BIS 610 Final
Which of the following is not a risk of outsourcing?
financial appeal
Which of the following is not an advantage of purchasing?
flexibility
Which of the following are three stages through which DDS becomes available to organizations?
generate, stream, harvast
The Amazon logistics and delivery network is so intricate and complex at the same time that competitors find it extremely difficult to duplicate. Therefore, Amazon's logistics and delivery network can be considered as the following type of resource:
inimitable
Which of the following firms is most likely not engaged in C2B?
lego
Which of the following examples best illustrates the impact of the Internet in reducing search costs and thus increasing market efficiency?
metasearch engines like Skyscanner and Trivago
Fitbits are smart devices that can monitor a wearer's heart rate, their daily step count, their activities and sleep patterns. They can therefore be grouped as devices for:
monitoring
Mr. Smith, an owner of a media-services provider, decided to stop depending on applications that are available on the market, and instead, to start developing unique applications internally. Which of the following describes Mr. Smith's decision?
moving from system selection and acquisition to custom design and development
Jenny is a shift manager at a Starbucks in Lyon, France. She wants to pitch an idea for bio-coffee to her boss and is working out the total value created from each cup of bio-coffee. The eco-friendly coffee beans for a standard coffee cup cost $1. The rest of the raw materials and expenses per cup are $0.85. Using a survey, she has determined that the customers are willing to pay $5 per cup. What is the total value created?
$3.15 (Maybe)
Peter is a retired gardener who supplies homegrown vegetables to the local diner. The Firm cost for growing the pumpkins and bringing them to the diner is $1.50 per unit. It is Halloween season, so the diner is willing to pay Peter $7 per unit. What is the excess profit appropriated by Peter?
$5.50
To some account, a business model is a tool that can help managers conceptualize and crystallize the design of their business. At the highest level of abstraction, which of the following questions does it help to answer?
1. Who is the business designed to serve? 2. What will the firm do for those customers? 3. How will the firm create its value proposition? 4. How will cash flow in and out of the business?
According to Moore's law, if the current maximum number of transistors in a microchip is 10,000, in a year or two the number will be about:
20,000
What does the following definition refer to: 'a knowledge worker in charge of an entire organization or business unit'?
A general manager
Why is it important to realize that: 'Every piece of software is an opinion'?
Because in business organizations software design choices will both enable and constraint business processes
Which of the following is an example of a DDS?
A user's clickstream on a website
Which of the following is an example of a managerial staff position in the IT function
ANAYLST
In the context of airport operations, which of the following is an example of the process element of a modern information system?
Airline check-in procedures
In an effort to improve customer service and customer satisfaction, Amazon deploys 80 highly automated fulfillment centers - with a staff of robot supporting employees - in the United States. Which of the following statements regarding Amazon's initiative is more likely to be true?
Amazon's initiative is difficult to replicate by its competitors because it is time consuming and expensive.
In 2010, an Apple software engineer left a prototype of the iPhone 4 in a bar. the person who found the phone sold it to the gadget blog Gizmodo for $5,000, who disassembled it and posted its characteristics online. Which of the following cyber security threats best describe this example?
An internal threat due to careless behavior
Which of the following statement apply to Apple's magic touch in designing consumer electronics that have immediate appeal with a loyal customer base.
Apple's magic touch is inimitable
Given the following job brief: 'We are looking for an experienced IT professional who will oversee and lead the IT function. You will also provide strategic guidance to the executive team in order to help our company to use IT to maximize value creation.' What position is it most likely advertising?
CIO
You own a company and you realize that your firm has very weak IT strategy. Who should you replace?
CIO
In the context of airport operations, which of the following is an example of the technology element of a modern information system?
Check-in kiosks that print boarding passes
All of the following are analytical tools that were introduced or adapted to the search for strategic information systems opportunities except:
Cluster analysis
Which are the three dimensions in trade-off considered by the CAP theorem?
Consistency, availability, and partition
Java and Python are common programming languages used by organizations. At a party, you meet a lady who works at Exxon. She tells that she writes software using Java. What is her job role?
Developer
Which of the following is NOT a consequence of Moore's law?
Digitalization of music players
The process of encoding into bits an analog signal is called:
Digitization
Technical risks and financial risks are not considered a part of the overall individual project risk.
FALSE
A firm's value network comprises its own value chain plus its suppliers in upstream and its customers in downstream.
False
Based on the classic value chain, inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing & sales, and services are activities that indirectly support the firm's transformation process.
False
Information systems were born when digital computers entered organizations during the postwar boom.
False
The analysis of added value is only useful when a company is innovating (creating value in new ways and offering things no competitor is currently offering).
False
The external environment has no impact on the design of an IS.
False
The industry analysis tool is often used by managers to decide whether to enter an industry or to forgo investment. For organizations that are already active in a given industry, this tool in ineffectual.
False
Value appropriation is a process by which total value created in the transaction is equally distributed among all partner entities.
False
When an organization goes ahead with an IT initiative that does not offer strong barriers to erosion, it is unlikely that the initiative gets imitated.
False
Marc Andreessen recently claimed that 'software programs the world'. What did he mean?
He meant that software is now the primary driver of business success
In the fast food industry, a lot of substitutes products (like Burger King, McDonald's, KFC, Subway and others) exist therefore the threat of substitutes for the fast food industry can be termed as one of the following options:
High
Mary is purchasing air tickets for travelling to Europe in the December holidays. She books a ticket for $700 roundtrip with Delta Airlines to France but the next day her colleague informs her about a connection using two different airline service providers AirFrance and RyanAir which takes shorter time and has no switching costs. She quickly changes her booking to the new connection her colleague showed her. What does this tell you about the bargaining power of buyers in the airline industry?
High
In the oil and petrol industry the price per barrel regularly fluctuates due to the fact that there are only a few big oil producers in the world (monopoly). If the price per barrel of refined oil is raised by the supplier for Total, they would be forced to transfer that price hike to their customers. What does this tell you about the bargaining power of suppliers for Total?
High (Maybe)
In June 2003, Walmart announced that its suppliers will have to include RFID tags to their products (typically on the cases and pallets). The transition from the traditional barcode technology to RFID technology meant increased costs to the suppliers, which eventually had to redesign their business processes and accept the change. Which of the following best describes Walmart's new policy?
High bargaining power of the buyer
Which of the following statements is true?
IT is a component of the IS
Which of these statements is true about the current state of information technology?
IT is more affordable than ever before.
IT infrastructure is a response lag driver for which of the following barriers to erosion of IT dependent competitive advantage?
IT resources barrier
Which of the following is not a barrier to erosion of advantage?
IT team barrier
In September 2018, Facebook suffered the biggest data breach in its 14-year history as a social media platform. An attack on Facebook's computer network exposed the personal information of nearly 50 million users. Going forward, one of the critical success factors of Facebook would be to:
Increase user confidence and trust in Facebook by ensuring improved security measures within the platform
Which of the following is a level of organizational change that can be generated by the introduction of new IT
Informate
We have defined Information Systems as sociotechnical systems made up of four components. Such components are:
Information technology, process, structure, people
Cybersecurity is a negative deliverable because:
It limits the possibility that future negative fallout will happen
In a recent book MIT's professors McAfee and Brynjolfsson referred to humans as 'walking data generators.' Which trend is most likely responsible for this observation?
Life is increasingly computer mediated
The pharmaceutical industry is characterized by a substantial need for capital investments in research and development, strong economies of scale, well known brand names with multiple issues on patents and government regulations. Threat of new entrants can be characterized as one of the following options:
Low
Which of the following is NOT a part of the support activities carried out in a typical value chain?
Marketing and sales
During the budgeting process which two expense decisions are considered most important?
OPEX (operating expenses, e.g. maintenance) and CAPEX (capital expenses, e.g. new systems)
The observation that the number of transistors that can be etched on an integrated circuit doubles every one to two years is known as:
Moore's Law
A company is looking for a person with a business degree, a strong background in finance and leadership experience. What is the company most likely looking for?
NOT A general manager
Which among these trends was the catalyst for the current attention to analytics?
NOT Analytics becoming more important
Your firm is developing a new customer database. You have assembled a team with: a database architect, three developers, two business analyst and a system analyst. You should add one more person from the following list. Who would you select?
NOT Database administrator
Many organizations limit their employees' access to certain websites and prevent the individual installation of new software. Which of the following best describes this practice?
NOT Detecting internal threats through monitoring
Nintendo launched the Switch console on March 3rd, 2017, and actively involved third-party developers early in the Switch's development, to ensure a stronger lineup of games. Which of the following reasons is most likely at the base of Nintendo's strategy?
NOT Nintendo was leveraging the network effect, thus the more players, the more consoles could be sold
Given the following job brief: 'We are looking for an experienced IT professional to build and implement functional programs. You need the ability to focus, and prior knowledge with the Python and Java programming languages.' Do you believe it is appropriate for recruiting a project manager?
NOT No, it is missing one of the most important competencies: database management
You have been recently appointed as the new assistant to the director of IT governance at Walmart. Your first task on behalf of the director is to assign a project to the newly formed IT risk governance team of the company which is directly overseen by your boss. Which project do you think is most suited to be assigned to the risk governance team?
NOT Question options: leveraging information systems resources to gather customer data
When an IT innovation is introduced, what happens when this generates a second-order change?
NOT The people change the way they performed a process
We identified four main eras of data processing in business, what characterizes the 'transaction era'?
NOT The use of new technologies and management practices to leverage the increasing amounts of collected data
Mr. Smith's small restaurant runs its daily sales operations using a point-of-sale system. The system is used to take orders, forward information to the kitchen, print receipts, and charge customers for their food. Mr. Smith believes that the implemented IS is sufficient for the current and future operations of his restaurant. Which of the four roles indicated by the Strategic Impact Grid does this point-of-sale system play?
NOT factory
What happens when the limits imposed by traditional carriers no longer constrain the information?
NOT information remains bound to the physical objects that traditionally carried it
Someone posing as an IT tech requests information about your computer configuration. What kind of attack is this?
NOT phishing
Which of the following is the most likely reason why, despite the strong network effect, several social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn still exist?
NOT social media platforms present high demand for variety and weak economies of scale resulting in sustainable niche markets
The purpose of a steering committee is to make decisions on:
NOT the investment approach, portfolio, risk and prioritization of investments for the whole company
Which of the following is not a characteristic of a disruptive technology?
NOT the performance improvement rate of technology is higher than the rate of improvement demanded by the market
In a recent conversation with your CIO she evoked the need to adopt, for certain operations, a document-oriented database with dynamic schema. To which category of DMBS was she referring?
NoSQL databases
Which of the following is NOT a substitute product for the traditional telephone line?
PlayStations
Which of the following increased in recent years?
Processing power of microprocessors
The unique design capability of Apple Inc. is a resource that is scare and not readily available for acquisition by competitors. It can be considered as which of the following kind of resource in the resource based view:
Rare
The customer service life cycle consists of four stages. In which stage does the customer realize the needs for a specific product or service and begins to focus on its attributes?
Requirements
In October 2003, Sony released its EyeToy camera, the first USB camera device for that detects body movement and allows the player to interact with the onscreen action. In 2010, Microsoft released its Kinect, a webcam-style add-on peripheral that enables users to control and interact with their console/computer using gestures and spoken commands. The time it took Microsoft to respond to Sony's EyeToy is called:
Response lag
The customer service life cycle consists of four stages. In which stage does the customer begin thinking about repurchasing, trading in, or dismissing old products?
Retirement
Mr. Smith received a phone call from a person claiming to be from his bank. The unknown person told Mr. Smith that he needed to update his account security details. the caller asked for Mr. Smith's account, card and personal details in order to confirm his identity. Mr. Smith refused to provide any details to the unknown caller, and instead, called his bank which confirmed that the phone call was a scam. Which of the following best describes the mentioned scam?
SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Following the news of a recent cyber attack, your company has introduced new software to protect the employees. Following the announcement, a massive training campaign has started. Which level of organizational change do you believe was produced?
Second order change
The IS planning process typically happens in five phases. Which phase consists of developing proposals that identify new systems, projects, or directions for the IS organization?
Strategic initiatives
Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of information goods?
THEY ARE CONSUMED BY USE
Typically control of IT budget is split between the IS function (for infrastructural expenses, disaster recovery planning, business continuity initiatives, information systems security management) and the individual units (for funding operations of existing systems and new projects).
TRUE
Information systems resource assessment includes an audit of:
Technical resources, data and information resources, and human resources
Which of the following are NOT a part of the primary activities carried out in a typical value chain?
Technology development
At a recent conference, the keynote speaker affirmed that Tesla cars are 'software on wheels'. Which of the following definitions would best fit this definition of a Tesla car?
Tesla cars are information-intensive goods
A small local coffee shop has two suppliers, A and B. Supplier A went bankrupt and had to close its business. Assuming that both suppliers are able to provide the coffee shop with all its needs in term of suppliers, which of the following is likely to happen:
The bargaining power of supplier B will increase
Which of the following trends is due to Moore's law?
The number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every one or two years.
Which of the following is not a factor that enabled the rapid development of the IoT?
The price increase of sensors brought about by the smartphone
Which of the following is an example of prescriptive analytics?
The pricing recommendation produced by an airline's revenue management system
Which of the following definitions describes the term 'digitization'?
The process of encoding signals into bits
One of your friends who is enrolled in the college of business tells you: 'it's not important for me to understand IT and information systems.' What evidence could you use to convince him that he is wrong?
The top 5 publicly traded companies are all technology companies, because software is now a key driver of business success
We identified four main eras of data processing in business, what characterizes the 'big data era'?
The use of new technologies and management practices to leverage the increasing amounts of collected data
The virtualizability of a process depends on four requirements:
The virtualizability of a process depends on four requirements:
The industry analysis framework consists of five determinant forces. Which of the following represents the extent to which the industry is open to entry by new competitors?
Threat of new entrants
A firm's added value is a measure of its competitive advantage.
True
Barriers to entry are strong if the threat of new entrants is low.
True
By acquiring Whole Foods in 2017 and introducing Amazon Go stores in 2018, Amazon was able to develop an external complementary resource that allowed it to tap into the food and grocery business. The acquisition is an example of complimentary resources barrier.
True
Difficulty of articulating an inimitable resource (how the capability came to be and how it works in practice) is a notion known as causal ambiguity.
True
Facebook user profile data is an example of asset-stock accumulation.
True
IT dependent strategic initiatives rely on access to assets and capabilities necessary to produce and use the technology at their core.
True
If switching costs in an industry are low, the bargaining power of buyers is high.
True
Input resources in a firm's transformation process can be any factor of production, such as raw materials, labor, equity and debt capital, managerial talent, support services like storage and transport, etc.
True
Input resources of a firm undergo a transformation process to create value for the customer.
True
Mary's upscale boutique in New York creates custom-made dresses for clients. One of them is willing to pay extra to get the order completed urgently. Mary, who was considering a vacation at this time, will stay to complete this project first. This is creating new value for her business.
True
Price competition, advertising battles, rapid innovation and fast obsolescence are all facets of rivalry among existing competitors in an industry.
True
Sustainability of an advantage is the ability of a firm to protect its competitive advantage.
True
The analysis of added value allows managers and analysts to evaluate how much of the value created the firm can appropriate in the form of profits.
True
The response lag drivers for IT project barrier are driven by IT characteristics of the technology (complexity, uniqueness, visibility) and the implementation process (complexity, degree of process change).
True
The value chain model is not a one size fits all model, meaning that it needs to be adapted to the specific needs of the firm.
True
When an IT initiative is being developed as part of a consortium, the leader shares the risks and costs associated with the initiative with competitors that are part of the consortium.
True
e-Bay the online auction site was able to create a dominant presence that was inimitable by its competitors by leveraging strong network effects. These lead both buyers and sellers using the auction website to face huge switching costs if they planned to shift to another platform like Amazon or Yahoo. This situation is an example of a preemption barrier.
True
What is the distinguishing characteristic of technical staff in a typical IT function?
What is the distinguishing characteristic of technical staff in a typical IT function?
One of your friends argues that you only need technical ability to get a job in IS. Is he right or wrong?
Wrong! IT Consulting is a huge industry and you need soft skills like teamwork to be successful
Dropbox.com is a cloud file hosting service providing storage and file synchronization through a specific software. On which architecture is it based?
client server
What is the form of electronic commerce involving two for-profit organizations in the transaction?
business to business (B2B)
Which of the followings are the two main dynamics for rejuvenation and strengthening of barriers of erosion?
capability development, asset-stock accumulation
Company A is implementing a new HR system. The new system will roll out using a direct installation approach. Which of the following is critical to the successful installation of the new HR system?
change management
Company X is charged for networking expenses based on the volume of traffic it initiates. Which of the following IS funding approaches fits this example?
chargeback
The IS function in your organization has developed a new system under which each department in the organization will have to pay per use for networking expenses based on the volume of traffic initiated and the number of concurrent software application licenses run within a department. This is an example of which mode of funding for information systems?
chargeback
Which of the following is not an advantage of custom development of software applications within an organization?
cost savings
Fearing the loss of their jobs, in 2018 Marriott employees went on strike, "asking for procedures to protect workers affected by new technologies and the innovations they spur," as conversational interfaces and facial recognition are increasingly adopted in the hotel industry. The emergence of new technologies often has dramatic impacts on organizations, but in this case, which of the following challenges is most likely being faced by Marriott's employees?
customer and employee self-service
Which of the following are two critical processes that take place during the installation phase?
end-user training and change management
Which of the following is NOT an example of augmented reality (AR)?
facebook and snapchat using face filters for video calling
A NoSQL database adheres to the relation model.
false
Cyber security risk assessment is a process of auditing ONLY the current technological resources, in an effort to map the current state of the art on IS security in the organization.
false
Ethical conduct is often ensured through computer software.
false
Technical feasibility is concerned with taking the system requirements document and producing a robust, secure, and efficient application.
false
When YouTube launched its video-sharing platform in 2005, it had to develop its own IS. This is an example of system selection and development.
false
With the term Web 2.0 we refer to the second coming of the services provided over the Internet. More specifically, Web 2.0 is mostly based on mobility and mobile applications. Question options:
false
Wikipedia, SpaceX, Airbnb, the boring company all have developed capabilities that make their overall value proposition such that competitors are unable to replicate. Key resources of these companies are examples of the following resource based views:
nonsubstitutable
Alibaba's Hema supermarkets represent an innovative platform for testing new retail models. Shopping there is a self-service smartphone-based experience that can be performed both from home or in the store. When in the store, products can be selected and hand-picked and QR-codes allow one to get a great deal of product information. Payment is also cashless and done through Alipay. Hema stores are based on which of the following strategies:
online to offline
Tippy markets are characterized by the presence of a self-reinforcing process by which the strong gets stronger and the weak gets weaker. What is the name of this process?
positive feedback
Which of the following statements is not a part of the "agile manifesto" for software development:
processes and tools over individuals and interactions
Which of the following is not a smart device capability?
security
In a recent article on innovative business models, the Financial Times discussed the opportunity of "rent-à-porter." In particular, the article discussed Panoply, a French startup that through its website, and for a monthly fee allows its customers to dress with the latest fashion collections, straight from the runway. Despite having access to limited information on the overall business, which is in your opinion the most likely revenue model of Panoply?
subscription
What is the revenue model of Netflix?
subscription
Which of the following is not a chargeback funding method?
subsidies
Which requirements represent the degree to which the activities that make up a process need to occur in real time or with minimal delay?
synchronism requirements
The Critical Success Factors methodology is an analytical tool that has been developed to help managers involved in defining what the role of information systems in their organizations should be. Which of the following tools serves the same purpose? Question options:
the Strategic Impact Grid
Which of the following makes decisions on the IS investment approach, portfolio, and risk?
the steering committee
Which of the following malicious codes do not self-replicate?
trojan horses and spyware
A blockchain mechanism like bitcoin does not require the presence of a central authority (e.g. bank) for validation (accuracy and legitimacy) of the transactions.
true
An intrusion threat consists of any situation where an unauthorized attacker gains access to organizational IT resources.
true
An organization is said to have achieved strategic alignment when the priorities and activities of the IS function and the strategic direction of the firm are aligned?
true
During strategic business planning, creating a CTO position is a decision that can be made during the strategic initiatives phase.
true
Firewalls cans be used to decrease internal cyber security threats.
true
Generally, a company should buy instead of make if 80% of the required functionality is present in a COTS solution. This rule holds unless the remaining 20% functionality is of strategic importance to the company. Question options:
true
Online transaction processing (OLTP) systems are designed to provide real-time or near real-time results
true
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions can be classified as COTS applications.
true
The IS vision is a precise statement that captures what the planning team believes should be the role of information systems resources in the organization. Question options:
true
The main objective of information system planning is to clarify how a firm intends to use and manage information system resources to fulfill its strategic objectives.
true
The move from IPv4 to IPv6 was primarily due to shortage in address space for accommodating all the new connected devices.
true
Virtual reality is likely to gain mainstream adoption in the upcoming few years because of its low computational power intensity.
true
With ongoing technological advances, most successful organizations rely on productive partnerships between IT executives and their functional counterparts.
true
Which of the following is a fundamental characteristic of Web 2.0?
user participation
We defined platforms as two-sided networks. Which are the members of the two sides?
users and developers
According to the Resource Based View (RBV), a firm's resources need to be:
valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable
The reason that Amazon.com's distribution network is considered as a sustainable competitive advantage is:
while competitors may be able to replicate Amazon's distribution network, it would be quite difficult, time consuming and expensive for them to do so
