Learnsmart Ch 1.1

Chief Knowledge Officer

Responsible for collecting, maintaining and distributing company knowledge.

Departments

1. Accounting 2. Finance 3. Human Resources 4. Marketing 5. Operations Management 6. Sales

MIS department roles

1. Chief security officer 2. Chief technology officer 3. Chief privacy officer 4. Chief Information officer 5. Chief knowledge officer

Core drivers of the information age

1. Data 2. Information 3. Business intelligence 4. Knowledge

Business tools for analyzing Business strategies

1. SWOT Analysis 2. The five forces model 3. The three generic strategies 4. Value chain analysis

predictive analysis

A big part of business intelligence is called this. It extracts information from data and uses it to predict future trends and identify behavioral patterns. Top managers use this to define the future of the business, analyzing markets, industries, and economies to determine the strategic direction the company must follow to remain profitable

Management Information System

A business function, like accounting and human resources, which moves information about people, products, and processes across the company to facilitate decision making and problem solving. It incorporates systems thinking to help companies operate cross-functionally. It can be an important enabler of business success and innovation. Ex. To fulfill product orders, an MIS for sales moves a single customer order across all functional areas, including sales, order fulfillment, shipping, billing, and finally customer service.

Porter's three generic strategies

A business tool for analyzing business strategies. Chooses business focus. These are generic business strategies that are neither organization nor industry specific and can be applied to any business, product, or service. These three generic business strategies for entering a new market are: (1) broad cost leadership, (2) broad differentiation, and (3) focused strategy.

The Porter's five forces model

A business tool for analyzing business strategies. Evaluates industry attractiveness. It analyzes the competitive forces within the environment in which a company operates to assess the potential for profitability in an industry. Its purpose is to combat these competitive forces by identifying opportunities, competitive advantages, and competitive intelligence. If the forces are strong, they increase competition; if the forces are weak, they decrease competition. Forces: 1. Knowledgeable customers can force down prices by pitting rivals against each other. 2. Influential suppliers can drive down profits by charging higher prices for supplies. 3. Competition can steal customers. 4. New market entrants can steal potential investment capital. 5. Substitute products can steal customers.

SWOT Analysis

A business tool for analyzing business strategies. Evaluates project position. It evaluates an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to identify significant influences that work for or against business strategies (see Figure 1.14). Strengths and weaknesses originate inside an organization, or internally. Opportunities and threats originate outside an organization, or externally and cannot always be anticipated or controlled.

Value chain analysis

A business tool for analyzing business strategies. Executes business strategy. This views a firm as a series of business processes, each of which adds value to the product or service.

system

A collection of parts that link to achieve a common purpose. Eg. Car, since removing a part, such as the steering wheel or accelerator, causes the entire system to stop working

Competitive Advantage

A feature of a product or service on which customers place a greater value than they do on similar offerings from competitors. Competitive advantages provide the same product or service either at a lower price or with additional value that can fetch premium price Ways that companies duplicate ______________ include acquiring the new technology, copying the business operations, and hiring away key employees.

Business strategy

A leadership plan that achieves a specific set of goals or objectives such as increasing sales, decreasing costs, entering new markets, or developing new products or services.

Stakeholder

A person or group that has an interest or concern in an organization. They drive business strategies, and depending on the their perspective, the business strategy can change

Systems thinking

A way of monitoring the entire system by viewing multiple inputs being processed or transformed to produce outputs while continuously gathering feedback on each part Consists of: 1. Input 2. Process 3. Output 4. Feedback

information

Data converted into a meaningful and useful context. People with the same ________ can make different decisions on how they interpret and analyze it. ______ has value insofar that the people who are using it use it well. Eg. Best selling product, best customer, worst selling product, worst customer

Finance

Deals with strategic financial issues, including money, banking, credit, investments, and assets. Investment data, monetary data, reporting data

Internet of Things (IoT)

Describes a system in which everyday objects are connected to the Internet and in turn are able to communicate information throughout an interconnected system. It is a world where interconnected, Internet-enabled devices or "things" can collect and share data without human intervention. Commonly associated with Machine to Machine (M2M)

Business Intelligence (BI)

Information collected from multiple sources that analyzes patterns, trends, and relationships for strategic decision making. Eg. Lowest sales per week compared with the economic interest rates Best-selling product by month compared to the sports season and city team wins and losses

Human resources

Maintains policies, plans, and procedures for the effective management of employees Employee data, promotion data, vacation data

Operations Management

Manages the process of converting or transforming resources into goods or services. Manufacturing data, distribution data, production data

Goods

Material items or products that customers will buy to satisfy a want or need. Eg. Clothing, groceries, cell phones, and cars

Sales

Performs the function of selling goods or services Potential customer data, sales report data, commission data, customer support data

Data

Raw facts that describe the characteristics of an event or object. In the information age, successful managers compile, analyze, and comprehend massive amounts of ____ daily, which helps them make successful business decisions. Eg. Order date, amount sold, customer number, quantity ordered

accounting

Records, measures, and reports monetary transactions. Transactional data, purchasing data, payroll data, tax data

Machine to Machine (M2M)

Refers to devices that connect directly to other devices

Chief Information Officer

Responsible for 1. overseeing all uses of the MIS 2. Ensuring that the MIS strategically aligns with business goals and objectives.

Chief Privacy Officer

Responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information within a company

Chief Security Officer

Responsible for ensuring the security of business systems and developing strategies and safeguards against attacks by hackers and viruses.

Chief technology officer

Responsible for ensuring the speed, accuracy, availability and reliability of the MIS

Marketing

Supports sales by planning, pricing, and promoting goods or services. Promotion data, sales data, advertising data

services

Tasks people perform that customers will buy to satisfy a want or need. Ex. Waiting tables, teaching, and cutting hair

Fact

The confirmation or validation of an event or object

Competitive Intelligence

The process of gathering information about the competitive environment, including competitors' plans, activities, and products, to improve a company's ability to succeed. It means understanding and learning as much as possible as soon as possible about what is occurring outside the company to remain competitive.

Knowledge

The skills, experience and expertise, coupled with information and intelligence that creates a person's intellectual resources. Eg. Choosing not to fire a sales representative who is under-preforming, knowing they are experiencing family problems. Listing products that are about to expire first on the menu or creating them as a daily special to move the product.

Knowledge workers

These are individuals valued for their ability to interpret and analyze information. Today's workers are commonly referred to as __________ and they use BI along with personal experience to make decisions based on both information and intuition, a valuable resource for any company.

variable

This is a data characteristic that stands for a value that changes or varies over time. Manipulating these is an important tool for any business. For example, in Tony's data, price and quantity ordered can vary. Changing ______ allows managers to create hypothetical scenarios to study future possibilities

Feedback

This is information that returns to its original transmitter (input, transform, or output) and modifies the transmitter's actions. _______ helps the system maintain stability.

Buyer Power

This is the ability of buyers to affect the price they must pay for an item. Factors used to assess: 1. number of customers 2. their sensitivity to price 3. size of orders 4. differences between competitors 5. availability of substitute products. If _______ is high, customers can force a company and its competitors to compete on price, which typically drives prices down.

Production

This is the process by which a business processes raw materials or converts them into a finished product for its goods or services.

Productivity

This is the rate at which goods and services are produced based on total output given total inputs.

First-Mover Advantage

This occurs when a company can significantly increase its market share by being first with a new competitive advantage. Eg. FedEx created a ___________ by developing its customer self-service software, which allows people to request parcel pickups, print mailing slips, and track parcels online. Other parcel delivery companies quickly began creating their own online services. Today, customer self-service on the Internet is a standard feature of the parcel delivery business

information age

We live in this type of age, where infinite quantities of facts are widely available to anyone who can use a computer.