Cost Benefit Analysis
Analyze effective financial tools for technical environments.
Purpose
The purpose of this Assignment is to conduct a Cost Benefit Analysis for using Blockchain in your eCommerce.
Assignment Instructions
Scenario:
You are the Director of IT & Security for an eBook distributor. Your CEO has come to you asking when you are going to use Blockchain as it is the “hottest technology” out there. He heard by using Blockchain, the eCommerce site would be more secure and still stay PCI-DSS compliant. You will conduct a Cost Benefit Analysis to determine whether Blockchain usage is viable at your company.
You will conduct Cost Benefit Analysis for using Blockchain at your company. Specifically, in your eCommerce site for selling eBooks. As you work through the cost benefit analysis, you will also identify any technical or security risks for your company. In your analysis, you will answer questions (see below) to include financial and other evidence to support your answers. By answering these questions, it will help your company make a decision regarding “what” to do.
- Is Blockchain a viable solution to enhance security for your eCommerce site?
- Is now the time to use Blockchain?
- Do benefits of using Blockchain outweigh the costs?
- Is incorporating Blockchain beneficial to your organization as a whole?
Your analysis should include all costs (including personnel). It should also include all benefits. Benefits should be quantified. This is much easier for tangible benefits, but it is important to not ignore intangible benefits. The intangible benefits can be used to supplement your analysis.
Assignment Requirements
You will create a 2–3 page report of your Cost Benefit Analysis including a summary of your conclusions. Provide as much evidence to support the assertions that you make. In Excel®, you will show all your work including financial calculations. Please make sure all of the information in Excel is organized and titled accordingly.
Solution Preview
Blockchain has much to offer in the field of e-commerce. Given that it is a digital record for storing transactions lists (blocks) that are immutable, their use creates a level of trust between the different parties in the blockchain (Tapscott & Tapscott, 2016). Notably, each block has a link to a previous block, data and timestamp on the transaction it represents thereby highlighting that it is impossible for anybody to modify it after it has been created (Parikh, 2018). With this, the use of blockchain ensures both parties that the data it contains is valid. Blockchains are designed to store transactional data thereby inferring that they are a natural fit for e-commerce (Tapscott & Tapscott, 2016). The data not only needs to be financial but also any action which requires immutable records such as payments.
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