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FIT3174 IT STRATEGY AND GOVERNANCE
Semester 1, 2024
Assignment 1: IT Strategy Evaluation and Application
Value: This assignment is worth 20% of your final assessment in the unit.
Type of Assignment: Group (group of three from the same Applied)
Due Date: Friday, 12 April 2024, 11:55 PM
Submission of the Assignments: Your assignment should be submitted to Moodle/Turnitin. The file names
should contain Unit Code, assignment number and your group ID, similar to the following example:
FIT3174A1_GroupID.docx OR FIT3174A1_GroupID.pdf
Only one of the group members will need to upload the assignment file on Moodle for the group, but all
members must click the 'submit' button to accept the student submission statement.
Learning outcomes:
Demonstrate the capability to develop IT strategies which are consistent with the corporate strategy of business
organisations, and to describe how IT strategies can be applied to improve IT function and organisational
performance.
Broad Assignment Aims:
This assignment is designed to assess your understanding of IT capabilities and how organisations can employ
the IT portfolio for executing strategies. Students are required to demonstrate their understanding of how
various technologies can support organisational value-chains.
This assignment is a case study approach to general problem solving (which involves problem analysis and
solution planning), also applicable in IT strategy uses. The knowledge you need to apply is all linked to
planning an IT strategy (lesson 1 - 5).
You are required to seek additional material from a variety of sources. You must specify any sources used in
the submission using appropriate referencing styles.
Using Generative AI (GAI) for the assignment:
Students are allowed to use GAI, such as ChatGPT, to assist them with this assignment. However, the main
use of the tool should be to generate initial ideas and improve the quality of the report (e.g., grammar checks).
Please note that if GAI is used, the following information needs to be included in the appendix:
● Declare the adopted GAI technology and the ways it was used to assist with this assignment. For
example, did you use it to generate ideas for any parts of the assignment or to improve writing in any
ways?
● Declare the prompts used and how you have utilised the results critically. Please take a critical
approach to the results that GAI generates.
○ Validate the correctness of the responses by conducting further research.
○ Make sure that any argument made in your report needs to be supported by appropriate
literature (remember that GAI is limited to its training data and is thus biased by nature).
○ Clearly indicate how you adopted the responses from GAI selectively and critically to inform
your report.
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Report Outline:
A recommended report outline is as follows:
● Title page (with assignment title, student names, Group ID, unit code, tutor names)
● Table of contents
● Introduction section, e.g., purpose, scope
● Body (responses to the assignment tasks)
o Introduction to the business/organisation
o Analysis of cases’ current and/or future technologies capabilities
o Evaluation of the IT and/or business strategy
o Implementation of risk management
● Conclusion e.g. summarise strategies highlights, how proposed strategies fulfil the purpose you mentioned
in the Introduction; the implications of not having this integrated business and IT plan put in place, future
directions.
● One single aggregated reference list at the end of the document.
● Appendix
o Indicating each person’s contributions in any of the following areas, in a reasonable style:
conceptualisation, desk research, analysis, writing-up, and editing.
o Declaring if GAI is used to assist with this assignment. If yes, please see the previous section
for information to include in terms of your critical use of GAI.
Writing style:
● Use an IT/business report genre (https://www.monash.edu/rlo/quick-study-guides/features-of-
reports).
● Font - Times New Roman font, size 12, and single space.
● Paging - each page (except the title page, table of contents) must be numbered.
● Write in neutral voice.
● Writing clear sentences and paragraphing, for examples:
o Writing clear paragraphs: https://www.monash.edu/rlo/research-writing-
assignments/writing/clear-communication/writing-clear-paragraphs
o IT report: approaching the task: https://www.monash.edu/rlo/assignment-
samples/information-technology/approaching-the-task
o Writing style attributes: https://www.monash.edu/it/current-students/resources-and-
support/style-guide
References:
Students are encouraged to search for relevant extra readings and draw on suitable literature from academic
publications as well as practitioner outlets. All sources of information must be fully and appropriately
acknowledged using in-text citation and reference list. The reference section should use the American
Psychological Association (APA) style of referencing (https://guides.lib.monash.edu/citing-referencing/apa).
Late Submissions:
Late submissions will be penalised as stated in the submission link in Moodle.
Assignment Assessment Criteria:
Your submission will be evaluated in terms of the following criteria:
● Depth of analysis.
● Completeness and correctness of arguments.
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● Clarity of expression.
● Use of appropriate references to support arguments.
Group Assignment:
This assignment promotes students’ collaborations via group work – collaboration of three students per group.
Students must form their group within the same applied session, the latest being the end of Week 4. You will
choose your group via the Assignment One Groups (see Moodle Assessments page).
Students will be graded as a group. Every student in the group is required to actively participate and contribute
to the assignment. These would be used as a basis for marks adjustment for the final score (if necessary) of
the assignment. At the end of the assignment, all students must complete their Peer Evaluation confidentially
and individually.
Instructional Guidelines
There are two parts in this assignment. In the first part, you will choose a case organisation, then based on
your research about the case organisation, apply the knowledge learnt to date in this unit to develop an
IT/business strategy.
You are required to seek further information from a variety of sources. However, you are not required to
contact the organisation for information. You may make reasonable assumptions, justify them in the report,
and support them with appropriate references.

Part 1 Write up:
Select a case organisation (from online or other reading materials) and complete the following tasks.
1. Introduction to the business/organisation (8 marks)
Demonstrate your understanding of the case organisation.
● Descriptions of the case organisations.
● Discuss the organisation’s nature of business. For example, you can use the Porter’s value chain to
describe the core business activities and provide examples for each of the components in the value-
chain.
● Status, challenges, etc. For example, you can use Porter’s Five Forces to describe the forces
threatening/competing with the business/organisation.
2. Understanding the technology portfolio (8 marks)
Demonstrate your understanding of the technology portfolio of the case organisation.
● You may select one specific business area of the organisation (e.g., logistics, marketing, sales) or
decide to have a broader perspective (e.g., across all areas of the business).
● You must justify your understanding of the portfolio by identifying the purpose of each technology in
the case organisation. Identify at least five technologies in the case organisation’s technology portfolio.
3. Developing IT-business strategy (32 marks)
Develop two new IT/business strategies for the case organisation.
● Describe and explain each strategy - what is the strategy about? What purpose does it aim to achieve
considering the nature of the case organisation, the opportunities or/and challenges the case
organisation faces, and the role IT plays in this organisation? (4 marks)
● Detail how the proposed strategies can help maintain the business’s competitive advantages. Use at
least two applicable theories, approaches or frameworks, for example (but not limited to) Porter's
Generic Competitive Strategies, Resource Based View of the firm, IT for Competitive Advantage,
Strategic Alignment and Business Process Re-engineering, knowledge management, etc., to provide a
logical rationale for the strategies that you have developed. (8 marks)
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● Discuss the role of IT in each of the strategies. (4 marks)
● Discuss the strategies using balanced scorecards, including the expected outcomes and the approach
for measuring the effectiveness of the strategies. (8 marks)
● Discuss the process that can be taken to assess the alignment between the proposed IT strategy and the
business goals or strategy drawing on at least two aspects of IT-business alignment maturity criteria
by Luftman (2000). (8 marks)
4. Threat or opportunity? IT strategies prepared for uncertainties (10 marks)
Unexpected situations may impact your business strategies. Identify three situations and discuss the impacts
of these situations (threat or opportunity) on the selected case organisation. How would you adjust your IT
portfolio to deal with these uncertainties?
This part (write-up) should be approximately 2500 words (+/- 10%) in length.
References (8 marks)
Include at least ten significant1 references and cite them in the body of your assignment report and add full
references in the bibliography (use APA style).
Overall report (9 marks)
Overall report, e.g., writing structure, flow, headings/subheadings, paragraph construct and linkage, general
grammar, appendix requirements.
Peer Evaluation (5 marks)
Complete the Peer Evaluation Form.
Part 2 Oral Presentation (20 marks)
You will present your case study during Week 7 Applied. All teams should submit their presentation slides
(pptx or pdf format) to Moodle by the due date.
1. Each presentation shall be no more than 9 minutes (no limit on the number of slides, no word limit). All
team members are expected to participate in the presentation.
2. You will also be required to review and provide feedback on other students’ presentations (peer-review)
using the Presentation Review Form.
Assessment Criteria
Rubrics will be provided in Moodle.
1 These may include websites and newspaper articles and should be as current and substantive as possible – you are expected to
provide at least four published peer-reviewed academic articles, e.g., journal, conference article, book, book chapter. You should
acknowledge all sources of information.