Summary
Lecture 32


Today’s Lecture
n

We shall cover in summary
¨ Information
¨ Top

and MIS

is Job
¨ Strategic uses of IT
¨ IS Planning
¨ Distributive Systems
¨ Managing Telecommunications
¨ Managing Information Resources


Today’s Lecture
¨ Managing

Operations
¨ Technologies for Developing Systems
¨ Management Issues in System Development
¨ System for supporting Knowledge Based
Work
¨ Data Warehousing/ Data Mining
¨ Knowledge Management

¨ Supporting Collaboration
¨ Challenges Ahead
¨ A Networked Business


Information and MIS
n

n

n

Information is based upon processed, useful, meaningful
facts and figures which any organizing keeps to run its
daily business.
Information systems are software’s which are there to
run organizational business.
Management of Information system is being changed
with the introduction of Chief Information Officer.


Importance of IS Management


Top is Job
n

Responsibilities of the CIO consist of
•
•

•
•
•
•

Understand the business
Establish credibility of the IS department
Develop a competent IS staff and IT-savvy
users
Create a vision and sell it
Implement an information system architecture
Foster relationships


Top is Job
IT Department is headed towards,
n Reducing Costs
n Leveraging Investments
n Enhancing Products and Services
n Enhancing Executive Decision Making
n Reaching the Consumer


Strategic uses of IT
Over the years, a few innovative
companies have achieved strategic
advantage using IT.
n These firms served as models of what
could be done, but most companies did
not have the resources or skills to follow

their example.
n


Strategic uses of IT
n

With the growth of the Internet and the
development of online business, IT has
become a strategic tool in every industry.

n

As their employees become dispersed,
enterprises are looking for ways to bring
cohesion. Intranets and portals are ways
to use IT strategically inside the firm.


Strategic uses of IT
n

In working outward, enterprises are creating electronic tenders to
provide services that make their products more valuable and help
them better know their customers and develop more personal
relationships with them.

n

This customer-centric view, now so prevalent in the business world,

is affecting the strategic use of IT in working across.

n

Value chains are looking to shift from supply-push to demand-pull.

n

Perhaps the most promising technology in the near future is the
adoption of mobile computing in supply-chain execution. As IT
continues to evolve, so do its strategic uses.


IS Planning
n

n

Based on the successes and failures of past IS planning
efforts, we see two necessary ingredients for good
strategic planning efforts.
One is that the plans must look toward the future. This
point may seem obvious, but in unstable times, the
future is not likely to be an extrapolation of the past.
Therefore, a successful planning effort needs to support
“peering into an unknown future”—most likely in a senseand-respond fashion. This future will undoubtedly impact
us.


IS Planning

n

n

n

A second necessary ingredient is that IS planning must
be intrinsic to business planning.
This point may also seem obvious, but, again, unless the
planning process specifically requires joint development,
the systems plans may not be relevant because they do
not align with corporate strategy.
A misalignment is not so likely with the advent of Internet
commerce, but it is also not yet natural in many
companies.


IS Planning
n

n

n

No single technique is best, and no single one is the
most widely used in business. In fact, many companies
use a combination of tools because each deals with
different aspects of planning.
The main goal these days is to meld speed with flexibility.
That goal can best be achieved by creating an overall

strategic envelope and conducting short experiments
within that envelope, moving quickly to broaden an
experiment that proves successful.
Sense-and-respond is the new strategy-making mode.


Distributed Systems
n

A distributed system is a computer
network system, shown to end users as a
single machine but actually work with a set
of independent computers connected.


Distributed Systems
n

Four Main Attributes
Where is the process done?
-Distributed Processing

How are the processes and other devices
interconnected?
-Connectivity

Where is the information stored?
-Distributed Databases

What rules and standards are used?

-System-wide rules


Managing Telecommunications
n

Telecommunications is an electronic
highway system (an infrastructure)
¨ Facilitates

the flow of information among
individuals, work groups, departments,
customer sites, regional offices, enterprises,
and the outside world

n

The Internet has opened up a different
view of telecommunications—cyberspace
¨ People
n

exist in a virtual world(s)

Second Life ( />

Managing Telecommunications
Telecommunications is huge and getting
bigger and more complex
n Internet is the very foundation of ecommerce

n Traditional business also depends on the
Internet for communication, interoperability
and link establishment
n

¨ Global

integration
¨ Personalized service
n

Across space and time


Managing Information Resources
No longer “managing databases”
n Much more information (good thing)
n

¨ Intranet
¨ Internet

n

Information resources need to be
managed (strategic)
Data
n Information
n Knowledge
n



Four Types of Information
Internal

External

Record 
Based

Traditional
EDP/MIS

Public 
Databases

Document 
Based

Word Processing/
Record 
Management

Corporate 
Library Web 
Site


Managing Operations
n


Operations vary for every company
¨ Hardware,

communications lines and
equipment, software, data center personnel,
disaster recovery, etc.

n

The Operations management perspective
¨ Moving

from an inward to an outward
approach


Outsourcing IS Functions
Focus and Value driven
n Expansion of Outsourcing
n

¨ IT

Outsourcing
¨ Transitional Outsourcing
¨ Best-of-Breed Outsourcing
¨ Shared Services
¨ Business Process Outsourcing
¨ E-Business Outsourcing

¨ Application Service Providers (ASPs)


Technologies for Developing
n Systems
Traditional approach from the 1960s evolved to give
more discipline, control, and efficiency.
¨
¨

Moved programming from an “art” to a “craft.”
Problems:
n
n
n

n

Development times
Low user involvement
Lack of flexibility

1970s and 1980s: data-driven development, stressed
improving early phases in development:
¨
¨

4GL and software prototyping permitted more rapid
development
CASE and object oriented (software re-use)



Technologies for Developing Systems
n

1990s:
¨
¨
¨

Client-server
Internet-based systems
Integration of components and packages

n

The 1990s brought the need for integrated enterprise
systems and Internet-based systems

n

Development now focuses on the Internet,
interorganizational development, and ecosystem
applications
¨

Systems where project management skills are even more
important due to the complexity of the systems



Management Issues in System
Development
n

3 critical points include
¨ Recruiting

IS staff
¨ Designing Motivating Work
¨ Successful Project Implementation


Systems for supporting Knowledge
Based Work
n

Use of IT to support decision making
covers a broad swath of territory

n

Some technologies aim to alert people to
anomalies, discontinuities, and shortfalls

n

Others aim to make decisions, either as
recommendations to people or to act on
behalf of people


n

Handing over decisions to systems has its
pros and cons, thus their actions need to
be monitored