MIS Test 1

Roles of Information Systems

Operational excellence
New products and business models
Customer and supplier intimacy
Improved decision making
Competitive advantage
Survival

Operational excellence

involves a firm's focus on efficient operations and excellent supply chain management

business model

An abstraction of what an enterprise is and how the enterprise delivers a product or service, showing how the enterprise creates wealth

information technology (IT)

the hardware and software a business uses to achieve objectives

Information system (IS)

interrelated components that manage information to support decision making and control

Management information system (MIS)

the use of IS by managers and employees; interfaces between technology and people

Data

streams of raw facts

Information

data shaped into meaningful, useful form

Knowledge

collective information that helps make business decisions

input

The capture or collection of raw data from within the organization or from its external environment for processing in an information system

processing

The conversion, manipulation, and analysis of raw input into a form that is more meaningful to humans

Output

The distribution of processed information to the people who will use it or to the activities for which it will be used

feedback

Output that is returned to the appropriate members of the organization to help them evaluate or correct input

Turning Data into Information

Organize/Categorize
• Sort
• Filter
Highlight
• Conditional Formatting
Aggregate
• Formulas
• Functions
Chart/Graph
• Column/Bar - compares values across categories
• Pie - shows percentages of a whole
• Trend/Line - shows values over time

Column/Bar Chart

compares values across categories

Pie Chart

shows percentages of a whole

Trend/Line

shows values over time

Dimensions of Information Systems

organizations, people, technology

Organizations

Coordinate work through business processes

Technology

IT Infrastructure; the foundation on which IS is built

People

Use IS to achieve business goals. Requires: Information systems literacy and Computer literacy

Information systems literacy

includes behavioral and technical approach

Computer literacy

focuses mostly on knowledge of IT

Information Systems and Technologies are:

solutions to a variety of business problems

Business

formal organization that makes products or provides a service in order to make a profit

Four basic business functions

1. Manufacturing and Production
2. Sales and Marketing
3. Finance and Accounting
4. Human Resources

Business Processes are

Logically related set of tasks that define how specific business tasks are performed
The unique ways in which organizations coordinate and organize work activities, information, and knowledge to produce a product or service

Levels of an organization

senior management, middle management, and operational management (called a hierarchy)

operational managers

People who monitor the day-to-day activities of the organization

Which IS(s) is used for Operation Management?

Transaction processing systems

Transaction processing systems

performs and records the daily routine transactions necessary to conduct business, such as sales order entry, hotel reservations, payroll, employee record keeping, and shipping.

TPS's principle purpose

purpose is to answer routine questions and to track the flow of transactions through the organization

middle management

People in the middle of the organizational hierarchy who are responsible for carrying out the plans and goals of senior management

Which IS(s) is used in Middle Management?

Management Information Systems
Decision support systems

management information systems (MIS)

Specific category of information system providing reports on organizational performance to help middle management monitor and control the business

Which IS reports on firm's performance to help predict future performance?

MIS

Which IS reports on basic operations using data from TPS?

MIS

Which IS provides weekly, monthly, annual results, but may enable drilling down into daily or hourly data?

MIS

Which IS is typically not very flexible systems with little analytic capability?

MIS

Decision support systems

support non-routine decision making for middle management

Which IS's focus is on problems that are unique and rapidly changing with no clearly defined procedure for arriving at a solution?

DSS

Which IS often brings in information from external sources as well as from TPS and MIS?

DSS

Which IS uses a variety of models to analyze data?

DSS

senior management

People occupying the topmost hierarchy, who are responsible for making long-range decisions, in an organization

Which IS(s) is used in Senior Management?

Executive support systems

Executive support systems

help address strategic issues
and long-term trends

Which IS provides coarsely detailed reports to senior managers?

ESS

Which IS addresses strategic issues and long-term trends?

ESS

Which IS provides generalized computing capacity that can be
applied to changing array of problems

ESS

Which IS draws summarized information from MIS, DSS, and data from external events?

ESS

Which IS typically uses digital dashboard or portal with Web interface to present content

ESS

digital dashboard

Displays all of a firm's key performance indicators as graphs and charts on a single screen to provide one-page overview of all the critical measurements necessary to make key executive decisions.

Collaboration

working with others to achieve shared goals, focuses on task accomplishment

Teams

formal groups that have been assigned a specific mission

Social Business

Use of social networking platforms to engage employees, customers, suppliers in order to strengthen bonds. It is seen as way to drive operational efficiency, spur innovation, accelerate decision making.

Potential Benefits of Collaboration

Productivity: Sharing knowledge and resolving problems Quality: Faster resolution of quality issues
Innovation: More ideas for products and services Customer service: Complaints handled more rapidly
Financial performance: Generated by improvements in factors above

Communication technologies for same time & same place

decision rooms, single display groupware, shared table, wall displays, roomware

Collaboration Tools and Technologies

• E-mail
• Instant Messaging
• Wikis
• Virtual worlds
• Collaboration and social business environments:
• Virtual meeting systems (telepresence)
• Cloud collaboration services
• Cyberlockers - Google Drive, Dropbox
• Enterprise social networking tools
• Slack

Communication technologies for same time & different place

video conferencing, instant messaging, charts/MUDs/virtual worlds, shared screens, multi-user editors

Communication technologies for different time & same place

team rooms, large public display, shift work groupware, project management

Communication technologies for different time & different place

email, bulletin boards, blogs, asynchronous conferencing, group calenders, workflow, version control, wikis,

information systems department

The formal organizational unit that is responsible for the information systems function in the organization

Information systems managers include

Leaders of teams of programmers and analysts, project managers, physical facility managers, telecommunications managers, database specialists, managers of computer operations, and data entry staff

Strategy

Identifies long-term direction and allocates resources to attain a sustainable competitive advantage

Competitive advantage

What gives you a unique position or edge in the market

Systems analysts

Principle liaisons to rest of firm. They translate business problems and requirements into information requirements and systems

Core competencies

Capabilities that are rare, costly to imitate, and nonsubstitutable; are sources of competitive advantage

IS Strategies for Competitive advantages

Low-cost leadership
Product differentiation
Focus on market niche

Low-cost leadership

uses information systems to achieve the lowest operational costs and the lowest prices

product differentiation strategy

uses information systems to create new products and services or improve customer convenience

Porter's Competitive Forces Model

competition/rivalry, threat of new market entrants, threat of substitute products, marketing power of customers, and marketing power of suppliers.

Niche Market Strategy

use information systems to enable specific market focus, and to serve their niche market better than competitors by evaluating customer preferences

Porter's Three Business Strategies

Low-cost leadership
Product differentiation
Focus on market niche

Notes on IS Strategies for Competitive advantages

Some companies pursue several strategies at same time
Successfully using IS to achieve competitive advantage requires precise coordination of technology, organizations, and people

Impact of the Internet

Makes it easier to enter a market
Encourages substitute products
Increases pressure to compete on price
Makes it easier to operate globally
Creates entirely new business models

value chain

highlights specific activities in a business where competitive strategies can best be applied and where information systems are likely to have a strategic impact

Primary activities

those most directly related to production

Support activities

make the primary activities possible

Primary activities in the value chain

inbound logistics
operations
outbound logistics
marketing and sales
service

Support Activities in the Value Chain

firm infrastructure
human resource management
technology development
procurement

Synergies

may be enabled by an IS that ties together disparate units so they act as a whole, which can lower costs

A virtual company uses IS to

link people and resources without regard to traditional boundaries or physical location

Enterprise Systems (ERP)

Suite of integrated software modules and a common central database
Information entered in one process is immediately available for other processes

What collects data from many divisions of firm for use in nearly all of firm's internal business activities?

ERP

ERPs are built around

predefined business processes that reflect best practices

Enterprise systems feature

a set of integrated software modules and a central database that enables data to be shared by many different business processes and functional areas throughout the enterprise

Enterprise Systems can

Increase operational efficiency.
Provide firm wide information to support decision making.
Enable rapid responses to customer requests for information or products.
Include analytical tools to evaluate overall organizational performance.

The Supply Chain is

Network of organizations and processes for:
• Procuring raw materials
• Transforming them into products
• Distributing the products

The upstream supply chain consists of:

Firm's suppliers, suppliers' suppliers, processes for managing
relationships with them

The downstream supply chain consists of:

Organizations and processes responsible for delivering products to customers

Supply chain inefficiencies can waste up to

25% of operating expenses

Just-in-time strategy

Components arrive as they are needed
Finished goods shipped after leaving assembly line

Bullwhip effect

Information about product demand gets distorted as it
passes from one entity to next across supply chain

Safety stock

Buffer for lack of flexibility in supply chain

Push-based model

supply chain driven by production master schedules based on forecasts or best guesses of demand for products, and products are "pushed" to customers

Pull-based model

Supply chain driven by actual customer orders or purchases so that members of the supply chain produce and deliver only what customers have ordered.

Supply Chain Management can help to:

Match supply to demand.
Reduce inventory levels.
Improve delivery service.
Speed product time to market.
Use assets more effectively.
Increase sales.

Customer Relationship Management Systems Purpose

to know and understand the customer

Customer Relationship Management Systems

Customer Relationship Management Systems Capture and integrate

customer data from all over the organization