The Importance of IS Management Chapter 1 Information Systems Management In Practice 5E McNurlin & Sprague

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-2 A Little History U.S. passed from the industrial era to the information era as early as The number of U.S. employees whose jobs were primarily to handle information surpassed the number of industrial workers.

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-3 The Organizational Environment The External Organizational Environment IT allows information to move faster, thus increasing the speed at which events take place and the pace at which individuals and organizations respond to events. The Internal Organizational Environment Outsourcing and Strategic Alliances Examining types of work that should be done internally or externally by others The Demise of Hierarchy Hierarchical structures cannot cope with rapid change.

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-4 The Technology Environment It “enables” advances in organizational performance. Hardware Trends Batch processing predominant; on- line systems emerged later 1980s: Advent of personal computers Client-Server computing: “Client” machine user interfaces with “Server” on holding the data and applications

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-5 Software Trends 1.Improve the productivity of in-house programmers who created transaction processing systems 2.Programming issues: –Modular and structured programming techniques –Life cycle development methodologies and software engineering –Introduction of rigorous project management techniques. The Technology Environment

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-6 Software Trends 3.Prototyping: quick development of a mock-up 4.Purchasing software became viable alternative to in-house development 5.Paying attention to applications other than transaction processing –Decision support systems (DSS), report generation, database inquiry 6.End users develop their own systems The Technology Environment

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-7 The Technology Environment Data Trends –File management –Corporate databases –Database management systems –Dictionary/directory –Specification and format –Data definitions: information about relationships among systems, sources and uses of data, and time cycle requirements. –First 20 years: techniques to manage data in a centralized environment

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-8 The Technology Environment Data Trends –PCs: employees directly access corporate data. –Distributing data from data resources to information resources –Data management organizes internal facts into data record format –Information management –Digitized media –Managing the intellectual capital of the organization –Knowledge management

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc. 1-9 The Technology Environment Communications Trends –Public and private (intra-company) –Telecom as an integral component of IS management –Communications-based information systems link organizations to their suppliers and customers –Strategic advantage –Enabler for distributing computing –Shifted mainframe-centered computing to network-centric computing

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc The Mission of Information Systems Early days: “paperwork factories” Objectives of information systems defined by productivity measures MIS era: produced reports for “management by exception” for all levels of management Improve the performance of people in organizations through the use of information technology Performance improvement: a goal based on the outcomes Focus is the people Resource for this improvement is IT

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc A Simple Model Some applications, such as Web page development, database management, and spreadsheet manipulation, are developed and used by employees.

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc A Better Model The Users Activities are well defined Efficiency Handling data Measured by results Figuring out how to attain goals Handling concepts, not data The wave of the future is applying IT to goal-based activities, where the enterprise is more important than the process.

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc IS Management Four major components: The technology Information workers The system development and delivery function The management of the IS function

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc Case Example: Mead Corporation The 1990s: Implement Vision 2000 Mainframe would continue to be the best platform for large-volume transaction systems requiring massive computing power; could become an enterprise server; consistent with the adoption of an enterprise wide client-server application Integration of voice, image, and video at desktops; higher capacity networks are needed

Copyright 2002 by Prentice Hall, Inc Case Example: Mead Corporation The 1990s: Implement Vision 2000 Unit costs of technology will continue to decline; overall IT usage at Mead would increase PCs present a hidden cost Technology advancements would increase; challenge is to balance the need for standards while keeping up with the pace of change