Congratulations!!! You were recently promoted to manager within your firm. Your strong work ethic and, of course, your excellent college training have propelled your career to new heights. One of the challenges of your new role is that you are now held accountable for finding new business opportunities for the firm. You have been regularly reading the financial business press (i.e., newspapers, business magazines) to see if you can identify new service opportunities. The firm's managing partner came to you today and asked if you knew of any companies that recently introduced new IT that could lead to Trust Services engagement opportunities. After you indicated you are actually working on a couple of ideas, he was excited to hear more. He asked you to prepare a memorandum outlining your answers to address the following issues....

Discussion Questions:

[1] Please describe a situation where a company recently introduced a new information technology into its business operations. You should look for a real world example from the business press. Look for a business that recently increased its reliance on IT. The Spot Card technology used at the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium is a good example. Please attach a copy of the article you use to prepare your memorandum.
[2] Please describe the new technology and how it is used. Provide enough information for the partner to understand the technology without having to go back to the attached article.
[3] Explain why the company introduced the technology. Highlight the benefits to various constituents affected by the technology. The benefits related to the technology are probably easily identified and may even be discussed in the related article. However, the article does not likely address risks that are introduced. Please provide a thorough discussion of the risks to all parties affected by the new technology.
[4] Given the risks identified, describe whether there are any related Trust Services opportunities and discuss why you might be engaged to provide those services for the company situation you identified. Describe IT-related risks about which your firm could provide Trust Services. Your memo will serve as the basis for the formal business proposal that will be sent to the potential client. Please be sure to briefly outline in your memo what Trust Services are because the potential client may be unfamiliar with the term. Make sure you explain the term in your own words so that the potential client has a better idea of exactly what services you propose to provide.
[5] In describing the nature of the services that you plan to provide, please highlight the types of evidence you would want to gather as a basis for providing the assurance. For example, you might consider evaluating the contingency plan describing how the company would deal with breakdowns in technology hardware or software or in the communication infrastructure. In this example, you would want to specifically describe what types of information you would look for in that plan.