MIS Chapters 1-4 (Book)
Give an example of how people impact IS:
Call center that provides help to customers using an advanced customer relationship management system is useless if employees are not adequately trained to deal with customers, find solutions to their problems, and leave the customer feeling that the company cares for them.
Input
Captures or collects raw data from within the organization or from its external environment.
Middle management
Carries out the programs and plans of senior management. Need more specific information on the results of specific functional areas and departments such as production statistics for specific factories or sales revenue for each month or day.
Network
Computers and communications equipment can be connected in networks for sharing voice, data, images, sound, and video. A network links two or more computers to share data or resources, such as a printer.
Describe the problem-solving approach:
Consider information systems and technologies as solutions to a variety of business challenges and problems. Businesses face many challenges and problems, and IS are one major way to solve these problems.
Networking and telecommunications technology
Consisting of both physical devices and software, links the various pieces of hardware and transfers data from one physical location to another.
Information technology (IT)
Consists of all the hardware and software that a firm needs to use in order to achieve its business objectives. This includes computer machines, disk drives, handheld devices, and software such as Windows and other computer programs.
Computer software
Consists of the detailed, preprogrammed instructions that control and coordinate the computer hardware components in an information system.
Data management technology
Consists of the software governing the organization of data on physical storage media.
Systems analysts
Constitute the principle liaisons between the IS groups and the rest of the organization. Their job is to translate business problems and requirements into info requirements and systems.
Processing
Converts raw input into a meaningful form.
Information
Data that have been shaped into a form that is meaningful and useful to human beings. Information systems contain information about significant people, places, and things within an organization or in the environment surrounding it.
Management information systems (MIS)
Designates a specific category of IS serving middle management. Provides middle managers with reports on the organization's current performance. Info used to monitor and control the business and predict future performance.
How are information systems transforming business, and what is their relationship to globalization?
E-mail, online conferencing, smartphones, and tablet computers have become essential tools for conducting business. IS are the foundation of fast-paced supply chains. (1/2)
Portal
ESS presents information through a portal, which uses a Web interface to present integrated personalized business content.
Virtual meeting system
Effort to reduce traveling expenses. Videoconferencing and web conferencing technologies allow companies to conduct virtual meetings for product briefings, training courses, strategy sessions, and even inspirational chats.
Knowledge management systems
Enables organizations to better manage processes for capturing and applying knowledge and expertise. Collects all relevant knowledge and make it available whenever it is needed to improve business processes and management decisions.
Business intelligence
Focuses on delivery information to support management decision making. Data and software tools for organizing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help managers and other enterprise users to make more informed decisions.
Computer literacy
Focuses primarily on knowledge of information technology. This contracts to information systems literacy.
Do most businesses use Internet technology?
For most business firms today, using Internet technology is a business necessity and a competitive advantage.
What exactly is an information system?
From a technical perspective, an IS collects, stores, and disseminates information from an organization's environment and internal operations to support organization function and decision making, communication, coordination, control, analysis, and visualization.
How will my understanding of IS contribute to my future success?
Future employers will hire you because you are able to solve business problems and achieve business objectives. IS contributes to problem solving.
Teams
Have a specific mission that someone in the business assigned to them. Team members need to collaborate on the accomplishment of specific tasks and collectively achieve the team mission.
Telepresence
High-end video conferencing systems feature telepresence technology, and integrated audio and visual environment which allows a person to give the appearance of being present at a location other than his or her true physical location.
Business model
How a company produces, delivers, and sells a product or service to create wealth. IS and IT are a major enabling tool for firms to create entirely new business models.
Give an example of how IS automates business processes:
How a customer receives credit or how a customer is billed is often determined by an information system that incorporates a set of formal business processes.
Why are information systems so essential for running and managing a business today?
IS are a foundation for conducting business today. In many industries, survival and even existence is difficult without extensive use of IT. (1/2)
Why are people important to IS?
IS is useless without skilled people to build and maintain them, and without people who can understand how to use the information in a system to achieve business objectives. People convert IT into useful business solutions.
Chief security officer (CSO) (Sometimes called the chief information security officer)
In charge of IS security for the firm and is responsible for enforcing the firm's information security policy. (1/2)
Digital dashboard
Information can be presented through a digital dashboard, which displays on a single screen graphs and charts of key performance indicators for managing a company, such as the firm's financial performance as measured by working capital, AR, AP, cash flow, and inventory.
How does an information system work?
Information systems transform raw date into useful information through 3 basic activities: input, processing, and output. From a business perspective, an IS provides a solution to a problem or challenge facing a firm and represents a combination of people, organization, and technology elements.
Intranets
Internal users, providing the connectivity to link different systems and networks within the firm. Internal corporate networks based on internet technology. (Those in the organization).
Why is knowing how computers and computer programs work important?
Knowing how computers and computer programs work is important in designing solutions to organizational problems, but computers are only part of information system. To fully understand information systems you need information systems literacy.
Information system managers
Leaders of teams of programmers and analysts, project managers, physical facility managers, telecommunications managers, or database specialists. Managers of computer operations and data entry staff.
Business processes
Logically related tasks and behaviors for accomplishing work. Developing a new product, fulfilling and order, & hiring a new employee are examples of business processes. IS automates many business processes.
What 4 elements are involved in critical thinking:
Maintaining doubt and suspending judgement. Being aware of different perspectives. Testing alternatives and letting experience guide. And being aware of organizational and personal limitation.
Senior management
Makes long-range strategic decisions about products and services as well as ensures financial performance of the firm. Needs summary information that can quickly inform them about overall performance of the firm such as gross sales revenue and overall profitability.
How does IT help managers?
Managers make sense out of the many situations faced by organizations, make decisions, etc. They must create new products and services. IT plays a role in helping managers develop novel solutions to a broad range of problems.
What are functional areas?
Manufacturing an production, sales and marketing, finance and accounting, and human resources. Many business processes are tied to a specific functional area. Others cross many functional areas and require coordination across departments.
Cyberlockers
Online file-sharing services that allow users to upload files to secure online storage sites from which the files can be shared with others. Dropbox is a popular one.
Transaction processing systems (TPS)
Operational managers need systems that track transactions of the organization such as sales, receipts, cash deposits, payroll, etc. TPS provides this kind of info. It is a computerized system that performs and records the daily routine transactions necessary to conduct business.
Feedback
Output that is returned to appropriate members of the organization to help them evaluate or correct the input stage
Electronic commerce (E-commerce)
Part of e-business that deals with the buying and selling of goods and services over the Internet. Also encompasses activities supporting those market transactions such as advertising, marketing, customer support, security, delivery, and payment.
Extranets
Private intranets extended to authorized users outside the organization. Firms use this technology to coordinate their activities with other firms for making purchases, collaborating on design, and performing other inter-organizational work.
How will a 4 step method for business problem solving help you solve information system related problems?
Problem identification involves understanding what kind of problem is being presented, and identifying people, organizational, and technology factors. Solution design involves designing several alternative solutions to the problem that has been identified. (1/3)
E-government
Refers to the application of the Internet and networking technologies to digitally enable government and public sector agencies' relationships with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.
Change management
Refers to the many techniques used to bring about successful change in a business. Nearly all IS require changes in the firm's business processes and changes in what employees do everyday. This is important in implementation.
Electronic business (E-business)
Refers to the use of digital technology and the Internet to execute the major business processes in the enterprise. Includes activities for the internal management of the firm and for coordination with suppliers and other business partners.
End users
Representatives of departments outside the IS group for whom applications are developed. The users are playing increasingly large roles in the design and development of IS.
Critical thinking
Resist the tendency to accept existing definitions of any problem. Critical thinking is the sustained suspension of judgement with an awareness of multiple perspectives and alternatives. Offers protection against incorrect results.
Chief privacy officer (CPO)
Responsible for ensuring that the company complies with existing data privacy laws.
Operational management
Responsible for monitoring daily activities of the business. Need transaction level info such as number of parts in inventory each day.
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.
Executive support systems (ESS)
Senior management needs a system that can focus on strategic issues and long-run trends. ESS helps senior management make these decisions by addressing non-routine decisions requiring judgement, evaluation, and insight. ESS presents graphs and data from many sources.
Describe the major factors that cause problems in the business world:
Sometimes problems are straightforward; however, a number of major factors are simultaneously involved in most problems. These major factors include: organization, technology, and people.
Programmers
Specialists that are highly trained technical specialists who write software instructions for computers.
Data
Streams of raw facts representing events occurring in organizations or the physical environment before they have been organized and arranged into a form that people can understand and use.
Knowledge workers
Such as engineers, scientists, or architects, design products or services and create new knowledge for the firm. Need access to external scientific databases or internal databases with organizational knowledge.
Data workers
Such as secretaries or clerks, assist with administrative work at all levels of the firm.
Inter-organizational systems
Supply chain management systems are one type of inter-organizational system because they automate the flow of info across organizational boundaries. These systems make it possible for firms to link electronically to customers and to outsource their work to other companies.
Decision-support systems (DSS)
Supports non-routine decision making. Focuses on problems that are unique and rapidly changing, for which the procedure for arriving at a solution may not be fully predefined in advance.
Enterprise applications
Systems that span functional areas, focus on executing business processes across the business firm, and include all levels of management. Helps businesses become more flexible and productive by coordinating their business processes more closely.
What are the 3 dimensions of information systems?
The 3 dimensions of information systems are organizations, people, and information technology.
Give an example of how culture is embedded in IS:
The UPS concern with placing service to the customer first is an aspect of its organization culture that can be found in the company's package tracking systems.
Information systems literacy
The broader understanding of IS - being aware of the org, people, and IT dimensions of systems and their power to provide solutions to challenges and problems in the business environment. Includes a behavioral as well as a technical approach to studying IS.
Information systems department
The formal organization unit responsible for IT services. The IS department is responsible for maintaining the hardware, software, data storage, and networks that comprise the firm's IT infrastructure.
Chief information officer (CIO)
The informations systems department is headed by the CIO. The CIO is a senior manager who oversees the use of info technology in the firm. They are expected to have a strong business background as well as information systems expertise.
What are an information systems people, organization, and technology components?
The people dimension involves issues such as training, job attitudes, and management behavior. The technology dimension consists of computer hardware, software, data management technology, and networking/telecommunications technology, including the Internet. (1/2)
Computer hardware
The physical equipment used for input, processing, and output activities in an information system. Consists of computers; various input, output, and storage devices; and telecommunications devices that link computers together.
Social business
The use of social networking platforms to engage employees, customers, and suppliers. The goal of social business is to deepen interactions with groups inside and outside the firm to expedite and enhance information-sharing, innovation, and decision-making.
Internet
The world's largest and most widely used network. A global network of networks that uses universal standards to connect millions of different networks over 230 countries. (1/2)
Management information systems (MIS)
This field of study tries to achieve a broader information systems literacy. MIS deals with behavioral issues as well as technical issues surrounding the development, use, and impact of information systems used by managers and employees in the firm.
What three activities in an information system produce the information that organizations need to make decisions, control operations, analyze problems, and create new products or services?
Three activities in an information system produce the information that organizations need to make decisions, control operations, analyze problems, and create new products or services. These activities are input, processing, and output.
Output
Transfers the processed information to the people who will use it or to the activities for which it will be used.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems
Used to help manage relationships with customers. Provides info to coordinate all the business processes that deal with customers in sales, marketing, and service to optimize revenue, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.
Supply chain management (SCM)
Used to help manage relationships with suppliers. (1/2)
Enterprise systems also known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems
Used to integrate business processes in manufacturing and production, financing and accounting, sales and marketing, and human resources into a single software system. Comprehensive data repository.
Collaboration
Working with others to achieve shared and explicit goals. Collaboration focuses on task or mission accomplishment and usually takes place in a business or other organization and between businesses.
Evaluation and choice entails selecting the best solution, taking into account its cost and the available resources and skills in the business. Implementation of an IS solution entails purchasing or building hardware and software, testing the software, (2/3)
providing employees with training and documentation, managing change as the system is introduced into the organization, and measuring the outcome. Problem solving requires critical thinking in which one suspends judgement to consider multiple perspectives and alternatives. (3/3)
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Businesses use IS to achieve 6 major objectives: operational excellence; new products, services, and business models; customer/supplier intimacy; improved decision making; competitive advantage; and day-to-day survival. (2/2)
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CSO is responsible for educating and training users and IS specialists about security, keeping management aware of security threats and breakdowns, and maintaining the tools and policies chosen to implement security. (2/2)
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SCM helps suppliers, purchasing firms, distributors, and logistics companies share information about orders, production, inventory levels, and delivery of products and services so that they can source, produce, and deliver goods and service efficiently. (2/2)
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The IT infrastructure provides the foundation, or platform, on which the firm can build its specific information systems. (2/2)
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The Internet allows businesses to buy, sell, advertise, and solicit customer feedback online. The Internet has stimulated globalization by dramatically reducing the costs of producing, buying, and selling goods on a global scale. (2/2)
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The Internet has created a new universal technology platform on which to build new products, services, strategies, and business models. (2/2)
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The organization dimension involves issues such as the organization's hierarchy, functional specialties, business processes, culture, and political interest groups. (2/2)
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skills in information analysis and business intelligence; sensitivity to the ethical, social, and legal issues raised by systems; and the ability to work with technology specialists and other business professionals in designing and building systems. (2/2)
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What major features of a business are important for understanding the role of information systems?
A business is a formal complex organization producing products or services for a profit. (1/3)
Business
A formal organization whose aim is to produce products or provide services for a profit - that is, to sell products at a price greater than the cost of production.
Culture
A fundamental set of assumptions, values, and ways of doing things that has been accepted by most of its members. Each organization has a unique culture and culture can always be found embedded in its IS.
Business processes
A logically related set of activities that define how specific business tasks are performed. Refers to unique ways in which work, information, and knowledge are coordinated in a specific organization. Every business can be seen as a collection of business processes.
World Wide Web
A service provided by the Internet that uses universally accepted standards for storing, retrieving, formatting, and displaying information in a page format on the Internet.
Information system (IS)
A set of interrelated components that collect, or retrieve; process; store; and distribute information to support decision making, coordinating, and control in an organization. Helps managers analyze problems, visualize complex subjects, and create new products.
Production or service workers
Actually produce the product and deliver the service. Need access to info from production machines. Need access to customer records in order to take orders & answer questions.
Information technology infrastructure
All of these technologies, along with the people required to run and manage them represent resources that can be shared throughout the organization and constitute the firm's IT infrastructure. (1/2)
How will information systems affect business careers, and what information system skills and knowledge are essential?
Business careers in accounting, finance, marketing, operations management, management and human resources, and information systems all will need an understanding of how IS help firms achieve major business objectives; an appreciation of the central role of databases; (1/2)
What are the 4 steps in problem solving:
Business problem solving is a 4 step process: problem identification, solution design, solution evaluation and choice, and implementation. Problem solving is a process, it isn't over at some point.
