Chapter 1: Information Systems in Global Businesses Today Flashcards
Relevance, strategic business objectives, definition, business perspective, academic disciplines
How have ISs changed products, services and the way businesses operate?
- Making organizations more competitive & efficient
- Digitally enabling core business practises –> digital firms
- Stimulating effect of internet on globalization (lowering production, buying & selling goods on global scale)
Major IS trends
- emerging mobile digital platforms
- big data (incl. IoT)
- remote management
- democratization of decision-making
- machine learning systems
- growing use of social media in business
What is a digital firm?
A firm in which all of the organization’s significant business relationships with customers, suppliers & employees are digitally enabled and mediated
what does IS in a “flattened world” mean?
The Internet and global communications had greatly expanded the opportunities for people to communicate with one another and reduced the economic and cultural advantages of developed countries (higher competition)
Challenges of IS in a flattened world
- Loss of manufacturing jobs in some countries due to outsourcing physical work & low wage jobs in an era of communication and connectedness (USA & Europe)
- legal compliance issues, need for common ground (SLAs?)
- worker exploitation in less developed countries
- environmental degradation
Opportunities of IS in flattened world
- the gap in development between different countries may shrink due to more general access to modern technology
- job creation in IT & management
- lower production costs, higher efficiency (economies of scale)
- higher overall productivity due to lower costs
Strategic business objectives of IS
- operational excellence for higher profitability
- new products, services and business models
- customer/ supplier intimacy based on appropriate information management
- improved decision making (real-time insights)
- competitive advantage
- day-to-day survival (e.g. ATM systems in banks)
Definition of IS
Information systems are interrelated components working together to collect, process, store & disseminate information to support decision-making, coordination, control analysis & visualization in an organization
What needs to be considered when investing in IS?
- Computers & software are technical foundations and tools, IS is the composed system
- No guarantee of good returns, consider complementary assets & accompanying measures
Difference between information & data
- 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 & use
- Information: Data that has been shaped into fomr that is meaningful & useful to humans
Information production: How do IS transform raw data into useful information?
- Input: Capture 6 collect data from within an organization or from the external environment
- Processing: Conversion, manipulation & analysis of raw input into more meaningful forms
- Output: Distribution of processed information to people who use it or activities for which it will be used
How are IS and organizational structure interrelated?
- key elements of org. are people, structure, business processes, politics & culture, which is unique (way of doing things)
- understanding these elements is key to implement IS successfully as an organizatioal & management solution to challenges from the environment
- org. culture and IS are usually intertwined
What (perspectives) does the information value chain imply?
- insights that data needs to be collected & processed and applied as information in the real world to create actual value (primary & secondary (auxiliary) activities)
- technical perspective: IS collect, store & disseminate external & internal information to support org. functions, decision-making, communication, coordination, control, analysis & visualization
- business perspective: IS provides solution to a problem & represents a combination of management, organization & technology elements
What dimensions of IS are there and what do they consist of?
- management dimension: leadership, stretegy & management behavior, also creative acts (product creation etc.)
- technology dimension: computer hardware, software, data management technology, networking/tel-com tech
- organizational dimension: organization’s hierarchy, functional specialities, business processes, culture & political interest groups
Key elements of organizationla & management capital
- complementary investments to tech investments to obtain maximum value
- new business models & processes, supportive org. culture & management behaviour, appropriate tech standards, regulations & laws
- Appropriate managerial & org. changes
