MIS 304 Exam 3 vocab and some Qs

Chapters 7,9,10

Amazon does a great job of what

Utilizing Enterprise IS

Order to Cash Processes

A type of core business process. The processes that occur from when you place an order till the moment your card gets charged. Can take moments to months depending on the type of transaction.

You order from Amazon, enter your shipping and billing info. Then on amazon’s side they verify your card information and the transaction goes through. What is this an example of?

Order-to-cash

Procure-to-pay process

A type of core business process. The motions a business goes through to get a product from their supplier.

Make-to-stock process

A type of core business process. The process of producing and storing goods to meet forecasted demand

Make-to-order process

Manufacturing doesn’t start until an order is received. However raw materials, subcomponents, and accessories that are needed to make the final product are kept on hand

Ordering a unique jewelry piece on preorder is an example of what

Make-to-order process

Ordering an Alexa for your house, where Amazon already has it on hand is an example of what

Make-to-stock process

Value chain

The set of business activities that add value to the end product

Core Activities

Activities within a value chain that process inputs to outputs

Inbound logistics, operations and manufacturing, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and customer service are all examples of what

Core Activities

Inbound Logistics / Supply Chain Management

Activities that are associated with the process of keeping raw materials in stock

Operations and Manufacturing Activities

Activities that transform the input to the output

Outbound Logistics

Activities that help with the distribution of finished products, within the order-to-cash business process

Marketing and Sales Activities

Associated primarily with the presales. Include creation and communication with potential and existing customers

Customer Service Activities

Focuses on post sale activities, helping the customer or giving them information on their product

Support Activities

Enable primary activities to take place

Administrative activities, infrastructure, human resources, technology development, and procurement are all examples of what

Support Activities

Administrative Activities

Processes and decision making that orchestrate the day-to-day operations

Infrastructure Activities

The upkeep activities for buildings, machinery, and IS infrastructure

Human Resource Activities

Activities associated with employee management

Technology Development Activities

Design and development of apps that support primary business activities

Procurement activites

Purchasing of good and services that are required inputs for primary activities

Value system

Information flows from one company’s value chain to another company’s value chain. Used to streamline an orgs internal value chain

Supply chain can be viewed as a river… why?

Physical goods “flow” from a source to an ultimate destination.

Upstream information flow

Receiving another company’s info for your company to use

Downstream Information flow

Sending your company's info to another company

Standalone applications

Systems that focus on the specific needs of their department and are not used to transfer information among departments

Legacy systems

An old system that is outdated, but still used for some reason within a business

When Flash Games like those on Cool Math Games were no longer available. Flash games became considered…

legacy systems

Your calculator on your laptop is able to compute information you put into it, but it can’t transfer its output to any other application. This is an example of what?

Standalone application

Best-of-breed approach

Keeping the ‘best’ of systems to use for business processes, but they act independently and cannot necessarily share that information amongst departments

Enterprise-wide IS (Enterprise system)

Integrated suite of business applications for virtually every business process. All of the company’s data has a central repository

What is a top priority of Enterprise systems

Meeting the business, customer, and supplier needs seamlessly

Internally focused systems

System that supports functional areas, business processes, and decision making within the organization.

Externally focused systems

Streamline communications and coordinate business processes with customers, suppliers, business partners, and others who operate outside of an orgs boundaries

Interorganizational systems

Streamline the flow of info from a company to another company

Packaged software

Off-the-shelf software, written by 3rd party vendors for the organization

Why use packaged software…why not?

Cost effective, don’t have to worry about building it. But, the company doesn’t have a lot of involvement on how its made or will operate

Custom software

Developed and designed by and for the company that will use it

Why use Custom software…why not?

Can be more specific for an organization, meets niche needs & be customizable. But, quite costly and takes time to develop

Modules

Since not every packaged software can meet every need, this allows a business to add what they deem necessary for their enterprise IS. Meant to help replace legacy systems

Vanilla version

Default enterprise system, not customized for the business

Customization

Additional software that can be added to a vanilla version of an ES

A business just purchased an ES, they look at the ES and realize they need to add things for some of their departments. What will they do?

Customize the ES, adding modules that will connect different functional areas

Best Practices or Industry-standard business processes

Enterprise systems that are specifically designed for an industry, tailors the ES a bit and makes it more applicable to that business

Salon IQ, an ES for salons to be able to see bookings, clock workers in, view wait times of other stores, see sales for the day, etc. Is an example of what

Best Practices software

Business Process Management (BPM)

Systematic, structured improvement approach by all or part of an organization whereby people critically examine, rethink, and redesign business processes to achieve improvements in different performance measures

Business process reengineering (BRM)

Legacy term for Business Process Management (BPM), introduced in the 90s

Increase in: availability of info, interaction throughout the org, lead times for manufacturing, customer interaction, supplier integration, and compliance with standards

Reduce: Operating expenses, inventory, IS costs.

What is the above describing?

Benefits of an enterprise system

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Replace standalone apps to connect various modules on a common database to service the entire enterprise rather than portions of it

ERP can help with

Providing employees with relevant, up-to-date info, respond to compliance and regulatory demands

ERP control

Locus of control over the computing systems and data contained is the system and decision-making authority

ERP Core Components

Modules in an ERP that are internally focused for the company. Includes financial, operations, and hr management

ERP Extended Components

Modules in an ERP that are externally focused for the company. Includes customer relationship and supply chain management

Configuration of ERP

Activity that is underestimated when installing ERP, this is when the org makes changes to their ERP making sure it will fit the business needs

Limitation of ERP

Once implemented, a company is ‘locked in’ which can limit the orgs flexibility and agility if the ERP was modified without considering future needs. Its not uncommon for them to fail if done poorly

Why does ES implementations fail?

Top-management sucks and doesn’t give enough attention to the importance of it. Or after its done, business processes don’t change to effectively meet best practices

How to circumvent ERP issues?

Secure executive sponsorship, get outside help from experts, thoroughly train users, get multidisciplinary opinions of what the ES needs, and stay up to date with ERP trends

Making the business case

Process of identifying, quantifying, and presenting added value of a proposed implementation to a business

Why is making a proper business case important

People want to know that their money is not going to be wasted on an investment or continued investment in something they currently have.

Productivity paradox

Observation that productivity has increased, but at a lower rate than what would be expected with introduction of technology into the workforce

Your business has introduced a new IS system, however the team is finding it difficult to manage the new system & measure the benefits given all the new features. Sometimes the system also lags and since it was a big investment, financial resources have to be reallocated. What are all these factors a part of?

Productivity Paradox

Your office has made a complete switch to using computers for work, although it has increased overall performance, it’s nowhere near where it was forecasted to be. Workers are browsing the web instead of doing work. What is this?

Cyberloafing

Faith Arguments

Based on beliefs about org strategy, competitive advantage, industry forces, customer perceptions, market share, etc.

I know right now the metrics aren’t promising, but if we run this ad campaign I have a strong feeling it will boost sales. What type of argument is this?

Faith

Fear Argument

Based on the notion that failure will result if something isn’t implemented or changed. Often based on worst case scenarios

How can we expect to keep up without a mobile app? Without this we will loose any edge we had. What type of argument is this?

Fear

Fact Argument

Based on data, quantitative analysis, or things that cannot be proven wrong

As you can see, from other business’s implementing the system within the same industry they saw a 20% increase in website traffic and 10% increase in sales, so we should consider doing the same. What type of argument is this

Fact

What components are needed to make a successful business case

Encompass faith, fear, and fact

Total cost of ownership

Cost of acquiring, owning, operating, and maintaining a system.

Non-recurring costs

One-time costs, included in the total cost of ownership

Recurring costs

Costs that are ongoing throughout the lifecycle of a system

Paying a 1,000 one-time non-refundable deposit for a system is what?

Non-recurring cost

The new software your company bought has a subscription that is to be paid at the end of every month. What is this in terms of cost

Recurring cost

Capital expendicture

Usually a really high cost for a long-term asset to either acquire or improve it

Your company needs a new office space that’s going to cost a lot of money. What is this

Capital expendicture

Non capital expenditure or Operational expenditure

Money that’s spent on repairs, supplies, payroll, and other day-to-day expenses

As the HR payroll specialist, you have to submit work hours of each worker and the costs frequently. What type of expenditure is this?

Non-capital expenditure

Tangible costs

Easy to quantify

Intangible costs

Costs that can’t fit well into quantitative analysis, they can be estimated but may not be entirely accurate

The restaurant you work for recently switched to an all online menu. Although the switch has been relatively smooth, your company didn’t consider the elderly clientele you would loose. What type of cost is this?

Intangible cost

After discussing all the features your company wants for the new website, the web developer tells you the initial investment will be 300, based on the facets you want the website to have. What type of cost is this

Tangible costs

Tangible benefits

Quantifiable benefit of using a system or tech

Intangible benefits

Difficult to quantify benefits of using a system or tech

After your website launched, your clientele base has increased by 20%, what type of benefit is this

Tangible benefit

Your company makes some changes to the layout of the store, you hear customers say that they enjoy this new store layout better than prior. Customer satisfaction has increased, but at the moment you don’t know by how much. What type of benefit is this

Intangible benefit

Cost-benefit analysis

Contrasting the tangible costs with the tangible benefits of an investment

Break even analysis

Identifying when tangible costs equal tangible benefits.

Net-present-value analysis

a type of cost-benefit analysis that looks at the cash flows resulted from an investment

Discount rate

Rate of return used by an org to compute the present value of future cash flows

Weighted multicriteria analysis

Helps with deciding costs and benefits of different systems, better way to measure the importance of requirements and constraints

Total Economic Impact (TEI)

Developed by Forrester, considers the impact of IT, impact on the biz, and future possibilities made from it. Also considers risks & scalability

Who should be considered when making an effective business case?

Management, steering committee (ppl from different interest groups), user department (ppl that will actually use the new system), IS executive (ppl that are going to deal with the system in all stages)

Proxy variables

Alternative measures of outcomes (isn’t in money terms)

Proposed changes are being discussed within your firm, but not everyone is onboard. So, your company has everyone vote anonymously. What type of measurement is this

Proxy variables

“hot button” issues

Things senior management is going to care immensely about and should be brought up when making a case

Systems analysis and design

Process of designing, building, and maintaining IS

Systems analyst

The person that does the systems analysis and design activities