INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS TODAY

INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS TODAY
Chapter 1 INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS TODAY

CHAPTER 1: INFORMATION IN BUSINESS SYSTEMS TODAY
Learning Objectives Understanding the effects of information systems on business and their relationship to globalization. Explain why information systems are so essential in business today. Define an information system and describe its management, organization, and technology components. Define complementary assets and explain how they ensure that information systems provide genuine value to an organization. Q: What is meant by globalization? Q: What are its impacts? Potential answers could include: reduction of economic and cultural advantages of developed countries, increased number of companies with operations in multiple countries worldwide, and increased reliance on imports and exports of goods (and jobs). © Prentice Hall 2011

The New Yankee Stadium Looks to the Future Problem: Yankee fans choosing to watch games on TV or choose other forms of entertainment Solutions: Use information systems to enhance experience. Game coverage, statistics, delivered via ubiquitous HDTV monitors, mobiles can order concessions, view replays Cisco Systems provides technology to make Yankee Stadium the most wired in all of baseball Demonstrates IT’s role in providing new products and services. Illustrates the benefits of utilizing networks and mobile applications to enhance entertainment, information. Q: Everything else being equal do you think that a baseball team using state of the art information systems would be more successful than a team that did not? Q: Why do you feel the way you do? Q: Would you expect an organization like a professional sports franchise to be a good example of the importance of information systems. The point here would be that information systems are vitally important to all forms of business, professional sports included. © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today How information systems are transforming business Increase in wireless technology use, Web sites Increased business use of Web 2.0 technologies Cloud computing, mobile digital platform allow more distributed work, decision-making, and collaboration Globalization opportunities Internet has drastically reduced costs of operating on global scale Presents both challenges and opportunities New federal security and accounting laws that require companies to store for 5 years have spurred the growth of digital information, which is increasing at a rate of 5 exabytes annually. Q: How much is 5 exabytes of data? 37,000 Libraries of Congress. Q: What difference does it make to the world economy, or the U.S. economy, if global operations become much less expensive? Q: What are the challenges to American suppliers of goods and services, and to labor? © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Information Technology Capital Investment Total investment is over one trillion dollars in 2010, and over 550 billion dollars of that was invested in IT. Q: Why it is that the percentage of total investment devoted to IT has increased so much since 1980? Other kinds of capital investment are machinery and buildings. Q: Why would firms increase IT investment faster than machinery and buildings. The answer is capital substitution: the price of IT capital has been falling exponentially, while the price of machine and buildings has been growing at slightly more than the rate of inflation. Wherever possible, firms would much rather invest in more IT than machinery or buildings because the returns on the investment are greater. FIGURE 1-1 Information technology capital investment, defined as hardware, software, and communications equipment, grew from 32 percent to 52 percent of all invested capital between 1980 and 2009. © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today In the emerging, fully digital firm Significant business relationships are digitally enabled and mediated Core business processes are accomplished through digital networks Key corporate assets are managed digitally Digital firms offer greater flexibility in organization and management Time shifting, space shifting Time shifting and space shifting are connected to globalization. Q: Can you explain why a digital firm is more likely to benefit from globalization than a traditional firm. One answer is that by allowing business to be conducted at any time (time shifting) and any place (space shifting), digital firms are ideally suited for global operations which take place in remote locations and very different time zones. © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today MIS IN YOUR POCKET What are the advantages of using mobile handheld devices? What are the disadvantages? What features are needed in a mobile to make it a business solution? What business functions can be performed by using handhelds alone? How have other companies utilized handhelds? Also see case study questions 1, 3 and MIS in Action 1, 2 Q: Have you ever used a handheld for work? Did you think it was useful or effective? Q: What are different types of businesses where handhelds could be used to perform some business processes? © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Growing interdependence between ability to use information technology and ability to implement corporate strategies and achieve corporate goals Business firms invest heavily in information systems to achieve six strategic business objectives: Operational excellence New products, services, and business models Customer and supplier intimacy Improved decision making Competitive advantage Survival Q: In the Yankee Stadium opening case, how did the various information systems used help succeed or fail in achieving the six strategic business objectives. Information systems helped the Yankees achieve greater customer intimacy and offer new services. Q: Can you think about some other business objectives and how IT might help firms achieve them. For instance, speed to market is very important to firms introducing new products. How can IT help achieve that objective? © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Operational excellence: Improvement of efficiency to attain higher profitability Information systems, technology an important tool in achieving greater efficiency and productivity Walmart’s RetailLink system links suppliers to stores for superior replenishment system Walmart is the most efficient retailer in the industry and exemplifies operational excellence. Q: Can you name other businesses that you believe to exhibit a high level of operational excellence? Do customers perceive operational excellence? Does it make a difference for customer purchasing? What Web sites strike you as really excellent in terms of customer service? © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today New products, services, and business models: Business model: describes how company produces, delivers, and sells product or service to create wealth Information systems and technology a major enabling tool for new products, services, business models Examples: Apple’s iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, Google’s Android OS, and Netflix Q: Can you name other new products or business models that you’ve encountered and how they might relate to new information systems or new technology. Q: Can you help me list on the blackboard some really interesting recent digital product innovations. Discussing “green technologies” like wind, solar, and hybrid vehicles is always fun. Q: In this context, what role will IT be playing in the development of these technologies? © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Customer and supplier intimacy: Serving customers well leads to customers returning, which raises revenues and profits Example: High-end hotels that use computers to track customer preferences and use to monitor and customize environment Intimacy with suppliers allows them to provide vital inputs, which lowers costs Example: J.C.Penney’s information system which links sales records to contract manufacturer Q: What types of companies might rely on customer and supplier intimacy more than others and which companies do you feel have served you exceptionally well? Q: Can you identify online sites that achieve a high degree of customer intimacy? Sites to visit would include Netflix, Amazon, and other sites which have recommender systems to suggest purchase ideas to consumers. © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Improved decision making Without accurate information: Managers must use forecasts, best guesses, luck Leads to: Overproduction, underproduction of goods and services Misallocation of resources Poor response times Poor outcomes raise costs, lose customers Example: Verizon’s Web-based digital dashboard to provide managers with real-time data on customer complaints, network performance, line outages, etc. Q: Have you ever received exceptional service from a company made possible by improved decision-making? Did information systems contribute to that level of service? For example, perhaps you had a power outage and it took a very short (or very long) time for the utility company to correct the error. © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Operational excellence: Improvement of efficiency to attain higher profitability New products, services, and business models: Enabled by technology Customer and supplier intimacy: Serving customers raises revenues and profits Better communication with suppliers lowers costs Improved decision making More accurate data leads to better decisions This slide is a recap of the previous four slides. Q: Which business objective do you believe to be most critical to the success of a business,? Do they all carry equal weight? © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Competitive advantage Delivering better performance Charging less for superior products Responding to customers and suppliers in real time Examples: Apple, Walmart, UPS Achieving any of the previous four business objectives represents the achievement of a competitive advantage as well. © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today Survival Information technologies as necessity of business May be: Industry-level changes, e.g. Citibank’s introduction of ATMs Governmental regulations requiring record- keeping Examples: Toxic Substances Control Act, Sarbanes- Oxley Act Q: Can you name any examples of companies that failed to survive due to unwillingness or inability to update their information systems. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that public firms keep all data, including , on record for 5 years. Q: Can you appreciate why information systems would be useful towards meeting the standards imposed by this legislation. © Prentice Hall 2011

The Role of Information Systems in Business Today The Interdependence Between Organizations and Information Technology The basic point of this graphic is that in order to achieve its business objectives, a firm will need a significant investment in IT. Going the other direction (from right to left), having a significant IT platform can lead to changes in business objectives and strategies. This is a two-way relationship. Businesses rely on information systems to help them achieve their goals; a business without adequate information systems will inevitably fall short. But information systems are also products of the businesses that use them. Businesses shape their information systems and information systems shape businesses. Figure 1.2 In contemporary systems there is a growing interdependence between a firm’s information systems and its business capabilities. Changes in strategy, rules, and business processes increasingly require changes in hardware, software, databases, and telecommunications. Often, what the organization would like to do depends on what its systems will permit it to do. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Information system: Set of interrelated components Collect, process, store, and distribute information Support decision making, coordination, and control Information vs. data Data are streams of raw facts Information is data shaped into meaningful form These are some basic background understandings needed for the course. A system refers to a set of components that work together (hopefully). Q: Can you think of systems other than information systems? The point of an information system is to make sense out all the confusing data in the environment, and put the data into some kind of order. Information is an ordered set of data that you can understand and act on. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Data and Information Emphasize the distinction between information and data. You could, for example, ask several students to list their ages and write the numbers on one side of the board – then you could calculate the average age of those students on the other side, oldest student, youngest student, and so forth, to illustrate the difference between raw data and meaningful information. Figure 1.3 Raw data from a supermarket checkout counter can be processed and organized to produce meaningful information, such as the total unit sales of dish detergent or the total sales revenue from dish detergent for a specific store or sales territory. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Three activities of information systems produce information organizations need Input: Captures raw data from organization or external environment Processing: Converts raw data into meaningful form Output: Transfers processed information to people or activities that use it Use an example similar to the one given in the previous slide to illustrate the three activities involved in the function of an information system. Continuing with that example, the process of asking students their age would represent input, calculating the average age and determining the oldest and youngest age would represent processing, and writing that information on the board would represent output. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Feedback: Output returned to appropriate members of organization to help evaluate or correct input stage Computer/Computer program vs. information system Computers and software are technical foundation and tools, similar to the material and tools used to build a house Explain to students how the ‘house’ analogy works: assuming that a successful information system is like a completed ‘house’, computers and software only represent the tools and materials used to build the house. Tools and materials don’t just suddenly become a completed house – outside (human) input is required. Systems need to be designed to fit the firms and the humans who work with the systems. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Functions of an Information System An information system contains information about an organization and its surrounding environment. Three basic activities—input, processing, and output—produce the information organizations need. Feedback is output returned to appropriate people or activities in the organization to evaluate and refine the input. Environmental actors, such as customers, suppliers, competitors, stockholders, and regulatory agencies, interact with the organization and its information systems. As you can see, information systems play a central role mediating and interacting with all these players. Hence, systems play a key role in the operations and survival of the firm. Think about the Synergy system in the opening case. The two types of input into the Synergy system are manually entered data and video. The system processes that data and creates the output, video and statistics about specific types of players and plays. Figure 1.4 © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Information Systems Are More Than Computers Using information systems effectively requires an understanding of the organization, management, and information technology shaping the systems. An information system creates value for the firm as an organizational and management solution to challenges posed by the environment. These three themes (management, organizations, and technology) will reappear throughout the book. Understanding the interaction between these factors and information systems is known as information system literacy. Knowing how to optimize the relationship between technology, organizations, and management is the purpose of this book and course. Figure 1.5 © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Organizational dimension of information systems Hierarchy of authority, responsibility Senior management Middle management Operational management Knowledge workers Data workers Production or service workers Q: Can you tell us about an organization where you have worked? What is/was your contact with senior management, middle management, and operational (supervisory) management? What do the different layers of management do? © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Levels in a Firm Business organizations are hierarchies consisting of three principal levels: senior management, middle management, and operational management. Information systems serve each of these levels. Scientists and knowledge workers often work with middle management. Figure 1.6 Q: Can you think about how information systems would factor into the day-to-day jobs of each of the three types of workers in the pyramid. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Organizational dimension of information systems (cont.) Separation of business functions Sales and marketing Human resources Finance and accounting Manufacturing and production Unique business processes Unique business culture Organizational politics The point of this slide is that there are many organizational factors that will shape information systems. A common observation is that “Every business is different.” Every business has its unique culture, and politics. Systems reflect these business cultures. Take for example UPS (see Interactive Session later in the chapter). The company’s package tracking systems exemplify their commitment to customer service and putting the customer first. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Management dimension of information systems Managers set organizational strategy for responding to business challenges In addition, managers must act creatively: Creation of new products and services Occasionally re-creating the organization Q: How might information systems assist managers in the development of new products and services? Q: What is meant by re-creating the organization? Why do organizations need to be continually re-created? The answer is that they quickly become obsolete unless they continue to change. Q: Can you think of some organizations that have recently failed, or are about to fail. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Technology dimension of information systems Computer hardware and software Data management technology Networking and telecommunications technology Networks, the Internet, intranets and extranets, World Wide Web IT infrastructure: provides platform that system is built on Information technology is at the heart of information systems. While organization and management are important too, it’s the technology that enables the systems and the organizations and managers who use the technology. The distinction between the Internet and intranets & extranets has to do with their scope. Intranets are private networks used by corporations and extranets are similar except that they are directed at external users (like customers and suppliers). In contrast, the Internet connects millions of different networks across the globe. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems UPS COMPETES GLOBALLY WITH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY What are the inputs, processing, and outputs of UPS’s package tracking system? What technologies are used by UPS? How are these technologies related to UPS’s business strategy? What problems do UPS’s information systems solve? What would happen if these systems were not available? UPS is a good example of a company that successfully uses information systems to enhance their business. Q: What is the Delivery Information Acquisition Device (DIAD)? How is it used? Q: Do you think UPS does a good job with its information systems? What might they improve? © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Dimensions of UPS tracking system Organizational: Procedures for tracking packages and managing inventory and provide information Management: Monitor service levels and costs Technology: Handheld computers, bar-code scanners, networks, desktop computers, etc. Q: What would the consequences would be if any one of the three dimensions of information systems were lacking at UPS. With poor technology, good management and organizational procedures would not significantly increase efficiency; without good organizational procedures, even the highest-quality technology wouldn’t prevent frequent errors and data loss; and without good management, the company would not make appropriate decisions about how to use the technology and what procedures to use. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Business perspective on information systems: Information system is instrument for creating value Investments in information technology will result in superior returns: Productivity increases Revenue increases Superior long-term strategic positioning Q: How does this view of information systems contrast with the sociotechnical view or other views. Q: Under what circumstances might information systems not result in increased productivity and revenue. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Business information value chain Raw data acquired and transformed through stages that add value to that information Value of information system determined in part by extent to which it leads to better decisions, greater efficiency, and higher profits Business perspective: Calls attention to organizational and managerial nature of information systems The end result of the business information value chain will always be profitability. Q: What aspects of the business perspective might be lacking? Q: Are there other perspectives that might provide a different picture? (sociotechnical) © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems The Business Information Value Chain The information value chain is one way to visualize the relationship between information activities, business processes, and management activities. Q: Can you imagine any reason to create an information system besides profitability or strategic positioning? (it’s not likely that they will think of one, which will prove the point). One reason to create a system that is not primarily profit oriented is to meet the information reporting requirements of government and other authorities. Figure 1-7 From a business perspective, information systems are part of a series of value-adding activities for acquiring, transforming, and distributing information that managers can use to improve decision making, enhance organizational performance, and, ultimately, increase firm profitability. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Variation in Returns On Information Technology Investment Although, on average, investments in information technology produce returns far above those returned by other investments, there is considerable variation across firms. Figure 1.8 Emphasize that each quadrant of the graph represents a different type of firm. Quadrant 1 represents firms that invest much less in IT but still receive strong returns. Quadrant 2 represents firms that invest a great deal in IT and receive a great deal in returns. Quadrant 3 represents firms that invest much less in IT and receive poor returns. Quadrant 4 represents firms that invest a great deal in IT but receive poor returns. Q: Where would you want your firms to show up? © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Investing in information technology does not guarantee good returns Considerable variation in the returns firms receive from systems investments Factors: Adopting the right business model Investing in complementary assets (organizational and management capital) Connect this slide to the previous slide. Many firms make significant investments in IT for very little benefit to the bottom line. Q: Why do companies experience a wide variety of outcomes in their efforts to invest in IT. Consider the factors we use in this book: organizational and management factors. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Complementary assets: Assets required to derive value from a primary investment Firms supporting technology investments with investment in complementary assets receive superior returns E.g.: invest in technology and the people to make it work properly Consider automobile companies: these companies rely on investments in highways, other roads, gas stations, repair facilities, and so on to maximize the value of their primary investment. Q: Can you provide a different example of another company’s or industry’s complementary assets. © Prentice Hall 2011

Perspectives on Information Systems Complementary assets include: Organizational assets, e.g. Appropriate business model Efficient business processes Managerial assets, e.g. Incentives for management innovation Teamwork and collaborative work environments Social assets, e.g. The Internet and telecommunications infrastructure Technology standards Firms that make significant investment in complementary assets tend to derive greater benefit from information technology investment than those that do not. Consideration of complementary assets should be a part of any firm’s broader view of how to create and implement their information systems. Managers must consider dimensions like complementary assets in order to derive benefit from information systems and be successful. © Prentice Hall 2011

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