1) A system is a combination of technologies, people, processes and
organizational mechanisms. An example of a system is the production of a car.
The system would combine the technologies used to create the machines that put
the car together, with the people that run the machines, the assembly line
process for building the car, and the salesman that sells the car, which creates
the original mechanism for the cars to be built.
2) Hierarchies require a vertical chain of command where lines of
responsibility do not cross and approval to proceed on major initiatives is
granted from above. This communication up and down the chain of command takes to
much time for todays environment. Ex. The U.S. Judicial System.
3) A system is a group of parts, working together in a relationship, to
accomplish something. Anything that can be described by the above can be a
system. For example, a chair is a system of metal, screws and plastic working
together to provide a place to sit. .
4) The four categories are:
Business computing: Almost exclusively data processing; used mostly by
controller for accounting purposes. EX. Records processing, management reporting
Telecommunications: Outsourced to full-service vendors, which relieved
user organizations of most administrative burdens. EX. PABX, Telex, Telephones
Specialized office products For mailrooms, reproduction centers, the
individual offices using them generally purchased records management centers,
and typing pools, although the administrative vice president usually had at
least nominal oversight responsibilities. EX. Mailing equipments, duplicators,
microfilm, and centralized word processing.
General office products Controlled by the administrative vice president.
Consisting of small ticket items such as typewriters, answering machines,
facsimile terminals, and convenience copiers, general office products were
usually controlled broadly, via the annual budgeting mechanism. EX. Typewriters,
copiers, convenience word processors
5) Attributes:
Procedure-based: Large-volume transactions were each transaction has a
relatively low cost or value. Activities are well defined, so the principal
performance measure is efficiency information worker is told what to accomplish
and the steps to follow. Mainly handles data
Goal-based activities: Handle fewer transactions and each one has a higher
value. Activities accomplished in various ways, therefore measured by results or
attainment of the objectives or goals. Information worker must understand the
goals because part of the job is figuring out how to attain them. Entail
handling concepts, not data.
6) Six responsibility areas:
Understand the business: The CIO should understand what business his
company is in. This also means that he should understand the markets that his
company sells goods and products to.
Establish credibility of the IS department: The CIO should establish
credibility with top management by successfully maintaining current systems and
develop future systems. This increases top managements confidence in IS and
their ideas.
Increase the technology maturity of the firm: The CIO should strive to
make upper management comfortable with managing the use of IT. He should also
make sure that the employees are comfortable using the technology. CIO can
educate the users and upper management in a way that makes both comfortable in
using the technology.
Create a vision of the future and sell it: CIOs need to become involved
with selling IS to upper management. This includes becoming proactive in
developing the organization vision of the future and by setting a goal for the
use of IT in the organization.
Implement an information system: CIOs need to implement an information
system architecture that will support the vision of the organization and help to
ensure its health by simplifying the organization operating activities.
Develop and nurture relationships: CIOs need to nurture relationships
with 3 different sets of partners; senior management-CEO, COO, and CFO,
customers both internal and external, and suppliers and other external partners.
7) The five waves are:
Reducing cost. Reducing costs began in the 1960s when IT focused on
increasing productivity in the clerical and administrative functions.
Leveraging investments. Leveraging investments began in the 1970s. It
focus was to make a more effective use of corporate assists that increase
profitability. Systems were justified on return of investment and increasing
cash flow.
Enhancing products and services. This began in the 1980s. It was the first
time IT was used to produce revenue by gaining strategic advantages or creating
new businesses.
Enhancing executive decision-making. This started in the late 1980s. Its
focus was to change the fundamental structure of the organization and create
real-time business management systems.
Reaching the consumer. Using IT to interact with consumers, take the lead
in new marketing, distribution, and services started in the 1990s. This changed
the rules of competition and created new businesses on the Internet.
8) The four areas are:
Run operations: One of the IS functions is to run the computers and
networks,
Develop systems: IS has the responsibility to develop new systems and
maintain and update current systems.
Develop architecture: IS also charged with the setting of a strategy and
maintaining architecture for IT and information. IS will also provide a
framework or standards for systems operations.
Identify business requirements: IS will help in understanding what the
business needs from an IT standpoint.
9) Broker contractual relationships with external suppliers and vendors.
Develop and manage information technology to support the business systems
infrastructure.
10) The three strategic roles are:
Looking Inward: Improving company processes and structure.
Looking Outward: Incorporated into products and Services.
Looking Across: Linking to other organizations by collaborating with them
and sharing ideas.
11) The five waves are grouped into:
Looking Inward: Encompasses wave 1 and wave 2. Because, reducing costs,
increasing productivity and leveraging Investments are all geared towards making
corporate assets more effective and increasing productivity.
Looking Outward: Encompasses wave 3 and wave 5. Because enhancing products
and services, and reaching the consumer help the firm become more competitive by
providing more revenue.
Looking Across: Encompasses wave 4. By linking with other organizations
firms can help to improve executive decision making processes businesses will
know what is going on in the industry.
12) The Revolutionary approach requires radical cross-functional redesigns of
business processes. It is usually brought on by a crisis. The evolutionary
approach is a continuous improvement on current business processes. It is less
expensive and less disruptive.
13) The restructuring options are:
Focused Restructuring: If the change needs to be done quickly and is
narrow in scope, then it is suited for focused restructuring.
Outsourcing: If the change must be made quickly and is broad in scope,
then it is recommended that it be outsourced.
Process Improvement: If the restructuring can be done over time and is
narrow in scope, then use the process improvement option.
Reengineering: If the restructure is broad based in scope and is to be
done slowly, then use the reengineering option.
14) The three levels of linking are:
Loose linking involves companies only wanting to increase efficiencies of
their processes. There is no need to change the processes and there are no
direct links between the companies. The exchange of information can be done at
the EDI level.
Close linking aims at improving process effectiveness. This is done by
exchanging information so that the companies can commonage inventory (for
example) and services. It requires creating interfaces between affected
applications.
Tight linking refers to database sharing. This focuses on creating new
processes and the sharing of data. This link requires a high level of trust
between companies and to jointly create the databases to be shared.
15) Strategic Systems planning is difficult because:
When aligning business goals and system plans the CIO is often left out of
the inner circle. Making it hard to make business plans and IT plans to mesh.
The rapidly changing technology today makes continuous planning a
necessary. Be prepared to changes plans as visions of the future change.
A shift in emphasis from project selection to portfolio development is
taking place. Make sure you look to see how all the projects balance in the
portfolio.
Getting funds for infrastructure development are often hard. The best
approach is to disguise it is the form of a major application development
project.
A project will be more effective if you can get full senior management
cooperation or Joint Responsibility.
Other Planning Issues to consider are ensuring that you strike a balance
between radical change and continuous improvement.
16) The Seven tools or approaches are:
Stages of Growth: Four stages, which organizations go through during the
introduction and assimilation of new technology
Critical Success Factors: Method, which can be used to identify key areas
(critical success factors) for executives, where things must be done right in
order for the organization to flourish.
Investment Strategy Analysis: Similar to traditional techniques of
portfolio planning, this approach helps a company plan their investment strategy
for Information systems. This allows managers to stand back, see where
investments are currently being made, and then decide where they should be made,
in order to align the IT investments with the business strategy.
The Scenario Approach to Planning: This planning tool provides a way to
manage the planning assumptions by creating scenarios that combine trends,
events, environmental factors, and the relationships among them. Scenario
planning recognizes possibilities and can provide flexibility by means of escape
if necessary.
Linkage Analysis Planning: Examines the links that organizations have with
one another with the goal of creating a strategy for utilizing electronic
channels. First the organization must identify linkages, and then determine who
manages them. The mapping of these linkages help management visualize the key
issues they face and allows them to focus on the factors that are critical to
their future success.
Creative Problem-Solving Approaches (CPS): Involves procedures and
techniques designed to solve complete problems in creative ways. Through its use
of divergence and convergence activities, this approach allows for creative
alternatives within each phase. CPS is also useful when used to enhance other IS
planning approaches.
Enterprise Modeling: The diagramming of an organization using specific
methodologies.
17) The enterprise model development methodology is the best because it uses
general planning techniques, which allows it to be applied by any organization.
However, the use of more than one planning approach should be considered.
18) The main contributions are:
Identification and initial investment: The initial learning of and
purchasing of new technology.
Experimentation and learning: Trial and error, where the new uses of
technology may be found.
Management control: Management begins to place controls on the use of
technology because the costs of use are getting to high.
Widespread technology transfer: Stage at where the use of the technology
is commonplace.
19) Architecture is a blueprint, which shows how the overall system will look
and how its parts interrelate. Infrastructure is the implementation of
architecture.
20) The four attributes are:
Distributed processing : The ability for more than one interconnected
processor to be operating at the same time. This allows for the moving of
processing as close to the user as possible.
Connectivity among processors Each processor can send data and messages to
any other processor through electronic communication linkages.
Distributed databases: Where the information is shared, either duplicate
or not, throughout the system to any node. This may be subject to authorized
access.
System wide rules : The rules and standards used to govern communications
between nodes, security, data accessibility, program and file transfers, and
common operating procedures.
21) The Questions to ask are:
Are the operations interdependent? An operation is interdependent when one
operation needs to know what the other is doing. Like the airline and
manufacturing industries.
Are the businesses really homogenous? Operations are similar but do not
need to know what the other is doing. Like the fast-food industry.
Does the corporate culture support decentralization? Corporations might
like their business units separate and want similar processes centralized. Like
accounting and human resources.
22) The components are:
Processors: There are 3 levels; Single User systems, Multiple User
systems, and Remote Utility systems
Networks: There are 2 Levels. LNs and RNs
Services: There are three main types of services: Access, File transfer
capabilities, and Electronic Mail Systems
Standards: Three areas need corporate standards: operating systems,
communication protocols, and database management systems
23) The main benefits are: Better Access to Information, Empowered Employees,
and Increased Organizational Flexibility
24) The root cause for many IS problems can be found in systems architecture:
IS has not yet figured out architecture. This has led to todays Legacy
Applications and ISs response time to be hopelessly inadequate. Perception is
that because IS is inadequate today it will be tomorrow.
25) The four kinds of Investments are:
Strategic Investments: Aim to change the way the firm competes, the
products or services it offers, or how it intends to increase revenues.
Informational Investments: Provide the firm with the information needed to
control and manage the employees.
Transactional Investments: Support operational Management
Infrastructure Investments: Provide the base foundation of IT capability
in a firm. This layer supports the applications that are run by others.
26) The three views are:
Utility: Seeing your infrastructure as a necessary and unavoidable service
that must be supplied to the firm. Often outsourced because it is not seen as
strategic.
Dependent: When the infrastructure investments are tied to business plans.
Thought of as being a minimum requirement for successfully implementing BPR.
Enabling: The primary benefit is long-term flexibility. Infrastructure
costs are seen as business investments.
27) It can leverage and increases return on IT Investment of business units,
it can provide Incremental benefits at the business unit level; it can provide
effectiveness benefits at the business unit level.
28) Bandwidth is the range of signal frequencies that a medium can be sent
over a medium at the same time. Throughput is measure of how long it takes to
complete a task
29) The five roles are:
Create architecture: A set of policies, principles, and guidelines that
will lead to widespread connectivity
Achieve connectivity: Finding a means to interface many dissimilar
networks
Reach vs. range:
Information distribution: The IS role in information distribution is to
determine how and to whom the information is to go.
Telecom BPR: Business Process Re-engineering
30) Ingram Micro recently renewed a contract with Microsoft to continue
providing logistics solutions for another 2 years. Ingram Micro will act as an
EDI vendor between Microsoft and Microsofts retailers providing seamless
product tracking and cutting edge logistics.