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c. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Integrates the various functional ISs via a
common database
d. Transaction Processing System (TPS) Supports the monitoring, collection, storage
and processing of data from the orgs basic business transactions
e. Inter-organizational Information Systems (IOSs) ISs that connect two or more
organizations. E.g. Supply chain management, E-commerce systems
f. Office Automation Systems (OASs) These support the clerical staff, low and middle
mgmt. and knowledge workers
g. Business Intelligence (BI) systems refers to the information that is available for the
enterprise to make decisions on. Provide computer based support for complex, nonroutine decisions, primarily for middle managers and knowledge workers. Allow
users to perform their own data analysis
h. Expert systems (ES) Attempt to duplicate the work of human experts by applying
reasoning capabilities, knowledge and expertise in a specific domain
i. Dashboards Provide rapid access to timely and structured info. Applicable to all
managerial levels
8. Data Warehouse - A data warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant and nonvolatile collection of data in support of management's decision making process. The aspects
are:
a. Subject oriented can be used to analyse a particular subject area
b. Integrated Integrates data from various sources
c. Time-variant It retains historical data and adds recent data as time progresses
d. Non-volatile Once data is entered, it will not change
9. Importance of IS to organizations They are basically four-fold:
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doesnt specify tasks or sequences and accepts data in all formats. E.g. E-mail, IM.
Main advantages:
i. Facilitates collaboration
ii. Allows expression of judgements and opinions
iii. Fosters emergence, which is the appearance of high level patterns because
of low-level interactions
c. Enterprise IT The IT applications that companies adopt to restructure interactions
among groups of employees or with business partners. These impose complements
all over the organization, defines tasks and sequences and accepts data only in
specific formats. E.g. ERP software. Main advantages:
i. Redesign business processes
ii. Standardize work flows
iii. Monitor activities and events efficiently
Managing the Three worlds of IT effectively There are three steps for managers:
a. They must select the IT applications that will deliver the organizational capabilities
they desire
b. They must lead adoption efforts that result in the creation of complements for the
technologies
c. They must shape the exploitation of IT by ensuring that technologies, capabilities
and complements stay aligned
Electronic Commerce EC describes the process of buying, selling, transferring or
exchanging products ,services or information via computer netwroks
Electronic business This is a broader concept referring to e-commerce as well as servicing
customers, collaborating with business partners and performing e-transactions within an
organization
Degree of digitization Refers to the extent to which commerce has been transformed from
physical to digital. There are three types of orgs:
a. Bricks and mortar Purely physical presence
b. Virtual All aspects are digital
c. Clicks and mortar All other combos of digital and physical dimensions
Types of EC These are:
a. B2C
b. B2B
c. C2C Major strategies for conducting C2C on the Web are auctions and classified
ads
d. B2E - Org uses EC internally to provide information and services to employees
e. E-government Use of Internet tech in general and EC in particular to deliver info
and public services to citizens. AKA G2C
f. Mobile commerce EC done entirely in a wireless environment
EC business models and mechanisms The major types are:
a. Electronic catalogues Consist of a product database, directory, search mechanism
and a presentation function
b. Auction A competitive process in which bids are solicited. E-auctions broaden
customer base and shorten cycle time. Two major types:
i. Forward Sellers place items at sites for auction and buyers bid
continuously for them. Highest bidders win
ii. Reverse Buyer posts a request for quotation and suppliers submit bid.
Lowest bidder wins, cetus paribus
c. IT is being used to increase the functionality and flexibility of processes and systems,
integrate sales channels, improve performance of knowledge workers, attract and
retain top talent, suppliers and customers
d. The time taken for orgs to successfully reorient themselves in the fast changing
environment limits the speed of change
Phase 2
Organizational Learning
and Adaptation
Stagnation
Block A
Success
Narrowly
focused and
not marketed
Phase 3
Rationalization and
Continuous Evolution
Success
Stagnation
Block B
Too efficiency
dominated
Stagnation
Block C
Widespread Technology
Transfer
Source: Applegate, Lynda M., Robert D. Austin, and F. Warren McFarlan., Corporate Information Strategy and Management. Burr Ridge, IL: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2002.
Introduction Figure I-5
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that gives the need of society precedence over an individuals right to privacy. Rapid
advances in IT has enabled the creation of digital dossiers, an electronic description of you
and your habits. The process is called profiling. Many comps now prepare such dossiers and
sell them to law enforcers and companies that want to know their customers or employees
better. Other issues are:
a. Electronic surveillance Tracking peoples activities with the help of computers has
become a major issue
b. Personal info in databases This raises the question of the accuracy of the data,
their mode of use, and how secure the storage is
c. Information on social networks This info may be offensive or even false. Policing
them is a challenge
d. Privacy cods and policies These are guidelines to protect the privacy of customers
or employees. Many companies use the opt-out model which permits info collection
until the customer specifically requests it to stop. Opt-in models are the opposite
e. Absence of uniform standards for privacy protection in various countries
26. IS for operational excellence and Customer Intimacy Companies have three fundamental
business strategies:
a. Operational excellence - providing customers with reliable products and services at
competitive prices, delivered with minimal inconvenience
b. Customer Intimacy - means segmenting and targeting markets precisely and then
tailoring offerings to match exactly the demands of those niches
c. Product Leadership - means offering customers leading edge products that
consistently enhance the customers use or application of the product, thereby
making its rivals goods obsolete
Companies cant compete on all three fronts. OE means cutting out all non-essential costs
whereas CI implies heavy spending to get to know customers just a bit better. Masters of
Two are companies that excel on both fronts. The key is to focus on a specific group of
customers, get to know them better than others and tailor operations to cater to them
better at lower costs. IS helps in identifying such groups and also cutting the flab out of
operations
27. Enterprise Applications These are of various types, viz.
a. Transaction Processing System Monitor, collect, store and process data generated
from all business transactions. Usually source data automation is used to
automatically capture and record transaction data. This data is either processed in
batches or Online (as soon as they occur
b. Functional Area Information Systems These provide info primarily to low and midlevel managers in the various functional areas
28. Enterprise Resource Planning Integrates the planning, management and use of all of an
organizations resources. Their characteristics are:
a. It integrates all functional areas and enables seamless information transfer across
them. SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft are the main ERP software vendors
b. Early ERP systems did not extend to all functional areas. New ERP II systems do
c. ERP II systems are interorganizational ERP systems that provide web-enabled links
between a companys key business systems and its customers, suppliers,
distributors, etc. They include a variety of modules for all functional areas
d. Benefits of ERP These are:
i. Organizational flexibility, agility and ability to adapt faster by integrating
former departmental silos
ii. Decision support The essential info provided by ERP improve managers
ability to make better, more timely decisions
iii. Quality and efficiency They improve business processes resulting in better
quality and efficiency of customer service, production and distribution
iv. Decreased costs Can reduce transaction costs, hardware and software
costs
e. Drawbacks of ERP
i. The business processes in the software are usually predefined by the vendor
which companies may have to modify to best suit them
ii. They are extremely complex, expensive and time consuming to implement
29. Supply Chain Management It aims to plan, organize and optimize the various activities
performed along the supply chain to reduce friction along the supply chain. They reduce
uncertainty and risks by decreasing inventory levels and cycle time and improving business
processes and customer service. Its other characteristics are:
a. Push vs Pull model Most SCMS use the push model, in which a forecast is made
about sales and production is designed to produce that amount and the company
pushes these products on the customers. In the pull model, production begins with a
customer order and companies only produce the amount ordered
b. Problems along supply chain The problems include not being to deliver products
when customers want, high inventory costs and loss of revenues. These arise due to
two main sources:
a. Develop an understanding of the application domain i.e. how and where decisions
would be applied
b. Select and create a data set on which discovery will be performed
c. Pre-process and cleanse the data
d. Transform data to enable more efficient application of algorithms to extract info
e. Choose the appropriate data mining task, e.g. clustering, regression
f. Choose the data mining algorithm
g. Employ the algorithm
h. Evaluate the results w.r.t goals previously decided
i. Use the discovered knowledge by incorporating it into another system
32. Data Mining These form the core of KDD, involving the inferring of algorithms that explore
the data, develop the model and discover previously unknown patterns. These are
essentially of two types:
a. Discovery-oriented Those that automatically identify patterns in data. These are
further classified as:
i. Descriptive methods These are oriented towards data interpretation and
understanding how underlying data relates to its parts
ii. Predictive methods these aim to build a behavioural model and can
predict one or more variables
b. Verification-oriented Deal with the evaluation of a hypothesis proposed by an
external source. Include traditional statistical methods such as ANOVA
33. Knowledge management cycle describes the way in which knowledge is captured,
processed and distributed in an organization.
of knowledge is ensuring necessary level of access, storage and review. IT helps in all
these aspects
b. Tacit/Implicit Referred to as know-how and refers to intuitive, hard to define
knowledge that is largely experience based. An IT system relies on codification,
which is often difficult for the holder. Hence, role of IT in tacit knowledge mgmt. is
hard to tell.