Info Systems Final Questions PDF

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Information Systems with Mark Silver...

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Part 3: Case Questions 1) The small publishing company you work for wants to create a new database for storing information about all of their author contracts. What factors will influence how you design the database? ● ● ● ● ● ●

establishing a good data model, determining which data is important beyond looking up contract information, technical difficulties linking this system to existing systems, new business processes for data input and handling, and contracts management, determining how end users will use the data, making data definitions consistent with other databases,

2) You are starting a market research company with a single business partner and are planning the hardware and software need for the two of you. Which factors should play into your decision of how much to spend on these investments? Using the competitive forces model for IT infrastructure investment, the most relevant factors in this decision are: ● The firm's business strategy. What capabilities will we want to have over the next five years? ● Alignment of IT strategy. How does our IT strategy match up with the business plan? ● IT assessment. What are the current technology levels for the services we are offering and our business type? We would probably not need to be at the bleeding edge, but not behind the times either. ● Competitor firm services. What technology-enabled capabilities do our competitors have? We would want to match services with our competitors. ● Competitor firm IT investments. How much are competitor firms investing in their technology? Because this is a startup, one other factor may not play such a large role: That of market demand for services. However, finding out what the market demand for competitor's services may uncover ways that this new company could have a competitive advantage. 3) You are an analyst for a firm that imports and distributes specialty oils and vinegars and your company wants you to evaluate their options for taking advantage of cutting-edge business analytics. What are their choices? What will you recommend? There are two strategies for adopting BI and BA capabilities: 1. an integrated solution or 2. using multiple best-of-breed vendor software solutions. The hardware firms want to sell you integrated hardware/software solutions that run on their hardware (the totally integrated solution). Software firms will want to sell you "best of breed" software that runs on any machine they want. In this strategy, you adopt the best database and data warehouse solution, and select the best business intelligence and analytics package from whatever vendor you believe is best. Student recommendations will vary: The first solution

carries the risk that a single vendor provides your firm's total hardware and software solution, making your firm dependent on its pricing power, but it offers the advantage of dealing with a single vendor who can deliver on a global scale. The second solution offers greater flexibility and independence, but with the risk of potential difficulties integrating the software to the hardware platform, as well as to other software. 4) Web site tracking software can log the path a customer took through the Web site, the time spent on the site, and what geographic area in general the customer is from, all of which can help in customer analysis. It can also log the customer's operating system and which browser the customer is using. How could these last two data items be of interest to a company? Give examples. Customer OS and browser interact technologically with a Web site and might be relevant in data analysis. An example is: Customer OSs and browsers could help a company determine what technical functionalities could be used in the site. For example, if it found out that a significant percentage of its users are using mobile browsers, they might want to make sure that the Web site is easily used by various mobile devices. Secondly, this data might be relevant in data mining or other analysis. For example, a retail clothing company might find that a significant portion of their most valued customers use an Apple operating system, and from other data analysis know that Apple users are more likely to purchase cashmere sweaters. Then the company may want to place a greater emphasis on selling the cashmere sweaters. 5) You have been hired as a consultant for a nationwide real estate firm, Cross & Deptford, who are interested in achieving better organization between branches by updating their information systems but are not sure what will suit their needs. What will you recommend they do in order to determine the most effective IT projects? Cross & Deptford first should have an information systems plan created to determine what their information requirements are and what systems will support their business goals. They will need to inventory their existing systems and develop metrics to quantify any future improvements are made. They can use critical success factors and/or portfolio analysis and/or scoring models to help determine the most important information systems projects to pursue.

6) The textbook describes Michael Porter's view of the Internet as somewhat negative. What negative influences does Porter see? Describe several positive influences the Internet has on business. Do these outweigh the negative influences? Porter sees the Internet as creating ever more intense rivalry, through allowing new competitors to enter the market, and forcing competition on price alone, raising the bargaining power of customers, and dampening profits. Positive influences of the Internet would be lowering telecommunications costs, creating new opportunities for building brands and loyal customer bases, lowering costs of globalization. You could also view Porter's negative take on lowering the barrier to entry as a positive for new companies.

The Internet's influence being negative or positive depends in part on the point of view from which the influence is being seen. For example, a telephone utility is impacted negatively by the emergence of Internet telephony, whereas other industries may be impacted positively either through the use of this technology or through engaging in Internet telephony as a business....