of each question is indicated. This exam counts towards 50% of the final course mark. Email [email protected] or [email protected] for questions/queries about this examination. Please check iLearn announcements. Unit Code: Unit Name: Duration of Exam (including reading time if applicable): Total No. of Questions: Total No. of Pages (including this cover sheet): COMP3760/6760 Page 2 Open book online exam etiquette: The exam responses must be your own work. You must quote or paraphrase and reference any permitted material that you take/use/adapt from somewhere else. You are permitted to: Consult the textbook(s). Consult university provided unit materials on the unit website or in printed form. Consult reference material from the university library or from credible online sources e.g. recognised publishers, government, educational institutions, research organisations. Consult notes that you have produced yourself. Communicate only to authorised university staff members for the purposes of clarification and logistical/technical trouble shooting e.g. exams help line, unit convenor, exam invigilator. You are NOT permitted to: Have someone else do exam questions for you. Help another student with exam questions or hints. Refer to or re-use identical or similar question solutions as might be found on social media, chat forums, study help type websites, study note sharing websites or via other means. Communicate or collaborate with another student or person in anyway during the exam without explicit permission from a University staff member (other than to authorised University staff members). Ask for or receive exam answers or hints from someone else (other than an authorised University staff member). Let your exam responses become available or visible to other students. Provide the exam questions, exam materials or exam responses to another student or person via any means (other than to authorised University staff members). e.g post or communicate exam questions or materials others via forums, chat boards, study assistance websites, instant messaging platforms, photograph and send via mobile devices to others. COMP3760/6760 Page 3 Section A 50 marks Part A consists of TWO (2) questions. You should aim to complete Part A in 60 minutes. Please submit your answers to Part A in the Part A Turnitin submission tool on iLearn. Question A1 (Business Models) (25 marks) Consider the following article from the Australian newspaper on the company Amazon. You are also encouraged to find other information relating to Amazon, and draw upon your own experience with the company. Anon., (2021) How American retailers have adapted to Amazon The Australian August 22nd URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/retail/how-american-retailers- have-adapted-to-amazon/news-story/d18835d7000dc0a3fde834a09087838b Accessed 17/9/21). How American retailers have adapted to Amazon Even as authorities rush to regulate big tech there is mounting evidence that the e-commerce marketplace is more dynamic than they realise. Picture: AFP After reeling from the shock of the pandemic, Americas consumers came roaring back early this year, fuelled by vaccines, stimulus cheques and their instinctive bullishness. Now their enthusiasm is starting to ebb. Retail sales in July were 1.1 per cent lower than a month earlier and a consumer-confidence survey by the University of Michigan suggests that shoppers lost more of their swagger in early August. The Delta variant has played on their nerves while price spikes and supply-chain glitches have dulled enthusiasm for buying some products such as cars sales of which dropped by 3.9 per cent last month, compared with June. There is now a sense that the rate of growth in consumer spending is returning to a more pedestrian pace after 18 giddy months of wild shrinkages and splurges. Yet even as normality beckons it is ever clearer that the pattern of spending has been transformed. One change is well-known: a lift in the level of e-commerce. The other is less COMP3760/6760 Page 4 familiar. An industry that was supposed to have been annihilated by Amazon has bounced back. In 2017-19 all the talk was of a retail apocalypse and retailmaggedon. The fear was that a steady rise in e-commerce and Amazons relentless expansion into new products would drive traditional retailers towards extinction, just as Kodak failed to adapt to the digital- photography revolution and eventually went bust. When Sears, which led the rise of suburban shopping culture after the second world war, declared bankruptcy in 2018 it seemed possible that many more large retailers would struggle to avoid the same fate. The spectre was of a pile of shopping-mall rubble, 16m lost retail jobs and a mountain of useless inventory, loomed over by a dominant Amazon and the grin of Jeff Bezos. Things have turned out rather differently. The pandemic has certainly sped up the shift towards e-commerce sales, which have risen from 14 per cent of the total in 2018 to 20 per cent this year according to JPMorgan Chase, a bank. Although the pace of growth has slowed in the past few months there will be no return to the past. Meanwhile the industrys structure is starting to look different. Amazon has thrived: its market share of e-commerce stands at about 40 per cent overall and is far higher than that in some categories, such as books. Shopping centres have struggled to attract the same numbers of visitors as before, and some have defaulted on their debt. Nonetheless, the health of the non-Amazon retail industry looks better than it once did. At $US2.5 trillion, for example, the market value of American listed retailers is 88 per cent higher than at the start of 2018, while their total net debt burden has been easing since the end of 2019. The number of people employed in the retail trade is only 4 per cent below its post-war peak in 2017. Behind these numbers there are three types of fightback. First, the biggest retailers have embraced the digital world. This week Walmart predicted that its global e-commerce revenues would reach $US75bn for the full year (about 13 per cent of the firms total sales). It has made a big push in hybrid types of shopping that involve online activity but harness its stores, such as click-and-collect and online memberships. Target has promoted a similar service and digital sales now make up almost a fifth of its total. The second fightback is from digital-only alternatives to Amazon. Although the veteran marketplace eBay has struggled over the years, Shopify, which helps merchants sell online and fulfil orders, has seen its share of American online sales reach 9 per cent and its market value soar to $US188bn. Many other digital firms are operating in lucrative niches, from Instacart in grocery delivery to Etsy in interactive shopping for artisanal goods. Finally, some brands are taking control of distribution. Nike stopped selling directly on Amazon in 2019 and instead reaches consumers through its own apps and platforms. Its digital sales rose by two-thirds in the year to May, to 20 per cent of the total. The retail drama has several lessons. For firms in other industries facing digital disruption the key is to experiment and invest. Before Walmart got back its groove it had innumerable false starts and it has raised its capital spending by 40 per cent. Antitrust regulators need to stay more up to date. Even as they stampede to regulate big tech there is mounting evidence that the e-commerce marketplace is more dynamic than they realise. The wave of experimentation will probably continue. New payment apps and social media firms with hordes of customers are expanding into e-commerce, and retailers are shifting into online advertising and entertainment. For Americas indefatigable consumers, and for its workers, the good news is that competition combined with an almighty shock have led to a more innovative industry, rather than the end of the world. The Economist COMP3760/6760 Page 5 Discuss the following parameters with regard what you see as typifying Amazons business model. 1. Perspective on the participants in a joint business venture. Participants and their relationships Benefits and costs to each participant Flows of revenue 2. Perspective on the processes and structure of a business organization Product and service architecture and information flows Business actors and their roles Potential benefits for the various actors Sources of revenues 3. Perspective of a marketplace Activities: B2B, B2C or both Position in the value chain Value proposition Target customers Revenue model Representation: bricks, clicks or both COMP3760/6760 Page 6 Question A2 (eMarkets) (25 marks) Note table 1 (chapter 8) from our textbook illustrating classification of eMarkets based on the purchasing process vs. products bought. For each of the quadrants in the table, find a company example and explain how and why this company fits in this corner of the table. For example, a MRO hub company would be [company X], because they ..... etc. Repeat for catalog hub, yield manager, exchange. Elaborate your answer by explaining the types of products bought and sold and the purchasing methods as outlined in the table. It would be useful to first define what the different parameters are, such as systematic sourcing, spot sourcing and so on. COMP3760/6760 Page 7 Section B 50 marks Part B consists of Two (2) questions. You should aim to complete Part B in 60 minutes. Please submit your answers to Part B in the Part B Turnitin submission tool on ilearn. Question B1 (Data/Application/System Integration) (25 marks) In Amazon platform, integration plays a critically important role: various products from different sellers who may use different systems from others; there could be currency difference, different payment options, and different shopping options available. Read the article and use concrete examples based on this article to discuss: 1. How data from different systems could/should be integrated to have a uniform view of products and sellers in Amazon platform? 2. How services such as payment, shipping, and customer service could be integrated to support a purchase? 3. Discuss the technologies/techniques that can be used to support the above two points. COMP3760/6760 Page 8 Question B2 (XML and XML Schema) (25 marks) Based on the XML content for a TV Schedule provided below, answer the following questions: (a) Develop an XML Schema that can support this XML content (b) Update the processing instructions in the XML file to refer to the schema. Assume that it is called 'tvschedule.xsd'. Please note: the xml schema must be in plain text, Not Image. <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?> <TVSCHEDULE NAME="Commercial TV Melbourne"> <CHANNEL CHAN="2"> <BANNER>ABC Program Schedule</BANNER> <DAY name="MON"> <DATE>27/04/2003</DATE> <PROGRAMSLOT> <STARTTIME>0930</STARTTIME> <DURATION>60</DURATION> <TITLE>Play school</TITLE> </PROGRAMSLOT> <PROGRAMSLOT> <STARTTIME>1030</STARTTIME> <DURATION>60</DURATION> <TITLE>Sesame Street</TITLE> </PROGRAMSLOT> </DAY> <DAY name="TUE"> <DATE>28/04/2003</DATE> <PROGRAMSLOT> <STARTTIME>1900</STARTTIME> <DURATION>30</DURATION> <TITLE>ABC News</TITLE> </PROGRAMSLOT> <PROGRAMSLOT> <STARTTIME>1930</STARTTIME> <DURATION>30</DURATION> <TITLE>730 Report</TITLE> </PROGRAMSLOT> </DAY> </CHANNEL> <CHANNEL CHAN="10"> <BANNER>Ch 10 Program Schedule</BANNER> <DAY name="MON"> <DATE>27/04/2003</DATE> <PROGRAMSLOT> <STARTTIME>1800</STARTTIME> <DURATION>30</DURATION> <TITLE>Simpsons</TITLE> <DESCRIPTION>Bart gives up skating</DESCRIPTION> </PROGRAMSLOT> </DAY> </CHANNEL> </TVSCHEDULE>