C724 Case Studies PDF

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DAC1/C724 CASE STUDIES IN COHORT RECORDINGS CONTENTS Week 1 ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Executive Dilemmas in the Information Age .......................................................................................................................................... 2 Political Microtargeting: What Data Crunchers Did for Obama............................................................................................................. 3 Apple—Merging Technology, Business, and Entertainment ................................................................................................................. 4 Twitter .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Week 2 ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Changing Circuits at Circuit City ............................................................................................................................................................. 8 Electronic Breaking Points ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Keeper of the Keys ............................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Mining the Data Warehouse ................................................................................................................................................................ 12 Week 3 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Watching Where You Step—Prada ...................................................................................................................................................... 13 Banks Banking on Network Security .................................................................................................................................................... 14 Week 4 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 To Share—Or Not to Share .................................................................................................................................................................. 16 Reducing Ambiguity in Business Requirements ................................................................................................................................... 18 Sarbanes-Oxley: Where Information Technology, Finance, and Ethics Meet ...................................................................................... 19 Thinking Like the Enemy ...................................................................................................................................................................... 20 Hacker Hunters .................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 eBiz ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 22 Social Networking ................................................................................................................................................................................ 24

WEEK 1 UNIT 2: INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE DI LEMMAS I N THE IN FORMATION A GE The vast array of business initiatives from supply chain management to customer relationship management, business process reengineering, and enterprise resource planning makes it clear that information technology has evolved beyond the role of mere infrastructure to the support of business strategy. Today, in more and more industries, IT is a business strategy, and is quickly becoming a survival issue. Board and executive team agendas are increasingly peppered with, or even hijacked by, a growing range of IT issues from compliance to ethics and security. In most companies today, computers are key business tools. They generate, process, and store the majority of critical business information. Executives must understand how IT can affect a business by successfully addressing a wide range of needs —from large electronic discovery projects to the online review of document collections by geographically dispersed teams. A few examples of executive IT issues follow. STOLEN PROPRIETARY INFORMATION A computer company investigated to determine if an executive who accepted a job with a competitor stole proprietary information. The hard drive from the executive's laptop and desktop machine were forensically imaged. The analysis established that the night before the executive left, he downloaded all of the company's process specifications and distributor agreements, which he then zipped and emailed to the competitor. Additionally, reconstruction of deleted files located emails between the executive and the competitor discussing his intent to provide the proprietary information if he was offered additional options in the new company. SEXUAL HARASSMENT A woman employed by a large defense contractor accused her supervisor of sexual harassment. The woman was fired from her job for poor performance and subsequently sued her ex-boss and the former employer. A computer company was retained by the plaintiff's attorneys to investigate allegations of the former supervisor's harassing behavior. After making a forensic image backup of the ex-boss's hard drive, the forensic company was able to recover deleted electronic messages that showed the ex-boss had a history of propositioning women under his supervision for “special favors.” A situation that might have been mired in a “he said/she said” controversy was quickly resolved; the woman got her job back, and the real culprit was terminated. STOLEN TRADE SECRETS The board of directors of a technical research company demoted the company's founder and CEO. The executive, disgruntled because of his demotion, was later terminated. It was subsequently determined that the executive had planned to quit about the same time he was fired and establish a competitive company. Upon his termination, the executive took home two computers; he returned them to the company four days later, along with another company computer that he had previously used at home. Suspicious that critical information had been taken, the company's attorneys sent the computers to a computer forensic company for examination. After making a forensic image backup of the hard drives, the forensic analysis identified a file directory that had been deleted during the aforementioned four-day period that had the same name as the competing company the executive had established. A specific search of the deleted files in this directory identified the executive's “to do list” file. This file indicated the executive planned to copy the company's database (valued at $100 million) for his personal use. Another item specified the executive was to “learn how to destroy evidence on a computer.” The computer forensic company's examination also proved that the executive had been communicating with other competing companies to establish alliances, in violation of the executive's nondisclosure agreement with the company. It

was also shown that numerous key company files were located on removable computer storage media that had not been turned over by the executive to the company. QUESTIONS 1.

Explain why understanding technology, especially in the areas of security and ethics, is important for a CEO. How do a CEO's actions affect the organizational culture?

2.

Identify why executives in nontechnological industries need to worry about technology and its potential business ramifications.

3.

Describe why continuously learning about technology allows an executive to better analyze threats and opportunities.

4.

Identify three things that a CTO, CPO, or CSO could do to prevent these issues.

POLITICAL MICROTARGE TING: WH AT DATA CRUN CHERS DID FOR OBAMA In his presidential inauguration speech, President Barack Obama spoke a word rarely expressed —data—referencing indicators of economic and other crises. It is not surprising that the word data was spoken in his inauguration speech because capturing and analyzing data has been crucial to Obama's rise to power. Throughout Obama's historic campaign he used the Internet not only for social networking and fund raising, but also to identify potential swing voters. Obama's team carefully monitored contested states and congressional districts, because 1,000 to 2,000 voters could prove decisive —meaning the focus was on only a tiny fraction of the voting public. Both political parties hired technology wizards to help sift through the mountains of consumer and demographic details to recognize these important voters. TEN “TRIBES” Spotlight Analysis, a Democratic consultancy, used political microtargeting to analyze neighborhood details, family sizes, and spending patterns to categorize every American of voting age—175 million of us—into 10 “values tribes.” Individual tribe members do not necessarily share the same race, religion, or income bracket, but they have common mind-sets about political issues: God, community, responsibility, opportunity. Spotlight identified a particular morally guided (but not necessarily religious) tribe of some 14 million voters that it dubbed “Barn Raisers.” Barn Raisers comprise many races, religions, and ethnic groups and around 40 percent of Barn Raisers favor Democrats and 27 percent favor Republicans. Barn Raisers are slightly less likely to have a college education than Spotlight's other swing groups. They are active in community organizations, are ambivalent about government, and care deeply about “playing by the rules” and “keeping promises,” to use Spotlight's definitions. Spotlight believed that the Barn Raisers held the key to the race between Obama and his Republican challenger, Arizona Senator John McCain. Not typically seen outside of such corporate American icons as Google, Amazon, and eBay, political microtargeting, which depends on data, databases, and data analysis techniques, is turning political parties into sophisticated, intelligent, methodical machines. In nanoseconds, computers sort 175 million voters into segments and quickly calculate the potential that each individual voter has to swing from red or purple to blue or vice versa. For some, political microtargeting signals the dehumanization of politics. For others, this type of sophisticated analysis is a highly efficient way of pinpointing potential voters. For example, analyzing a voter in Richmond, Virginia, traditionally simply identifies the number of school-age children, type of car, zip code, magazine subscriptions, and mortgage balance. But data crunching could even indicate if the voter has dogs or cats. (Cat owners lean slightly for Democrats, dog owners trend Republican.) After the analysis, the voter is placed into a political tribe, and analyzers can draw conclusions about the issues that matter to this particular voter. Is that so horrible? BEHAVIORAL GROUPING For generations, governments lacked the means to study individual behaviors and simply placed all citizens into enormous groupings such as Hispanics, Jews, union members, hunters, soccer moms, etc. With the use of sophisticated databases and data analysis techniques, companies such as Spotlight can group individuals based more on specific behavior and choices and less on the names, colors, and clans that mark us from birth.

When Spotlight first embarked on its research, the company interviewed thousands of voters the old-fashioned way. At first, the Barn Raisers did not seem significant and the tribe represented about 9 percent of the electorate. However, when Spotlight's analysts dug deeper, they discovered that Barn Raisers stood at the epicenter of America's political swing. In 2004, 90 percent of them voted for President Bush, but then the group's political leanings shifted, with 64 percent of them saying they voted for Democrats in the 2006 election. Spotlight surveys showed that political scandals, tax-funded boondoggles like Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere, and the botched job on Hurricane Katrina sent them packing. Suddenly, Spotlight identified millions of potential swing voters. The challenge then became locating the swing voters by states. For this, the company analyzed the demographics and buying patterns of the Barn Raisers they surveyed personally. Then it began correlating data from the numerous commercially available databases with matching profiles. By Spotlight's count, this approach nailed Barn Raisers three times out of four. So Democrats could bet that at least three-quarters of them would be likely to welcome an appeal stressing honesty and fair play. STILL SWING VOTERS It is still undetermined to what extent Spotlight's strategy worked, and the company has not correlated the Barn Raisers to their actual votes. However, it is reasonable to presume that amid that sea of humanity stretched out before Obama on Washington's Mall on January 20, 2008, at least some were moved by microtargeted appeals. And if Obama and his team fail to honor their mathematically honed vows, the Barn Raisers may abandon them in droves. They are swing voters, after all. QUESTIONS: ●

Describe the difference between transactional and analytical information and determine which of these types Spotlight used to identify its 10 tribes.

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Explain the importance of high-quality information for political microtargeting.

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Review the five common characteristics of high-quality information and rank them in order of importance for political microtargeting.

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In terms of political microtargeting, explain the following sentence: It is never possible to have all the information required to make a 100 percent accurate prediction.

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Do you agree that political microtargeting signals the dehumanization of politics?

APPLE—MER GING TECHNO LO GY, BUSINESS, AND EN TERTAINMENT This might sound hard to believe, but a bit more than a decade ago, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. Apple Inc., now back from near oblivion, is blazing a trail through the digital world with innovation and creativity that has been missing from the company for the past 20 years. The unique feature of Apple's competitive advantages is that they come from customers and users, not Apple employees. That's right; the company welcomes products created by consumers to sell to consumers, a trend new to business. CAPITALIZING ON THE IPOD With millions of iPods in the hands of consumers, many people are finding ways to capitalize on the product. John Lin created a prototype of a remote control for the iPod and took his prototype to Macworld, where he found success. A few months later, Lin's company had Apple's blessing and a commitment for shelf space in its retail stores. “This is how Apple supports the iPod economy,” Lin said. In the iPod-dominated market, hundreds of companies have been inspired to develop more than 500 accessories— everything from rechargers for the car to $1,500 Fendi bags. Eric Tong, vice president at Belkin, a cable and peripheral manufacturer, believes that 75 percent of all iPod owners purchase at least one accessory—selling over 30 million accessories to date. With most of the products priced between $10 and $200, that puts the iPod economy well over $300 million and perhaps as high as $6 billion. Popular iPod accessories include: ●

Altec Lansing Technologies—iPod speakers and recharger dock ($150).

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Belkin—TuneCast mobile FM transmitter ($40).

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Etymotic Research—high-end earphones ($150).

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Griffin Technology—iTrip FM transmitter ($35).

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Kate Spade—Geneva faux-croc mini iPod holder ($55).

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Apple—socks set in six colors: green, purple, blue, orange, pink, and gray ($29).

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Apple—digital camera connector ($29).

CAPITALIZING ON THE IPHONE Looking at someone using an iPhone is an interesting experience because there is a good chance they are not making a phone call. They could be doing a number of things from playing a game to trading stocks, watching a TV show, or even conducting business with a mobile version of salesforce.com's customer-management software. In a brilliant strategic move, Apple let outsiders offer software for the iPhone and in less than six months, more than 10,000 applications had been created. In fact, more than 15,000 applications are available at its app store section of iTunes, and they have been downloaded a total of 500 million times. Now, many of the iPhone apps are available for the iPad. The iPhone and iPad app store market is getting so huge relative to other smartphone markets that some developers argue there is little point adapting applications for Google's Android or any other iPhone competitor. According to Jeff Holden, CEO of Pelago Inc., when he created his social networking company he fully intended to follow the conventional wisdom for how to build a sizable, fast-growing software company: Get your programs on as many platforms and devices as possible. But when he crunched the numbers he came to an interesting business conclusion: The 13 million iPhone owners had already downloaded more applications than the 1.1 billion other cell phone owners! To entrepreneurs, developing a program for the iPhone automatically provides a significantly larger market—almost 94 times larger than its competitors. “Why would I ever build for anything but the iPhone?” Holden asked. CAPITALIZING ON THE IPAD Apple's latest release, the iPad, is a lightweight, portable, tablet computer, similar to the iPhone, that allows customers to download applications, check email, and play music all at the touch of a button. Both the iPhone and the iPad can multitask, allowing customers to read a web page while downloading email in the background over wireless networks. The arrival of the iPad brought a simultaneous expansion of the network of accessories. Because the iPad was designed with an exposed screen and without a camera, separate keyboard, memory card slots, or expansion ports, one might say it was specifically built for accessories. Many owners will modify it in some way, whether for mere decoration or hard-core protection. A few of the new accessories include: ●

iPad Clear Armor screen protector —$35.

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iPad Antique book case cover—$40.

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iPad wireless keyboard —$99.

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iPad overcoat sleeve —$35.

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iPad Joule luxury stand—$130.

Apple has consistently outperformed its key rivals through the development of its MP3 player, the iPod, and continues to make its products smaller and less expensive, while providing complementary features such as games and applications. For the iPhone, Apple developed a unique application called Siri, a voice-activation system that is capable of recognizing voice commands. Siri can perform all kinds of functions from dialing a contact and creating an email to location services such as “Find my Phone,” ensuring lost phones are found quickly. Apple's latest offering is a new service called the iCloud. The iCloud has the ...