Q and A 2023_jan
How could information systems be used to support the order fulfillment process? What are the most important pieces of information these systems should capture?
Order fulfillment process: (Cash on delivery)
Step 1: Customer places order, specify address and date of product delivery
Step 2: Employee packages products, sends information about the order to account and
delivery department with date and address of delivery.
Step 3: Accountant makes bill, sends to customer
Step 4: Delivery department delivers package to the customer
Step 5: Customer pays the bill and takes the package
Information system helps:
IS can be used to take online order, share information between departments, generate bill, update inventory automatically. To know the past orders and make marketing plans.
Information to be captured: order Information, customer data, bill information
User the time/space collaboration and social tool matrix to classify the collaboration and social technologies used by business organizations.
The time/space collaboration and social tool matrix helps to figure out if interactions between business people is possible at the same or different times or places.
| Same Time | Different time | |
| Same place | Face-to-Face | Continuous task |
| Different place | Remote interactions | email, blogs |
What are the some of the issues to consider in determining whether the Internet would provide your business with a competitive advantage?
Issues to consider:
Why is selecting computer hardware and software of the organization an important management decision? What management, organization, and technology issues should be considered when selecting computer hardware and software?
It is a management decision as management is one which has to know about the users, their requirements, problems, issues, available budget to purchase computer hardware and software.
Hardware, software requirement depends on the nature of problem, data volume, number of users, required processing speed. Managers will know the business process; input and output of the business processes.
Management Issues: who will administer the system, it should be clearly specified. If management leadership is autocratic, strict hierarchy required then sharing of data, software, hardware many be problematic,
Organization: If there is too much politics within the organization then selecting hardware and software may be difficult, If organization may support manual work, as it fears job loses.
Which technology, how much hardware capacity required, Knowledge and skill level of users. System is User friendly or not.
It has been said there is no bad data, just bad management. Discuss the implications of this statement.
If management is not clear about the business processes, its input, outputs, processing then the business processes can't execute correctly, data required for the business process will be unknown. In this situation, business process will not run correctly and it is not because of bad data but because of bad management.
If you were developing a business continuity plan for your company, where would you start? What aspect's of the business would the plan address?
Business continuity plans (BCP) is developed to restore system after a disaster strikes. The BCP identifies critical business processes and develops plans to handle those processes if system goes down.
I will start from figuring out the critical business processes of the organization, implications of those business processes if they went down, data used by those processes, users using those processes. Then I will develop plan to restore those processes and system if they go down, Backup of data in multiple computers, power backup, network protection will be part of my BCP.
Supply chain management is less about managing the physical movement of goods and more about managing information. Discuss the implications of this statement.
Supply Chain consists of several components, to work supply chain correctly data/information required by these components must be known and made available to them. It is about the movement of data among the supply chain components and about the goods. For example, if supplier does not the exact time the raw materials have to be supplied to manufacture, then in that case, manufacturer may not get required raw materials in time and will not be able to produce products timely.
How does the Internet change consumer and supplier relationship?
Because of Internet physical face-to-face interaction between consumers and suppliers is deemed. So, the kind of intimacy that develop between supplier and consumer during physical interaction is vanishing. Now the suppliers can categorizes customers as good, bad based on the transactions in a very short period of time. and at the same time customers also have options to select suppliers from different supplier immediately. The relationship between consumers and suppliers have now become digital and will survive until the system shows consumers as good.
The Internet may not make corporations obsolete but the corporations will have to change their business models? Do you agree? why or why not?
Agree. Internet is to ease the tasks and activities of organizations. If organization does not have knowledge about the using information and internet technologies, aligning business strategy with IT strategy, then it will be problem, organization will not be able to get benefits from Internet technologies.