BP 1

McGraw-Hill/Irwin ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, All Rights Reserved

Business Driven Information Systems 2eBusiness Driven Information Systems 2eBusiness Driven Information Systems 2eBusiness Driven Information Systems 2e

CHAPTER 1

INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS

CHAPTER 1

INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS

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Chapter One Overview

• SECTION 1.1 – INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS– Information Technology’s Role in Business– Information Technology Basics– Roles and Responsibilities in Information Technology– Measuring Information Technology’s Success

• SECTION 1.2 – BUSINESS STRATEGY– Identifying Competitive Advantages– The Five Forces Model – Evaluating Business

Segments– The Three Generic Strategies – Creating a Business

Focus– Value Chain Analysis – Targeting Business Processes

McGraw-Hill/Irwin ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, All Rights Reserved

SECTION 1.1SECTION 1.1

INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS

INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS

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LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Describe the functional areas of a business and why they must work together for the business to be successful

2. Explain information technology’s role in business and how you measure success

3. Compare management information systems (MIS) and information technology (IT) and define the relationships among people, information technology, and information

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LEARNING OUTCOMES

4. Compare the responsibilities of a chief information officer (CIO), chief technology officer (CTO), chief security officer (CSO), chief privacy officer (CPO), and chief knowledge officer (CKO)

5. Explain the gap between IT and the business, along with the primary reason this gap exists

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY’S ROLE IN BUSINESS

• Information technology is everywhere in business

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Information Technology’s Impact on Business Operations

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Information Technology’s Impact on Business Operations

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Information Technology’s Impact on Business Operations

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Information Technology’s Impact on Business Operations

• Organizations typically operate by functional areas or functional silos

• Functional areas are interdependent

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BASICS

• Information technology (IT) – a field concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information

• Information technology is an important enabler of business success and innovation

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BASICS

• Management information systems (MIS) – a general name for the business function and academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies, and procedures to solve business problems

• MIS is a business function, similar to Accounting, Finance, Operations, and Human Resources

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BASICS

• When beginning to learn about information technology it is important to understand the following:– Data, information, and business intelligence– IT resources– IT cultures

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Information

• Data - raw facts that describe the characteristic of an event

• Information - data converted into a meaningful and useful context

• Business intelligence – applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information to support decision-making efforts

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Information

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Information

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Information

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IT Resources

• People use

• Information technology to work with

• Information

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IT Cultures

• Organizational information cultures include:– Information-functional culture – Information-sharing culture – Information-inquiring culture – Information-discovery culture

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• Information technology is a relatively new functional area, having only been around formally for around 40 years

• Recent IT strategic positions include:– Chief Information Officer (CIO)– Chief Technology Officer (CTO)– Chief Security Officer (CSO)– Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)– Chief Knowledge Office (CKO)

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• Chief Information Officer (CIO) – oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives

• Broad CIO functions include:– Manager – ensuring the delivery of all IT projects, on

time and within budget– Leader – ensuring the strategic vision of IT is in line

with the strategic vision of the organization– Communicator – building and maintaining strong

executive relationships

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• Average CIO compensation by industry

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• What concerns CIOs the most

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – responsible for ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability, and reliability of IT

• Chief Security Officer (CSO) – responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems

• Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) – responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information

• Chief Knowledge Office (CKO) - responsible for collecting, maintaining, and distributing the organization’s knowledge

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• Skills pivotal for success in executive IT roles

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The Gap Between Business Personnel and IT Personnel

• Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing, accounting, and sales

• IT personnel have the technological expertise

• This typically causes a communications gap between the business personnel and IT personnel

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Improving Communication

• Business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT

• IT personnel must seek to increase their understanding of the business

• It is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel

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MEASURING IT’S SUCCESS

• Questions executives should ask regarding IT systems– Is the internal IT operation performing

satisfactorily?– Should I outsource some or all of the IT

operations?– How is my outsourcer performing?– What are the risk factors to consider in an IT

project?

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MEASURING IT’S SUCCESS

• Key performance indicator (KPI) – measures that are tied to business drivers

• Metrics are detailed measures that feed KPIs

• Performance metrics fall into the nebulous area of business intelligence that is neither technology, nor business centered, but requires input from both IT and business professionals

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Efficiency and Effectiveness Metrics

• Efficiency IT metric – measures the performance of the IT system itself including throughput, speed, and availability

• Effectiveness IT metric – measures the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and sell-through increases

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Benchmarking – Baselining Metrics

• Benchmarks – baseline values the system seeks to attain

• Benchmarking – a process of continuously measuring system results, comparing results (benchmark values), and identifying improvements

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Benchmarking – Baselining Metrics

• Egovernement benchmarks

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The Interrelationships of Efficiency and Effectiveness IT Metrics

• Efficiency IT metrics focus on technology and include:– Throughput– Transaction speed– System availability– Information accuracy– Web traffic– Response time

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The Interrelationships of Efficiency and Effectiveness IT Metrics

• Effectiveness IT metrics focus on an organization’s goals, strategies, and objectives and include:– Usability– Customer satisfaction– Conversion rates– Financial

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The Interrelationships of Efficiency and Effectiveness IT Metrics

• Security is an issue for any organization offering products or services over the Internet

• It is inefficient for an organization to implement Internet security, since it slows down processing, however, to be effective it must implement Internet security

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The Interrelationships of Efficiency and Effectiveness IT Metrics

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OPENING CASE QUESTIONSApple - Merging Technology, Business and Entertainment

1. What might have happened to Apple if its top executives had not supported investment in iPods?

2. Formulate a strategy for how Apple can use efficiency IT metrics to improve its business

3. Formulate a strategy for how Apple can use effectiveness IT metrics to improve its business

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OPENING CASE QUESTIONSApple - Merging Technology, Business and Entertainment

4. Why would it be unethical for Apple to sell its iTunes customer information to other businesses?

5. Evaluate the effects on Apple’s business if it failed to secure its customer’s information and it was accidentally posted to an anonymous website

McGraw-Hill/Irwin ©2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, All Rights Reserved

SECTION 1.2SECTION 1.2

BUSINESS STRATEGYBUSINESS STRATEGY

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LEARNING OUTCOMES

6. Explain why competitive advantages are typically temporary

7. List and describe each of the five forces in Porter’s Five Forces Model

8. Compare Porter’s three generic strategies

9. Describe the relationship between business processes and value chains

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IDENTIFYING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

• To survive and thrive an organization must create a competitive advantage– Competitive advantage – a product or

service that an organization’s customers place a greater value on than similar offerings from a competitor

– First-mover advantage – occurs when an organization can significantly impact its market share by being first to market with a competitive advantage

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IDENTIFYING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

• Organizations watch their competition through environmental scanning– Environmental scanning

• Three common tools used in industry to analyze and develop competitive advantages include:– Porter’s Five Forces Model– Porter’s three generic strategies– Value chains

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THE FIVE FORCES MODEL – EVALUATING BUSINESS SEGMENTS

• Porter’s Five Forces Model determines the relative attractiveness of an industry

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Buyer Power

• Buyer power – high when buyers have many choices of whom to buy from and low when their choices are few

• One way to reduce buyer power is through loyalty programs– Loyalty program – rewards customers

based on the amount of business they do with a particular organization

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Supplier Power

• Supplier power – high when buyers have few choices of whom to buy from and low when their choices are many– Supply chain – consists of all parties involved in

the procurement of a product or raw material

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Supplier Power

• Organizations can create a competitive advantage by locating alternative supply sources (decreasing supplier power)

• Business-to-Business (B2B) marketplace – an Internet-based service that brings together buyers and sellers

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Supplier Power

• Two types of (B2B) marketplaces– Private exchange – single buyer posts

needs and opens bidding to any supplier

– Reverse auction –increasingly lower bids are solicited from organizations willing to supply product or service at a lower price

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Threat of Substitute Products or Services

• Threat of substitute products or services – high when there are many alternatives to a product or service and low when there are few alternatives– Switching cost – costs that can make

customers reluctant to switch

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Threat of New Entrants

• Threat of new entrants – high when it is easy for new competitors to enter a market and low when there are significant entry barriers– Entry barrier – a product or service

that customers have come to expect and must be offered to compete and survive

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Rivalry Among Existing Competitors

• Rivalry among existing competitors – high when competition is fierce in a market and low when competition is more complacent

• Although competition is always more intense in some industries than in others, the overall trend is toward increased competition in just about every industry

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THE THREE GENERIC STRATEGIES – CREATING A BUSINESS FOCUS

• Organizations typically follow one of Porter’s three generic strategies when entering a new market

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THE THREE GENERIC STRATEGIES – CREATING A BUSINESS FOCUS

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Value Creation

• Once an organization chooses its strategy, it can use tools such as the value chain to determine the success or failure of its chosen strategy– Business process – a standardized

set of activities that accomplish a specific task

– Value chain – views an organization as a series of processes, each of which adds value to the product or service

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Value Creation

Value Chain

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Value Creation

• Value chains with Porter’s Five Forces

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OPENING CASE QUESTIONSApple - Merging Technology, Business and Entertainment

6. Did Apple gain a competitive advantage from its decision to invest in an online music business?

7. How can Apple use environmental scanning to gain business intelligence?

8. Using Porter’s Five Force Model, analyze Apple’s buyer power and supplier power

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OPENING CASE QUESTIONSApple - Merging Technology, Business and Entertainment

9. Which of the three generic strategies is Apple following?

10.Which of Porter’s Five Forces did Apple address through its introduction of the iPhone?

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CLOSING CASE ONEBad Business Decisions

1. Explain why understanding information technology and management information systems can help you achieve business success-or more importantly, help you avoid business disasters-regardless of your major

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CLOSING CASE TWOInnovative Business Managers

1. Choose one of the companies listed above and explain how it could use a CIO, CTO, and CPO to improve business

2. Why is it important for all of DreamWorks’ functional business areas to work together? Provide an example of what might happen if the DreamWorks marketing department failed to work with its sales department

3. Why is information technology important to an organization like the Boston Red Sox? Every organization needs information to remain

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CLOSING CASE TWOInnovative Business Managers

4. Which of Porter’s Five Forces is most important to Home Depot’s business?

5. Which of the three generic strategies is PepsiCo following?

6. Explain the value chain and how a company like GE can use it to improve operations

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CLOSING CASE THREEThe World is Flat – Thomas Friedman

1. Do you agree or disagree with Friedman’s assessment that the world is flat? Be sure to justify your answer

2. What are the potential impacts of a flat world for a student performing a job search?

3. What can students do to prepare themselves for competing in a flat world?

4. Identify a current flattener not mentioned on Friedman’s list

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BUSINESS DRIVEN BEST SELLERS

• The Dumbest Moments in Business History: Useless Products, Ruinous Deals, Clueless Bosses, and Other Signs of Unintelligent Life in the Workplace, by Adam Horowitz and the editors of Business 2.0

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BUSINESS DRIVEN BEST SELLERS

• Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction, and Economics, by Paul Ormerod

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BUSINESS DRIVEN BEST SELLERS

• The Wright Way: 7 Problem-Solving Principles from the Wright Brothers That Can Make Your Business Soar, by Mark Eppler