Terminology Flashcards
What is a strategy?
A strategy is the determination of long-term goals and the adoption of a course of action and the allocation of resources needed to carry out these goals. (What & long-term)
What is a tactic?
A tactic is a tool you use in pursuing an objective associated with a strategy. (How & short term)
What are operations?
Operations relate to the day-to-day output, schedules, specifications, and costs.
What do strategic aims usually relate to?
- Obtain and maintain a competitive advantage.
- Obtain and maintain a social position.
- Position the org for agile reaction to external changes.
What is strategic information systems planning (SISP)?
SISP is the process of deciding the objectives for the organisational computing and identifying potential computer applications which the org should implement.
What are the areas target by SISP?
- Aligning investment in IS with business goals
- Exploiting Is for competitive advantage
- Directing efficient & effective management of IT resources
- Developing tech policies & architectures.
What is BCG in IS?
Helps orgs analyse their product lines & IS applications to helps allocate resources in order to align with strategic objectives. For example, we can classify IS applications into 4 sectors and may also be viewed as an application journey.
What is the application journey in relation to BCG?
1) Applications usually start as a star or problem child.
2) We want to support these with cash, possibly from cash cows, as these have potential for high cash generation & to increase relative market share.
3) Once the market is saturated or growth stops, the application must be maintained, and eventually becomes a dead dog.
4) Dead dogs should be sold off if they don’t generate cash, or made into a cash cow if it still generates cash.
5) Cash cows may be milked for cash which may be diverted in part towards creating new stars.
Example: Payroll systems
What is a BCG recommendation?
Some orgs put their best designers and programmers on feature work (stars) to get stars out the door quickly.
Meanwhile, the others support and maintain cows.
What is Vankatramans’ 5 levels of IT induced reconfiguration?
Vankatraman identified 5 levels of induced IT reconfiguration where each level increases the degree of business transformation and potential benefits.
When orgs start looking at the application portfolio they are not behaving strategically but evolutionary.
1) The firm first uses IT to get benefits of automation through localised exploitation.
2) Then the org starts to integrate internal operations .
Both of these are evolutionary methods of developing applications that improve existing scope. Once the org starts behaving strategically they are ‘revolutionary’.
3) In the third stage, business process are redesigned using porters value chain in order to make the VC more efficient and effective through the use of IT.
4) Then the business redesigns the business network (business flow or how they do business)
5) Lastly, the org may look at what it’s core competencies are and focus on those, whilst halting what does not have a good margin. However, this is being contested as many orgs have overspecialised and found themselves at the mercy of suppliers and customers, and/or forgot their purpose.
What is Anthony’s Triangle?
It’s an organisational model which takes a hierarchical view of management into 3 levels: Operational management receive information flows and keeps track of what is going from daily operations. Middle managers, the tactical levels, keep track of staff and of what is going through control flows. And strategic management, the third level, keep track of the internal and external environments for threats and opportunities.
Decisions made at the top of the triangle are have a wider scope and have are less precise, whereas decisions made at the bottom are more frequent and more specific.
What is Drucker’s Vision?
Drucker’s vision is that of a ‘Leaner, Flatter Organisation’ as he proposed that we need to use IT to process that which middle managers can do. So Anthony’s Triangle goes from STO to SO.
Effectively, middle management is being squeezed and he predicts that they will disappear.
ISSUE: But has it? And if so, is the next logical step to bring strategy to those who do the work? So SO to O…
What is ‘best practice’ and what are some issues relating to it in IS?
Best practice is defined as routine uses of knowledge judged to be superior to others. It’s a claim that only on best way exists to do the process, in some applications these are said to be embedded into the product.
These claims are usually made by vendors as a promise of value and often misuse the term best practice leading to researchers to question ethics.
Paper:
- Shows how “best practice” software can shape operations and strategy both in the firm and industry.
- ERP changed the nature of work.
- Even though some practices had to be refuted and amended the original product still sold as embedding “best practice”.
- Ivy vision continued due to inter dependency.
What is Porter’s 5 Forces?
It’s a framework to help analyse a firm’s competitive position within an industry and to assist with the development of business strategy.
The 5 forces together, act to drive profitability down.
The five forces are:
1) Threats from new entrants
2) Threat of substitution
3) Bargaining Power of Customers
4) Bargaining Power of Suppliers
5) Competitive Rivalry
What is IT/IS/Business Relation model?
This model help identify key relationships and potential issues in which 3 levels of strategy exist.
1) First the business identify IT’s potential impact on business strategy.
2) Then identify what info systems are needed to deliver the strategy.
3) Then IT decides how best to achieve it with technology.
Then It provides infrastructure and services, and Is supports business.
The key point is that IS/IT should be treated like any other part of the business (for example marketing) and must be efficient & effective and deliver competitive / strategic leverage. This implies that IT/IS strategies should derive and integrate with business strategy.
