Chapter 8: Processes, Organizations and Information systems

What’s a business process?

A network of business activities that generates value by turning inputs into outputs. they’re the fabric of the organization- they’re the means at which people organize their activities to achieve the business’ goals

What’re dynamic processes?

Flexible, informal processes that involve strategic and less structured managerial decisions and activities

What’re standardized processes?

Standardized, formally defined processes that involve day to day operations.

Processes are used at what three levels of organizational scope?

1. Workgroup

2. Enterprise

3. Inter-Enterprise

What’s the workgroup process?

Enables workgroups to fulfill the goals of a particular group or department

What’s the enterprise process?

Spans an organization and supports activities in multiple departments

What’s the inter-enterprise process?

spans two or more organizations

How can businesses improve the quality of their processes?

1. Changing the process structure

2. Changing the process resources

3. Changing both he process structure and resources

How can information systems improve process quality?

1. By performing an activity

2. By Augmenting a human who is preforming an activity

3. Controlling data quality and process flow

What’s the problem with information silos (disjointed data storage)

1. Data duplicates

2. Data inconsistency

3. Data integrity

4. Disjointed business processes

How do organizations solve the problem of information silos

1. Integrate the data into a single database

2. Allowing the isolation but managing it to solve problems

What’s business process reengineering?

Altering existing and designing new business processes to take advantage of new information systems. This proccess is slow, difficult and expensive.

what’s a CRM? What’s the customer life cycle?

CRM’s manage all interactions with the customer

CLC: Marketing, Customer Acquisition, Relationship Management, and loss

What’s an ERP? What must a product have for it to be considered a true ERP?

A suite of modules for consolidating business operations into a single, consistent computing platform

In order for a product to be considered a true ERP it must have applications that integrate

1. Supply chain

2. Manufacturing

3. CRM

4. Human Resources

5. Accounting

What’s an EAI?

EAI systems integrate existing systems by providing layers of software that connect applications together.

What’re the main challanges of implementing and upgrading enterprise information systems

• Collaborative Management

• Requirements gaps

• Transition Problems

• Employee resistance

• New technology