Midterm-Management Information System
Ch-4: Define the basic concepts of responsibility, accountability, and liability as applied to ethical decisions. How are these concepts related?
Responsibility is the first key element of ethical action. Responsibility means that an individual, group, or organization accepts the potential costs, duties, and obligations for decisions made. Accountability is a feature of systems and social institutions. It means that mechanisms are in place to determine who took responsible action; i.e., who is responsible for the action. Liability is a feature of political systems in which a body of law is in place that permits individuals to recover the damages done to them by others. These concepts are related as follows: I will assume the blame or benefit for the actions I take (responsibility); this blame or benefit accrues to me through the requirement that I be able to explain why I have taken the actions I have (accountability) for actions traceable to me by defined mechanisms in the organization, and if those actions result in harm to another, I will be held by law to reparations for those actions (liability).
Ch-3: Compare and contrast the Value Chain model and the Value Web model.
The Value Chain model forms the basis for the Value Web model. Value chain model highlights specific activities in the business where competitive strategies and information systems will have the greatest impact. The model views the firm as a series of primary and support activities that add value to a firm's products or services. Primary activities are directly related to production and distribution of the firm's goods and services, whereas support activities make the delivery of primary activities possible for instance administrative and management activities that include hiring staff. A firm's value chain can be linked to the value chains of its suppliers, distributors, and customers through information technology (sourcing and procurement systems and customer relations systems). The Value chain model provides insights for a company to start looking into applying industry standards to its performance measures. Just as food web in nature, a combination of many value chains create a value web. Value Webs are a collection of independent firms that use information technology to coordinate their value chain to produce a product or service for a market collectively. Value Webs consists of information systems that enhance competitiveness at the industry level by promoting the use of standards and industry-wide consortia, and by enabling businesses to work more efficiently with their value partners. For instance Amazon as Value web player, endeavors to build systems that: Make it easy for suppliers to display their goods in open stores on the Amazon website. Make it easy for customers to pay for goods Develop systems that coordinate ship of goods to customers Develop a shipment tracking system for customers
Ch-1: Identify the basic activities of information systems. How are these basic activities important in supporting a modern business?
The three basic activities in an information system produce the information that organizations need to make decisions, control operations, analyze problems and create new products or services. They are input, processing, and output, produce the information organizations need. Feedback is output returned to appropriate people or activities in the organization to evaluate and refine the input. Environmental actors, such as customers, suppliers, competitors, stockholders and regulatory agencies, interact with the organization and its information systems.
Ch-5: Discuss the major components of IT infrastructure.
1. Computer Hardware Platforms - includes mainframes, servers, PCs, tablets and smartphones. 2. Operating System Platforms - the leading operating systems in business are Windows, Unix, and Linux. Operating systems are used to manage the resources and activities of the computer. 3. Enterprise Software Applications - the largest providers include SAP and Oracle. Enterprise applications span functional areas and focus on executing business processes across the business firm. 4. Data Management and Storage - responsible for organizing and managing the firm's data so that they can be efficiently accessed and used. Leading providers are IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Sybase. 5. Networking/Telecommunications Platforms - most local area networks use the TCP/IP protocol suite as a standard. Cisco and Juniper networks are leaders in network platforms. AT&T and Verizon are leaders in telecommunication providers. 6. Internet Platforms - include hardware, software and management services to support a firms website. 7. Consulting and System Integration Services - ensuring the new infrastructure works with the firm's older legacy systems.
Ch-1: Define information systems from 1) the technical perspective, and 2) the business perspective.
1. Technical perspective: *) From a technical perspective, an information system collects, stores, and disseminates information from an organization's environment and internal operations to support organizational functions and decision making, communication, coordination, control, analysis, and visualization. Information systems transform raw data into useful information through three basic activities: input, processing, and output. 2. The business perspective: From a business perspective, an information system provides a solution to a problem or challenge facing a firm and represents a combination of management, organization, and technology elements. The management dimension of information systems involves issues such as leadership, strategy, and management behavior. The technology dimension consists of computer hardware, software, data management technology, and networking/telecommunications technology (including the Internet). The organization dimension of information systems involves issues such as the organization's hierarchy, functional specialties, business processes, culture, and political interest groups.
Ch-3: Define a strategic information system. Give two examples of these systems.
A Strategic Information System (SIS) is a system that helps companies change their business strategy and structure. It is typically utilized to speed up the reaction time to environmental changes and aid it in achieving a competitive advantage. Examples 1.Database systems with the "data mining" capabilities to make the best use of available corporate information for marketing, production, promotion, and innovation. The SIS systems also facilitate identification of the data collection strategies to help optimize database marketing opportunities 2.Decision support systems that enable to develop a strategic approach to align Information Systems (IS) with an organizations business strategies. >>>>>>>comments: In addition, successful usage of strategic information systems to stay competitive is challenging and requires coordination of technology, organizations, and management. About half of a business firm's profits can be explained by the alignment of IT with its business goals.
Ch-6: What types of relationships are possible in a relational database? Describe and give an example of each.
A one-to-one relationship occurs when each record in one table has only one related record in a second table. An example might be a table of salespeople and a separate table of company cars. Each salesperson can only have one car, or be related to the one car in the database. A one-to-many relationship occurs when a record in one table has many related records in a second table. An example might be a table of salespeople and clients. Each salesperson may have several clients. A many-to-many relationship occurs when records in one table have many related records in a second table, and the records in the second table have many related records in the first table. An example might be a clients table and a products table. Clients may buy more than one product, and products are sold to more than one client.
Ch-4: Although protecting personal privacy and intellectual property on the Internet are now in the spotlight, there are other pressing ethical issues raised by the widespread use of information systems. List and describe at least two of these issues. Which do you think is the most serious? Why? Support your answer.
Accountability and control: Who is to be held responsible and accountable for the harm to individuals by information systems? In this case, responsibility means one of the parties, system owner or distributor etc. must take responsibility for any harm or damages caused to the users or customers. On the other hand, accountability brings in the legal or social institutions system to hold liable the offendant. However, to express my fears at this point, the social and legal system evolve so slowly compared the rate of evolution of information systems. With that said majority of information systems are self-regulating thus making it easy for information technology companies to cause harm to the society and go unpunished. Currently, Facebook is in question. Although software is taking of certain services and task, it is still difficult to hold software services liable for failure or injury. Software is very different from books but still treated the same for liability. Software users may develop expectations of infallibility about software; software is less easily inspected than a book, and it is more difficult to compare with other software products for quality; software claims actually to perform a task rather than describe a task, as a book does; and people come to depend on services essentially based on software. Given this centrality of software to everyday life, the chances are excellent that liability law will extend its reach to include software even when the software merely provides an information service. But in the meanwhile, software claims are difficult to justify or prove. information system quality: The central quality-relatedethical issue that information systems raise is at what point should I release software or services for consumption by others? At what point can I conclude that my software or service achieves an economically and technologically adequate level of quality? What am I obligated to know about the quality of my software, its procedures for testing, and its operational characteristics? The leading quality-related social issue deals with expectations: As a society, do we want to encourage people to believe that systems are infallible, that data errors are impossible? By heightening awareness of system failure, do we inhibit the development of all systems, which in the end contribute to socialwell-being?The leadingquality-relatedpolitical issue concerns the laws of responsibility and accountability, what they should be, and how they should be applied.
Ch-6: Discuss the three logical data models, giving advantages and disadvantages of each.
Aims to identify all entities that have data, then defines a relationship between these entities. Data models can be conceptual, logical or physical. Conceptual models are used to explore high level business concepts. Logical models are used to explore domain concepts. Physical models are used to explore database design.
Ch-4: Discuss how technology advances are two-edged swords in society. Give an example as the basis for your answer.
Electronic voting machines can be seen as beneficial by making voting easy to accomplish and tabulate. However, it may be easier to tamper with electronic voting machines than with countable paper ballots. In terms of information rights, it seems possible that methods could be set up to determine how an individual has voted and to store and disseminate this knowledge. Manufacturers of voting machines claim property rights to the voting software, which means that if the software is protected from inspection, there is no regulation in how the software operates or how accurate it is. In terms of accountability and control, if an electronic voting system malfunctions, will it be the responsibility of the government, of the company manufacturing the machines or software, or the programmers who programmed the software? The dimension of system quality raises questions of how the level of accuracy of the machines is to be judged and what level is acceptable? In terms of quality of life, while it may make voting easier and quicker, does the vulnerability to abuse of these systems pose a threat to the democratic principle of one person, one vote? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Technology is a two-edged sword in that it allows for better communication, faster travel, more productivity, and many other things which we would generally consider good, but it also allows for things that are bad in that it creates more effective ways of killing, of damaging the environment, of invading privacy, of influencing people, and changing the way we interact with each other and the environment. A good example are smartphones: they do many things that are good such as allowing us to keep in touch with each other, look up any information we need to from anywhere at any time, and can provide entertainment in moments of ennui; however, they can also cause poor posture from constantly looking at a screen, eye strain, inattentiveness to the environment, can cause addiction as people need their phone like they do their fix, and cause people to stop thinking deeply about anything as they spend all their time either texting, snapping, or the many other mindless and generally depthless things one does with a phone.
Ch-3: Discuss Porter's Competitive Forces model, theory and application.
In Porter's competitive forces model, the strategic position of the firm, and its strategies are determined by competition with its traditional direct competitors, but they are also greatly affected by new market entrants, substitute products and services, suppliers, and customers. Information systems help companies counteract competitive forces by maintaining low costs (e.g Walmart's legendary inventory replenishing system), differentiating products or services (e.g Sneaker Customisation at Nike through NIKEiD-Program on its website), focusing on market niche (e.g Hilton Hotel giving incentives to their most profitable clients-CRM data analysis software their hotel services), strengthening ties with customers and suppliers, and increasing barriers to market entry with high levels of operational excellence (Amazon increase switching costs and customer intimacy through keeping purchase preferences and suggesting related products in addition to incetives through Amazon prime).
Ch-1: Discuss the statement, "Often what a business can do is determined by what the information systems will allow it to do." (See Figure 1-2 and related discussion).
In contemporary systems, there is growing interdependence between a firm's information systems and its business capabilities. Change in strategy, rules, and businesses processes increasingly require a change in hardware software, databases, and the telecommunications. often what the organization would like to do depends on what its systems will permit it to do.
Ch-1: Information systems are more than just computers. Discuss.
Information technology has three dimensions; organizational, management and technology; >>Organization: The organization dimension of information systems involves issues such as the organization's hierarchy, functional specialties, business processes, culture, and political interest groups. >>Management: The management dimension of information systems involves setting organizational strategies, allocating human and financial resources, creating new products and services and re-creating the organization if necessary. >>Technology: The technology dimension consists of computer hardware, software, data management technology, and networking/telecommunications technology
Ch-4: How have technology trends changed business ethics? Discuss at least three key technology trends that raise ethical issues. Give an example of an ethical or moral impact connected to each one.
Key technology trends include the following: 1. Computer power doubling every 18 months: ethical impact—because more organizations depend on computer systems for critical operations, these systems are vulnerable to computer crime and computer abuse; 2. Data storage costs are rapidly declining: ethical impact—it is easy to maintain detailed databases on individuals—who has access to and control of these databases?; 3. Data analysis advances: ethical impact—vast databases full of individual information may be used to develop detailed profiles of individual behavior; and 4. Networking advances and the Internet: ethical impact—it is easy to copy data from one location to another. Who owns data? How can ownership be protected?
Ch-2: Compare and contrast MIS and DSS systems. Why is it necessary for middle-management to have support from two different types of systems?
Middle management needs systems to help with monitoring, controlling, decision-making. MIS and DSS are routinely used by managers to be on top of there roles and sustaining competitive advantage for the overall organization. Decision-support systems (DSS) support nonroutine decision-making whereas MIS provide answers to routine questions that have been specified in advance and have a predefined procedure for answering them. These two systems are complementary providing useful business intelligence to managers MIS systems highly structured and not flexible and have little analytical capability whereas DSS offer sophisticated analytical models and data analysis tools to support semistructured and unstructured decision-making activities, thus very flexible. MIS are designed to consolidate and compress information from TPS thus contain strictly internal organization information, on the other hand, DSS combine data from TPS, MIS, and external sources, in condensed form, allowing managers to explore versatile functions like "what-if" analysis. MIS Information is great for predefine processes however not all situation are predetermined, DSS come in handy for managers when they are dealing with situations or problems that are unique and rapidly changing where procedures for arriving at a solution may not be fully predefined.
Ch-5: Compare and contrast grid computing, edge computing, on-demand computing, and autonomic computing.
Multiple independent computing clusters which act like a "grid" because they are composed of resource nodes not located within a single administrative domain. Offering online computation or storage as a metered commercial service, known as utility computing, computing on demand, or cloud computing. The creation of a "virtual supercomputer" by using spare computing resources within an organization. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ On-demand computing (ODC) is a computing and communications infrastructure that facilitates flexible business service delivery and provides the basis for: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Autonomic computing. Fast response to external business-affecting changes. Adaptive business processes to protect revenues and contain costs. Complex interactions inside and outside of organizational boundaries. Resilience against external threats such as viruses, intrusions, and power outages Autonomic computing is a computer's ability to manage itself automatically through adaptive technologies that further computing capabilities and cut down on the time required by computer professionals to resolve system difficulties and other maintenance such as software updates
Ch-6: What are the fundamental concepts of a data warehouse? For what business applications are they used? What is data mining?
Offline Operational Databases: Initial stage of data warehousing, where the development of an operational system to an off-line server is done by simply copying the databases. Offline Data Warehouse: In this stage the data warehouses are updated regularly using the source data. Real Time Data Warehouse: Data warehouses are updated for every transaction performed on the source data. Integrated Data Warehouse: Data warehouses are updated when a transaction is performed and also generates transactions which are passed back to the source online data.
Ch-2 As a manager, persuade top management that migrating to an enterprise system is necessary for the company. Address the costs as well as the benefits
Organizations operate in an increasingly competitive and global environment. A successful organization focuses on the efficient execution of its processes, customer service, and the speed to market. Managment must have a consolidated approach or systems to help with monitoring, controlling and providing evidence for decision-making. Management must have access to information about operations across different functions, levels, and business units and the only way to achieve this is to migrate to an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) an application that allows an organization to exchange information among its functional areas efficiently. ERP systems are designed to cover most of the business process that includes Supply Chain Management Systems (SCM), Customer Relations Management System (CRM) and Knowledgement Systems. Migrating to an integrated information system brings with the following advantages: ERP allows for a consistent workflow from one function to another to ensure a smooth transition and quicker completion of the processes. This also ensures that all the inter-departmental activities on the critical path are appropriately tracked, and none of them is missed out. This helps in optimizing the performance at the unit level and allocating resources to critical areas. Thus reducing, cost of production through implementing efficiency strategies. The result of implementing an ERP system is a unified and single reporting system to analyze information in real-time, across all functional units. Decisions are taken in real time thus reducing losses escalation. ERP system implements a database system in the back end to store all the information required by the ERP system; it enables centralized storage and back-up of all enterprise data. Thus, ERP systems are more reliable as centralized security policies and procedures can be applied to them and all the transactions that happen via the systems can be tracked and retrieved if necessary. ERP systems present better company-wide visibility and hence enable better and faster collaboration across all the departments ERP systems make it easier for order tracking, inventory tracking, revenue tracking, sales forecasting and other related activities. Although ERP systems present a competitive edge if well implemented; It comes a hefty time, and financial investment at the beginning and returns on investment might not be realized in the short term. However, never the less, just like the wild beast migration in Kenya, those beasts (Organisations) that survive the intricacies of migration make to the greener pastures (Growth).
Ch-5: What is scalability? Why is it essential to the success of the modern business firm?
Scalability refers to the ability of a computer, product, or system to expand to serve a large number of users without breaking down. Scalability is essential to the success of modern business firms because new applications, mergers and acquisitions, and changes in business volume all affect computer workload and must be considered when planning hardware capacity. Investing in a solution upfront that is scalable can handle long-term growth and increased technology needs of a firm, saving time an money.
Ch-5: Explain why standards are so important in information technology? What standards have been important for the growth of Internet technologies?
Standards are important because they result in different manufacturers creating products that can be used either with each other or to communicate with each other. Technology standards are specifications that establish the compatibility of products and the ability to communicate in a network. Technology standards unleash powerful economies of scale and result in price declines as manufacturers focus on the products built to a single standard. Without these economies of scale, computing of any sort would be far more expensive than is currently the case. The standards that have been important for the growth of the Internet, including TCP/IP as a networking standard to tie their disparate networks together. And WWW standards Standards for storing, retrieving, formatting, and displaying information on a worldwide web of electronic pages incorporating text, graphics, audio, and video enables the creation of a global repository of billions of web pages.
Ch-4: List and describe the five moral dimensions that are involved in political, social, and ethical issues. Which do you think will be the most difficult for society to deal with? Support your opinion.
The five moral dimensions are: 1. Information rights and obligations. What rights do individuals and organizations have with respect to information pertaining to them? 2. Property rights. How can intellectual property rights be protected when it is so easy to copy digital materials? 3. Accountability and control. Who will be held accountable and liable for the harm done to individual and collective information and property rights? 4. System quality. What standards of data and system quality should we demand to protect individual rights and the safety of society? 5. Quality of life. What values should be preserved? What institutions must we protect? What cultural values can be harmed? Individual answers for determining the most difficult for society to deal with will vary.A common example for developing countries is deculturization: Quality of life issues will be most difficult for society to deal with in societies that are comprised of many different cultural and ethnic groups. It is difficult to regulate concerns that are based on subjective values.
Ch-3: What are three information system strategies for dealing with competitive forces? Discuss and give examples.
The four generic strategies, each of which is often enabled by using information technology and systems include: Low-cost leadership: Lowest operational costs and the lowest prices. Product differentiation: Enable new products and services, or greatly change the customer convenience in using existing products and services. Focus on market niche: Enable a specific market focus and serve this narrow target market better than competitors. Strengthen customer and suppliers: Tighten linkages with suppliers and develop intimacy with customers. Describe how information systems can support each of these competitive strategies and give examples. Low-cost leadership: Use information systems to improve inventory management, supply management, and create efficient customer response systems. Example: Wal-Mart. Product differentiation: Use information systems to create products and services that are customized and personalized to fit the precise specifications of individual customers. Example: Google, eBay, Apple, Lands' End. Focus on market niche: Use information systems to produce and analyze data for finely tuned sales and marketing techniques. Analyze customer buying patterns, tastes, and preferences closely in order to efficiently pitch advertising and marketing campaigns to smaller target markets. Example: Hilton Hotels, Harrah's.
Ch-2: Describe and discuss the four major types of information systems (TPS, MIS, DSS, ESS). Be sure to include: how each system supports the functions of management; at what level the systems function; the primary input, processing, output, etc.; and give an example of each.
Transaction Processing Systems (TPS): These are information systems that track the flow of the daily routine transactions necessary to conduct business for instance payroll or order processing. TPS is a major source of data for other systems, especially MIS and DSS. TPS records information in a database to provide users access to the information via queries and/or reports.An inventory control system, a Payroll system or Sales Order processing system. Management Information Systems (MIS) produce reports serving middle management by condensing information from transactional Processing Systems. An MIS would, for instance, provide the quarterly total of out-patients who visited a hospital. MIS provides the Middle-level Management controlling and monitoring capabilities with reports and access to the organization's current performance, check historical records and predict future performances.MIS provide DBMS (Database management system) required to integrate with databases of the different departments. Decision Support Systems (DSS): Support management decisions that are unique and rapidly changing using advanced analytical models. DSS often use internal information from MIS and TPS in combination with external information. DSS is used mainly business analysists or managers who what sophisticated approaches that include data mining. Executive Support Systems (ESS): These are systems that support for senior management that provides data in the form of graphs, charts, and dashboards delivered via portals using many sources of internal and external info. ESS are used to make nonroutine decisions by senior management. ESS primarily receive data from lower level systems. MIS supply ESS with summarized information. They have limited analytical capabilities but can draw on sophisticated graphics software and many sources of internal and external information.
Ch-5: Briefly explain why corporations are increasingly interested in using Unix or Linux for their operating system.
Unix and Linux are much less expensive than mainframe operating systems. Linux is available in many free versions as well as inexpensive versions for commercial use. One major benefit of Linux is that it works on all the major hardware platforms. Many other benefits include cost reduction, scalability, integration, and it is very reliable. With the ever changing platforms used to access data, it is very important that companies are able to utilize both desktop and mobile operations. Linux is embedded in many mobile devices already.
