Mangement Information Systems 3713

Chapter 1: MANAGING IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

What is a system?
A system is a group of components that interact to achieve some kind of
purpose.
What is an Information System?
An Information System is a group of components that interact to produce
information such as- Hardware, Software (Intangible), Telecommunications,
Databases, People (THE MOST IMPORTANT RESOURCE), and Procedures.
What is Information technology?
The hardware, software, and networking components of an information
system.
What is Management Information Systems?
MIS is the development and use of information systems that help businesses
achieve their goals and objectives.
What were the five IT Megatrends in the Information Age?
1. Mobile: The embodiment of the Post-PC era. Persons are able to
connect and interact with one another without the use of a PC or
laptop anymore.
2. Social Media: Web-based applications embodying core values such as
collaboration and social sharing, allowing people to communicate,
interact, and collaborate in various ways.
3. Internet of Things: A broad range of physical objects such as computer,
sensors or monitors that are interconnected and automatically share
data over the internet.
4. Cloud Computing: Web technologies enable using the Internet as a
platform for applications and data. Most of the functionality previously
offered by application installed on an individual computer is now
offered by application in the cloud that are accessed via your web
browser- these can be accessed anywhere and at anytime.
5. Big Data: Extremely large and complex databases, typically
characterized as being of high volume, variety and velocity.
What is Globalization?

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The integration of economies throughout the world, enabled by innovation
and technological progress.

What are the key driving Impacts of Globalization?

1. Economic Change: increase in international trade, global finance and
labour outsourcing.
2. Cultural Change: increases in the availability of multiculturalism
through television and movies, the frequency of international travels,
tourism and immigration and the availability of ethnic foods and
restaurants.
3. Technological Change: the development of low-cost computing
platforms and communication technologies, the increasing availability
of low-cost communication platforms such as skype and Facebook and
the low-cost global telecommunications infrastructure like the internet,
and the enforcement of global patent and copyright laws that allow for
further innovation.
WHAT LED TO THE RISE OF OUTSOURCING
What is outsourcing?
Outsourcing is the moving of business processed or tasks such as
accounting, manufacturing, or security to another company, either onshore
(DOMESTICALLY) and offshore (INTERNATIONALLY). The rise of outsourcing
started when a decrease in communication costs came and companies
realised that they can outsource business processes on a global scale.
Why are companies choosing to outsource business activities?
1. To reduce of control cost
2. To free up internal resources
3. To gain access to world-class capabilities
4. To increase the revenue potential of the organization
5. To reduce time to market
6. To increase process efficiencies
7. To be able to focus on core activities
8. To compensate for a lack of specific capabilities or skills
NB: COMPANIES ARE OFFSHORING PRODUCTION TO OVERSEAS COUNTRIES
SUCH AS CHINA TO UTILIZE MORE TALENTED AND SKILLED WORKERS OR
REDUCE COSTS.
DATA: THE ROOT AND PURPOSE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

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INFORMATION SYSTEMS USE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO COLLECT,
CREATE AND DISTRIBUTE USEFUL DATA.

What is an Information System?

An Information System is a group of components that interact to produce
information such as- Hardware, Software (Intangible), Telecommunications,
Databases, People (THE MOST IMPORTANT RESOURCE), and Procedures.
1. DATA: Raw symbol, such as words and numbers, that have no meaning
in and of themselves, and are of little value until processed.
2. INFORMATION: Data that have been formatted and/ or organized in
some way as to be useful to people
3. KNOWLEDGE: In order to actually use information, knowledge must be
involved. Knowledge is a body of governing procedures such as
guidelines or rules that are used to organize or manipulate data to
make the data suitable for a given task.
ORGANIZATIONS: THE CONTEXT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
ORAGANIZATIONS USE INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO BECOME MORE
PRODUCTIVE AND PROFITABLE, TO GAIN COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE, TO
REACH MORE CUSTOMERS, OR TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE.
What are the different types of Information Systems?
1. Transaction Processing Systems: Used by a broad range of
organizations to not only more efficiently process customer
transactions, but also generate a tremendous amount of data that can
be used by the organization to learn about customers or ever-changing
product trends. PROCESS DAY-TO-DAY BUSINESS EVENT DATA AT THE
OPERATIONAL LEVEL OF THE ORGANIZATION.
2. Management Information System: PRODUCES DETAILED INFORMATION
TO HELP MANAGE A FIRM OR PART OF A FIRM- TPS data is sorted into
and organized to support a broad range of managerial decision making
using a variety of systems.
3. Internetworking: Connecting host computers and their networks
together to form even larger networks like the internet.
4. System Integration: Connecting separate information systems and data
to improve business processes and decision making.
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5. Office Automation Systems: Support a wide range of predefined day-today work activities of individual and small groups.
6. Collaboration Systems: Enables people to communicate, collaborate,
and coordinate with one another.

CHAPTER 2: GAINING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH INFORMATION

SYSTEMS
What is a business process?
A business process is set of related activities an organization performs in
order to reach its business goals.
What are the various levels of organizational decision making?
1. Operational Level (FORMEN & SUPERVISORS): Information systems at
the operational level of an organization help to improve efficiency by
automating routine and repetitive activities such as sales transaction
processing, and to improve the efficiency of business processes at the
customer interface. Management makes
TYPE OF DECISION: STRUCTURED DECISIONS- procedures to follow for a
given situation can be specified in advance.
2. Managerial/ Tactical Level (MIDLEVEL AND FUNCTIONAL MANAGERS):
Information systems at the managerial level of an organization help to
improve effectiveness by automating the monitoring and controlling of
operational activities.
TYPE OF DECISION: SEMISTRUCTURED DECISIONS- Solutions and problems
are not clear-cut and often require judgement and expertise. Some
procedures to follow for given situation can be specified in advance, but not
to the extent where a specific recommendation can be made.
3. Executive Level (EXECUTIVE LEVEL MANAGERS): Information Systems
at the executive level of an organization help to improve strategy and
planning by providing summaries of past data and projections of the
future.
TYPE OF DECISION: UNSTRUCTURES DECISIONS- Problems are relatively
complex and non-routine. Few or no procedures to follow for a given situation
can be specified in advance.
What is strategic advantage?

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A lead a firm has over its competitors.
What are the sources of Competitive Advantage?
1. First-mover advantage: Being the first to enter the market.
2. Quality: Having the best-made product on the market.
3. Service: Delivering superior customer service.
4. Low-cost: Achieving lowers costs than rivals.
5. Proprietary: Having a proprietary manufacturing technology, formula,
or algorithm.
6. Innovation: Having shorter lead times in developing and testing new
products.
7. Brand: Having a well-known brand-name.
8. Value: giving customer more value for their money.
How do we identify where to compete?
PORTERS FIVE FORCE MODEL
(a) Bargaining power of suppliers: Increased costs and reduced quality.
(b)Rivalry among existing Firm-in its current state: Competition in Price,
product distribution and service.
(c) Threat of entrants: Increased capacity in the industry, reduced prices,
and decreased market share.
(d)Bargaining power of buyers: Reduced prices, need for increased
quality, and demand for more services.
(e) Threat of substitute products or services: Product returns from
customers, decreased market share and losing customers for life.
PORTERS VALUE CHAIN MODEL
What is a value chain?
A value chain is a network of primary and secondary support activities in an
organization where value is added to a product or service.
Supplier Firm of focus Distributors Retailer End Customer

(OUTBOUND)

(OUTBOUND)

(INBOUND LOGISTICS)
(OUTBOUND LOGISTICS)

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CHAPTER 3: MANAGING THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS INFRASTRUCTURE AND

SERVICES
What is the IS Infrastructure?
The hardware, software, network, data, facilities, human resources, and
services used by organizations to supports their decision making business
processes, and competitive strategy.
What supports business processes?
Application software helps to automate business processes, and enabled
processes that would otherwise not even be possible.
Databases are a collection of relates data organized in a way that facilitates
data searches, are vital to an organizations operations and often are vital to
competition advantage and success.
What are the components of Information System Infrastructure?
1. Hardware: The computers that run applications and databases
necessary for processing transaction or analyzing business data.
Types of Hardware:
(a) Supercomputer: Most expensive and most powerful kind of
computer- typically not used by business organizations but are used to
solve scientific problems.
(b)Mainframe: Computers that a primarily used as the main, central
computing system for major corporations- optimized for high
availability, resource utilization, and security. Mainframes are typically
used for mission-critical applications. Example: Transaction processing.
(c) Server: Any computer on a network that makes access to files,
printing. Communications and other services available to users of the
network.

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(d)Workstations: Designed for medical, engineering, architectural, or
animation and graphics design uses, are optimized for visualization
and rendering of 3D models, and typically have fast processors, large
memory and video cards.
(e) Personal Computers (PC): Used for personal computing and small
business computing.
2. System Software: This is a collection of programs that control the
basic operations of computer hardware
Types of System Software:
(a) Operating System: An operating system (Windows/ OS X)
coordinates the interaction between hardware components of a
computer (CPU and the monitor), peripherals (printers), application
software (Microsoft Office) and users.
(b)Device Drivers: Allow the computer to communicate with various
different hardware devices.
What are the common operating system functions?
Getting input from a keyboard or mouse, reading from and/ or writing to a
storage device such as a hard disk drive, and presenting the information to
you via a monitor.
NETWORKING
What is computer networking?
Computer networking is the sharing of data or services. This is done by
producing a message which is encoded so that it can be transmitted via a
communication channel.
TRANSMISSION MEDIA
This is the physical pathway including cables and wireless that is used to
carry network information.
PROTOCOLS
Protocols define the procedures that different computers follow when they
transmit and receive data.
Servers, clients and peers: A server is any computer on the network
that makes access to files, printing, communication and other services
available to users of the networks. A client is any computer such as a
users PC or laptop on the network or any software application, such as

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Microsoft Outlook that uses the same services provided by the server.
CLIENTS ONLY REQUEST SERVICES. A peer is any computer that may
both request and provide services
TYPES OF NETWORKS- USED TO CONNECT DEVICES
1. Personal Area Network
2. Local Area Network (limited area)
3. Wide Area Network (city, country, globe)
4. Metropolitan Network (city)
5. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANS also known as Wi-Fi networksWireless Fidelity).

THE INTERNET
The internet is derived from the term internetworking which means
connecting host computers and their networks together to form even
larger networks.
1. World Wide Web: A system of interlinked documents on the internet, or
a graphical user interface to the internet the provides users with a
consistent interface to access a wide variety of information.
2. Web Browser: A software application that can be used to locate and
display web pages, including text, graphics, and multimedia content.
3. Hypertext: A webpage that contains not only information but also
hyperlinks, which are references or links to other documents.
4. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): Standard method of specifying
the structure and content within webpages.
5. Hypertext Transfer Protocol: Allows webservers to process user request
for pages.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL): Is used to identify and locate a particular
web page.
Domain Name: term used to help people recognize the company or person
that the domain name represents.
IP Addresses: Identify the various computers or devices on the internet.

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World Wide Web Architecture: The web consists of a large number of
interconnected web servers, which host the sites users access with their web
browsers. This is done through the use of a TRANSMISSION CONTROL
PROTOCOL/ INTERNET PROTOCOL- That facilitates the transmission of
web pages and other information.
INTRANETS VS. EXTRANETS
Intranets look like and act as a public website and uses the same hardware,
software and network to communicate information. An extranet is not
available to any public users but it allows for two or more firms to use the
internet to do business together.
What are Data Centers?
Data centers are a host for thousands of servers.

ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH MANAGING THIS IS INFRASTRUCTURE

1. Rapid Obsolescence and Shorter IT Cycles: As the producers of
hardware and software continue to be innovative and modern, a lot of
businesses and organizations are finding it hard to keep-up and
maintain ever-changing technology as they are continuously having to
upgrade.
2. Big Data and Rapidly Increasing Storage Needs: Organizations are
faced with the amount of data available and the amount of data
needed to stay ahead of its competitors.
3. Demand Fluctuations: Demand for computing resources are always
fluctuating, leading to organizations to have very few or too many idles
resources most of the time.
4. Increasing Energy Needs: The worldwide increase in demand is a
concern for various organizations as as computers process data, they
consume electricity, generate heat and cool (which requires a lot of
energy) which leads to EXPENSIVE ENERGY COST/ MONTHLY
ELECTRICITY BILLS.
CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing is model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand
network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources

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(networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service
provider interaction.
FIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOUD COMPUTING
1. On-demand Self-service: allows for most flexibility as users can
access cloud resources on an as-needed basis without the need for
lengthy negotiations with the service provider. On many occasions,
human interaction with the provider is not required.
2. Rapid Elasticity: In a cloud environment, computing resources can be
scaled up or down almost instantaneously and often automatically.
3. Broad Network Access: As cloud services are accessed through the
internet, they are accessible from almost anywhere and from almost
any web-enabled device.
4. Resource Pooling: The cloud provides users with tools to manage
multiple resources that are dynamically assigned to multiple customers
based on their needs.
5. Measured Service: Customers pay only for what they use. And the
metering depends on type of resources.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Basic capabilities of processing, storage
and network are provided. Users have to provide their own software.
PROVIDE OWN SOFTWARE.

CONTROL LEVEL: MOST CONTROL

Platform as a Service (PaaS): Customers can run their own applications,
which are typically designed using tools provided by the service provider.
WRITE THEN STORE IN CLOUD. Allows users to create their own online
services once provided with service provider tools.
CONTROL LEVEL: MODERATE
Software as a Service (SaaS): Customers uses only application provided via a
cloud infrastructure. Allows users to use existing online services.
CONTROL LEVEL: LOW
What are the three types of clouds?
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1. Public Cloud: Services in a public cloud can be used by any interested
party on a pay-per-use basis.
Public clouds are used for applications that need rapid scalability- the ability
to adapt to an increase or decrease in demand for processing data storage.
COMPANY RENTS CLOUD FROM OTHER COMPANY.
2. Private cloud/ Internal Cloud: Internal to an organization and can
help organization to balance demand and supply of computing
resources within the organization. COMPANY OWNS CLOUD.
3. Hybrid Cloud: A computing environment that uses a mixture of both
private cloud and public cloud services, with collaboration between the
two platforms.

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