3.08 b Determine venture’s information technology

Components Of Information Systems People Equipment—Hardware And Software Processes/Procedures Data -Data refers to raw, unevaluated facts, figures, symbols, objects, events, etc. Data may be a collection of facts lying in storage, like a telephone directory or census records.

Ways To Determine A Venture’s Information Technology Needs Talk With Managers Of Similar Businesses, Brainstorm Ask Experts Administer Survey Talk With Manufacturers Research Capabilities Of Software/Hardware)

Functionalities Of Hardware/Software Components

Information Technology Systems Aid In Achieving Company Goals Improved Efficiency Improved Effectiveness, Improved Communication Reduced Errors Improved Quality

Understanding Business Processes When Determining A Venture’s Information Technology Needs. Identifying your organization's Information Technology needs and requirements typically involves evaluating your IT services. As you attempt to align your IT infrastructure model with your business strategies, identify the gaps and opportunities for improvement. Developing a summary report of your findings and validating your recommendations helps ensure that future IT investments meet your organization's business needs effectively. On an ongoing basis, clearly define any IT project's vision and scope before you gather requirements, make purchases or begin development.

Procedures For Determining A Venture’s Information Technology Needs. Step 1 Ensure your stakeholders and sponsors can make time to work with business analysts on defining the IT requirements. Conduct online surveys and run focus groups to gather viewpoints. Get input from users, as well. Managers often claim to speak for users, but sometimes misrepresent user needs. By gathering all relevant details, you can later prioritize the IT needs without guessing about missing information. Step 2 Analyze your IT environment and services. Examine your organization's current strategic plan. Look at operational metrics such as server performance and usage. Review the cost of current operations. Learn about the short-term business outlook for your organization to anticipate any cutbacks or growth that might impact your IT planning. Step 3 Evaluate customer satisfaction levels with existing services by reviewing help desk and support reports. Identify any outage trends so that you make recommendations for improvements. Examine common problems and how long it typically takes to resolve issues. Step 4 Comply with federal regulatory laws regarding security and electronic data distribution, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, which describes specific mandates and requirements for financial reporting by public companies.

Procedures For Determining A Venture’s Information Technology Needs. Step 5 Appraise potential security issues, such as viruses, denial of service attacks, spam and other problems. Prepare to implement programs to manage identity authentication. Step 6 Communicate with users about your plans and coordinate efforts with other ongoing projects. For example, removing support for outdated applications may impact people who rely on these products to do their job effectively. By creating a comprehensive transition plan in advance, you can minimize service disruptions. Assure your users that you intend to streamline services and improve maintenance, stability and reliability of all systems. Provide technical training for all levels of users in your organization. Step 7 Validate your requirements. Implement a change request procedure, but avoid changing the requirements continuously. Look for unnecessary or ambiguous feature requests that can add costs and make accurate planning difficult or impossible. Step 8 Plan your IT projects based on real business IT needs. Break down suggested improvements into defined projects. Assign resources to these projects. Check to see what, if any, dependencies exist between projects. Prioritize your projects, and develop an overall time line to implement changes to your IT infrastructure

Activity 3.08 b Instruct students to individually access and complete the “Setting Up a Basic IT System” interactive tool located at =ONEOFFPAGE&topicId= After answering a series of questions about his/her start-up business venture, each student will receive individualized suggestions from the web site regarding information technology hardware that the student should purchase or generally obtain. Each student should print out these recommendations, discuss them with a classmate, and add them to his/her VIP portfolio. =ONEOFFPAGE&topicId= After determining the hardware that they need for their businesses, students should read the article “Gearing Up a Small Business: Software” at Lead the class in a discussion of the different software programs addressed in the article. Finally, direct each student to develop a list of the software applications that s/he plans to use in her/his small business venture. Upon completion, students should put their software lists in their VIP portfolios.