Chapter 2
List and describe the various types of collaboration and social business tools.
- Email and Instant Messaging (IM) - Wikis - Virtual Worlds - Collaboration and Social Business Tools
List and describe the business benefits of collaboration and social business.
1.) Productivity: Problems can be solved more rapidly with fewer errors. 2.) Quality: Errors and corrective actions can be communicated faster. Reduced time delays in design and production. 3.) Innovation: More innovative ideas for products, services, and administration. "Wisdom of crowds." 4.) Customer Service: Customer complaints and issues can be solved faster. 5.) Financial Performance: As a result of all of the above, collaborative firms have superior sales, sales growth, and financial performance.
Define business processes and describe the role they play in organizations.
Business processes are the collection of activities required to produce a product or service. They are supported by flows of material, information, and knowledge among the participants in business processes.
Define collaboration and social business and explain why they have become so important in business today.
Collaboration is working with others to achieve shared and explicit goals. It focuses on task or mission accomplishment. Social business is used to enhance collaboration through the use of social networking platforms and internal corporate social tools. They have become so important is business because of the: changing nature of work, growth of professional work, changing organization of the firm, changing scope of the firm, emphasis on innovation, and changing culture of work and business.
Describe the characteristics of decision- support systems (DSS) and how they benefit businesses.
DSS focus on problems that are unique and rapidly changing, for which the procedure for arriving at a solution may not be fully predefined in advance. They use internal information from TPS and MIS, and often bring information from external sources.
Describe the characteristics of executive support systems (ESS) and explain how these systems differ from DSS.
ESS help senior management make decisions regarding long term trends and strategic issues. They address nonroutine decisions requiring judgement, evaluations, and insight because there is no agreed-on procedure for arriving at a solution. They draw summarized information from internal MIS and DSS.
Explain how enterprise applications improve organizational performance.
Enterprise applications are systems that span functional areas, focus on executing business processes across the firm, and include all levels of management.
Describe the relationship between information systems and business processes.
Information systems automate many steps in business processes that were formally performed manually.
Define enterprise systems, supply chain management systems, customer relationship management systems, and knowledge management systems and describe their business benefits.
Enterprise systems integrate the key internal business processes of a firm into a single software system. Supply chain management systems are used to help manage relationships with suppliers. The ultimate objective is to get the right amount of their products from their source to their point of consumption in the least amount of time and at the lowest cost. Customer relationship management systems are used to help manage their relationships with customers. Benefits include information that helps firms identify, attract, and retain the most profitable customers; provide better service to existing customers, and increase sales. Knowledge management systems enable organizations to better manage processes for capturing and applying knowledge and expertise. Benefits include enterprise-wide systems for managing and distributing documents, graphics, and other digital knowledge objects; systems for creating corporate knowledge directories of employees with special areas of expertise; office systems for distributing knowledge and information; and knowledge work systems to facilitate knowledge creation.
Explain how intranets and extranets help firms integrate information and business processes.
Intranets are internal company websites that are accessible only by employees. They use the same technologies an techniques as the larger Internet. Extranets are company websites that are accessible to authorized vendors and suppliers, and are often used to coordinate movement of supplies to the firm's productions apparatus.
Describe the characteristics of management information systems (MIS) and explain how MIS differs from TPS and from DSS.
MIS are a specific category of information systems serving middle management. MIS provide middle managers with reports on the organization's current performance. MIS summarize and report on the company's basic operations using data supplied by TPS. DSS supports "what-if" analyses rather than a long-term structured analysis inherent in MIS systems. MIS are generally not flexible and provide little analytical capabilities. In contrast, DSS are designed for analytical purposes and are flexible.
Describe a supportive organizational culture and business processes for collaboration.
Once a organization becomes more collaborative, communication moves horizontally through groups of employees, rather than vertically through a hierarchy.
Compare the roles played by programmers, systems analysts, information systems managers, the chief information officer (CIO), the chief security officer (CSO), the chief data officer (CDO), and the chief knowledge officer (CKO).
Programmers: highly trained technical specialists who write the software instructions for computers. Systems Analysts: constitute the principal liaisons between the information systems groups and the rest of the organization. Information Systems Managers: leaders of teams of programmers and analysts, project managers, physical facility managers, telecommunications managers, or database specialists. They are also managers of computer operations and data entry staff. Chief Information Officer (CIO): a senior manager who oversees the use of information technology in the firm. Today's CIOs are expected to have a strong business background as well as information systems expertise and to play a leadership role in exploring new technologies and integrating technology into the firm's business strategy. Chief Security Officer (CSO): in charge of information systems security for the firm and is responsible for enforcing the firm's information security policy. Chief Data Officer (CDO): responsible for enterprise-wide governance and utilization of information to maximize the value the organization can realize from its data. The CDO ensures that the firm is collecting the appropriate data to serve its needs, deploying appropriate technologies for analyzing the data, and using the results to support business decisions. Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO): responsible for the firm's knowledge management program. The CKO helps design programs and systems to find new sources of knowledge or to make better use of existing knowledge in organizational and management processes.
Describe the characteristics of transaction processing systems (TPS) and the roles they play in a business.
TPS keep track of elementary activities and transactions, such as sales, receipts, cash deposits, payroll, credit decisions, and flow of materials in a factory. The principal purpose of systems at this level is to answer routine questions and to track the flow of transactions through the organization.
Describe how the information systems function supports a business.
The information systems department is the formal organizational unit responsible for information technology services. It is responsible for maintaining the hardware, software, data storage, and networks that comprise the firm's IT infrastructure. The department consists of specialists, such as programmers, systems analysts, project leaders, and information systems managers, and is often headed by a CIO.
