Midterm Flashcards
Cost of data communications and data storage is
Essentially zero
Moore’s Law
As power increases, cost will decrease
Managing information resources is difficult because
- IS (Information Systems) has an enormous strategic value to organizations
- IS’s are very expensive to acquire, operate, and maintain
- evolution of the MIS function within the organization
Information Systems are used for managing
People (individuals, groups, or organizations)
Procedures (design, development, and documentation)
Data (info for decision making)
Software
Hardware
(Last three are IT; procedures and people are unique to IS)
Major capabilities of IS
Perform high speed, high volume numerical computations
Provide fast, accurate communication and collaboration within and among organizations
Store huge amounts of info in an easy to access, yet small space
Allow quick and inexpensive access to vast amounts of info, worldwide
Interpret vast amounts of data quickly, and efficiently
Automate both semiautomatic business processes and manual tasks
Breadth of support of IS- FAIS
Functional Area Information Systems
- accounting
- finance
- production and operations management
- marketing
- HR
Breadth of support of IS- 2 ISs support the entire system
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems
-provide communication among functional area ISs (general)
Transaction Processing Systems (TPS)
-support the “real-time” monitoring, collection, storage, and processing of data from the organization’s day to day operations
Importance of Information Systems to society
IT affects our quality of life
The robots revolution is here now
Improvements in healthcare
How does IT impact organizations?
IT reduces the number of middle managers
IT changes the manager’s job
Will IT eliminate jobs?
IT impacts employees at work
Development and use of ISs
Need to take active role in the development
- specifying the system’s requirements
- helping to manage the development project
- using the IS
Achieving business goals with IS
ISs exist to help ppl in business achieve goals and objectives of that business
What is business process?
A network of activities, resources, facilities, and information that interact to achieve some business function
ISs vital role in three areas of business processes
Executing the process
Capturing and storing excess data
Monitoring process performance
ISs help execute the business processes by
Informing employees when it is time to complete a task
Providing required data
Providing a means to complete the task
Capturing and storing process data
Processes generate data
-dates, times, production numbers, quantities, prices, addresses, names, employee actions
ISs capture and store process data (aka transaction data)
Capturing and storing data provides immediate, ‘real-time’ feedback
Monitoring process performance
IS evaluates info to determine how well a process is being executed
Evaluations occur at two levels
-process level
-instance level
Monitoring identifies problems for process improvement
Measures of excellence in executing business processes
Customer satisfaction Cost reduction Cycle and fulfillment time reduction Quality Differentiation Productivity
Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
A radical redesign of an organization’s business processes to increase productivity and profitability
Examines business processes with a “clean-slate” approach
Business Process Improvement (BPI)
An incremental approach to move an organization toward business process centered operations
Focuses on reducing variation in process outputs by identifying the underlying cause of the variation
Six Sigma is a popular methodology
Five basic phases of successful BPI
- Define
- Measure (is it doing what it is supposed to do?)
- Analyze
- Improve
- Control
Business Process Management (BMP)
A management system used to support continuous BPI initiatives for core business processes over time
Important components
- process modeling
- web-enabled technologies
- business activity monitoring (BAM)
BPM Suite
-an integrated set of applications used for BPM
Emerging trend of social BPM
-technologies enabling employees of collaborate across functions internally and externally using social media tools
Business Pressures
Market pressures
-global economy, intense competition, changing nature of the workforce, and powerful customers
Technology pressures
-technological innovation and info overload (to embrace, need training; takes time)
Social pressures
-social responsibility, gov. regulation, deregulation, social problem
Globalization
The integration nod interdependence of the economic, social, cultural, and ecological facets of life, made possible by rapid advances in IT
Stages
- 1492-1800; focus on countries
- 1800-2000; focus on companies
- 2000-present; focus on groups and individual
Changing nature of the workforce
Workforce becoming more diverse -women -single parents -minorities -persons with disabilities IT is enabling telecommunicating with employees
Powerful customers
Increasing customer sophistication and expectations Consumer more knowledgeable about -products and services -price comparisons -electronic auctions Customer relationship management
