DAT 327 Exam 1 Study Guide

Why people invest in IT

1. Customer Satisfaction

2. Operational Efficiency

3. Survival

4. Competitive Advantage

5. New Product/Service

6. Improved Decision Making

Customer Satisfaction

When a business knows its customers and serves them well, the customers generally respond by returning and purchasing more (raising revenues and profits).

Operational Efficiency

IT systems are some of the most important tools available to managers for achieving higher levels of efficiency and productivity in business operations.

Survival

IT systems are necessities of doing business.

Competitive Advantage

Doing things better than your competitors, charging less for superior products, and responding to customers and supplies in real time all add up to higher sales and higher profits.

New Product/Service

IT systems are major enabling tools for firms to create new products and services.

Improved Decision Making

IT systems make it possible for managers to use real-time data from the marketplace when making decisions.

Information Technology

Consists of all the hardware and software that a firm needs to use to achieve its business objectives.

Information Systems

A set of interrelated components that collect (or retrieve), process, store, and distribute information to support decision making, coordinating, and control in an organization.

Data

Raw facts or strings of facts; streams of raw facts representing events occurring in organizations or the physical environment before they have been organized and arranged.

Information

Data that has been given context and made meaningful; data that has been shaped into a form that is meaningful and useful to human beings.

Techniques to Process Data

1. Arrange

2. Classify

3. Calculate

4. Process/Aggregate

Arrange

Sort data in order; charts to display data visually.

Classify

Filter information by certain criteria; conditional formatting to highlight data.

Calculate

Formulas to solve equations.

Process/Aggregate

Functions (sum, count, min, max, average).

Business

An organization that produces a product or provides a service in order to achieve a profit.

Four Functions of a Business

1. Manufacturing/Operating/Producing

2. Marketing/Sales

3. Accounting/Finance

4. Human Resources

Manufacturing/Operating/Producing

An arrangement of people, physical infrastructure, and business processes (procedures) that will produce the product or service.

Marketing/Sales

Attract customers, sell the product or service, and maintain a relationship with the customer.

Accounting/Finance

Keep track of financial transactions, such as orders, invoices, disbursements, and payroll. Also seeks out sources of credit and finance.

Human Resources

Focus on recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining employees.

Process Coordination

Managers are placed in a hierarchy to coordinate all the processes in a company.

Senior Managers

Makes long range strategic decisions about products and services and ensures financial performance of the firm.

Executive Support System

Helps to make high level non-routine decisions.

Middle Managers

Carry out the programs and plans of senior managers, while also overseeing the operational managers.

Management Information Systems

Reports on the current performance of the organization and aggregates all the information from the stores for the month. Mostly internal performance data.

Decision Support Systems

Set up to make non-routine decisions. Managers run these systems when they need it.

Operational Managers

Responsible for monitoring the daily activities of the business.

Transaction Processing System

Reports on the daily routine transactions of the organization. It is highly structured and very routine.

Organizational Pyramid

A hierarchical structure showing the levels of management within an organization. Data is finely detailed at the bottom and closely detailed at the top.

Collaboration

Working with others to achieve shared and explicit goals.

Reasons for Collaboration

1. Changing Nature of Work

2. Growth of Professional Work

3. Changing Organization Structure

4. Increase in Global Business

5. Emphasis on Innovation

Changing nature of work

Today, jobs require much closer coordination and interaction among the parties involved in producing the service or product.

Growth of professional work

Each actor on the job brings specialized expertise to the problem, requiring consideration of one another to accomplish the job.

Changing organization structure

Today, work is organized into groups and teams, with members expected to develop their own methods for accomplishing tasks.

Increase in global business

The work of the firm has changed from a single location to multiple locations, necessitating close coordination across various functions.

Emphasis on innovation

Strong collaborative practices and technologies are believed to increase the rate and quality of innovation.

Potential Benefits of Collaboration

1. Increased Productivity

2. Better Quality

3. Increased Innovation

4. Improved Customer Service

Increased productivity

People interacting and working together can capture expert knowledge and solve problems more rapidly, resulting in fewer errors.

Better quality

Collaborative work allows for faster communication of errors and corrective actions, reducing time delays in design and production.

Increased innovation

Collaborative efforts can lead to more innovative ideas for products, services, and administration.

Improved customer service

Collaboration enables faster and more effective resolution of customer complaints and issues.

Social Business

The use of social network platforms to engage employees, customers, and suppliers.

Goal of Social Business

To deepen interactions with groups inside and outside the firm to expedite and enhance information sharing, innovation, and decision making.

Applications of Social Business

Includes social networks, crowdsourcing, shared workspaces, blogs and wikis, social commerce, file sharing, social marketing, and communities.

Tools and Technologies for Collaboration

Various technologies used to facilitate collaboration, including email, instant messaging, cloud collaboration systems, and virtual meeting systems.

Email and instant messaging

Real-time conversations with multiple people simultaneously or individually.

Cloud collaboration systems

Allows multiple users to access or work on the same data or information.

Virtual meeting systems

Enables employees at different locations to communicate simultaneously through two-way video and audio conferencing.

Enterprise social networking

Create business value by connecting the members of an organization through profiles, updates, and notifications.

3 Types of Knowledge

1. Structured Knowledge

2. Semi-Structured Knowledge

3. Unstructured Knowledge

Structured Knowledge

Information in the form of formal text documents and reports.

Semi-Structured Knowledge

Information in the form of less structured objects; such as email.

Unstructured Knowledge

Information that lacks a predefined format or organization.

Tacet Knowledge

Enterprise and experience of organizational members that have not been formally documented.

Enterprise Systems

Gather data from across the organization, put it into one central location, and allow anyone across the organization to access it.

Business Value of Enterprise Systems

1. Support Decision Making

2. Better Analytics

3. Faster Operation Efficiency

4. Faster Customer Response.

4 Modules of Enterprise Systems

1. Sales and Marketing

2. Production

3. Human Resources

4. Finance and Accounting

Sales and Marketing Module

Orders, sales forecasts, return requests, price changes.

Production Module

Materials, production schedules, shipment dates, production capacity, purchases.

Human Resources Module

Hours worked, labor cost, job skills.

Finance and Accounting Module

Cash on hand, accounts receivable, customer credit, revenue.

Enterprise Systems Challenges

High Failure Rate due to Cost, Technology becoming Obsolete, Resistance to Change.

Next-Gen Enterprise Systems

Web-enabled, cloud, connected, flexible, social.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Puts all customer data in one location that is accessible throughout the organization.

3 Modules of Customer Relationship Management

1. Sales

2. Marketing

3. Service

Sales Module (SFA)

Help sales staff increase productivity by focusing their sales efforts on the most profitable customers.

Marketing Module

Supports marketing campaigns by providing capabilities that enable companies to capture prospect and customer data.

Service Module

Provides information and tools to increase the efficiency of call centers, help desks, and customer support staff.

Business Value of CRM

1. Better Marketing

2. Better Satisfaction

3. Better Sales

4. Better Engagement

5. Decrease Churn/Retain Customers

Churn Rate

Measures the number of customers who stop using or purchasing products or services from a company.

Supply Chain Management

The whole chain of activities from getting the materials from the supplier to getting the product into the customers' hands.

Just-in-Time Inventory

Components arrive exactly at the moment they are needed, and finished goods are shipped as they leave the assembly line.

Bullwhip Effect

Information about the demand for a product gets distorted as the information passed from one entity to the next across the supply chain.

Supply Chain Planning Module

Systems that enable a firm to generate demand forecasts for a product and develop sourcing and manufacturing for that product.

Push Method

Supply chain driven by production schedules that are driven by forecasts or best guesses of demand for products.

Pull Method

Supply chain driven by actual customer orders or purchases.

Supply Chain Execution Module

Manage the flow of products through distribution centers and warehouses to ensure that products are delivered to the right locations in the most efficient manner.