Chapter 2 Global E-Business & Collaboration

Information Systems: Theory & Practice - TU2: Global E-business and Collaboration

• The course is titled "Information Systems: Theory & Practice"
• The teaching unit is TU2: Global E-business and Collaboration
• The professor is Prof. Dr. Paul Drews
• Learning objectives include defining business processes, their relationship to information systems, how systems serve different management groups, collaboration and social business importance, and the role of information systems function within a business.
• The opening case study explores how enterprise social networking transformed Sharp Corporation to be more innovative and connected. Key problems were hierarchical top-down processes, new competitors, and a lack of collaboration. Business solutions involved developing knowledge-sharing strategies, redesigning processes, changing organizational culture, and implementing collaboration software (like Yammer).
• The use of new information systems improved business performance and maintained competitiveness
• The importance of teamwork and collaboration for innovation and profit growth is highlighted
• The importance of organizational culture and business processes for knowledge dissemination is demonstrated
• Business processes are comprised of logically related tasks. These tasks define how specific business tasks are performed, may be tied to a functional area or cross-functional, and businesses can be seen as a collection of business processes. These processes may be assets or liabilities.
• Functional business processes include manufacturing, production, sales, marketing, finance and accounting, and human resources.
• The order fulfillment process involves tasks like generating an order, submitting the order, checking credit, approving credit, generating an invoice, assembling a product, and shipping a product. This requires close coordination across sales, accounting, and manufacturing.
• A process framework (Dumas et al. 2018) outlines management, core, and support processes. This framework shows how various processes interact. Processes under management include defining a vision, developing a strategy, implementing a strategy, and managing risk. Core processes include procuring materials, procuring products, marketing products, delivering products, managing customer service. Support processes include management personnel, information management, and asset management.
• A process model demonstrates how a series of related activities (process instances) follow a given procedure.

Types of Information Systems

• Transaction processing systems (TPS) serve operational managers and record daily routine business transactions (sales, order entry, payroll, shipping) providing an overview of current operations. TPS data provides information to help managers monitor operational status and external relations.
• Management information systems (MIS) serve middle management by reporting on current performance using data from TPS. MIS provide routine answers with predefined procedures, but have limited analytical capabilities.
• Decision support systems (DSS) serve middle management and provide tools for non-routine decision-making, by analyzing data from internal and external sources (including TPS and MIS data). Examples include voyage-estimating systems and marketing analysis systems
• Executive support systems (ESS) serve senior management to deal with non-routine decisions requiring insights and judgment while providing real-time financial performance views (working capital, accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash flow, inventory). ESS often uses digital dashboards.
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate data from various business functions (finance, HR, marketing etc.) into a single system to accelerate communication and improve responsiveness to customer needs and order fulfillment.
• Supply chain management (SCM) systems manage relationships with suppliers, distributors, and logistics companies. This helps move products efficiently from source to consumer. The goal is to minimize costs and time.
• Customer relationship management (CRM) systems enhance relations with consumers. They coordinate business processes in marketing, sales, and customer service. Goals include optimizing revenue, customer satisfaction, and retention while identifying profitable customers.
• Knowledge management systems (KMS) manage processes to capture, apply, and share knowledge and expertise within an organization. They make relevant knowledge available for improvement in business processes and decision-making, connecting the firm to outside knowledge sources.
• Intranets—provide internal networks using Internet standards, usually a private area on a company's website.
• Extranets—provide company websites that are accessible only to authorized vendors and suppliers, which facilitates collaboration.

E-Business, E-Commerce, and E-Government.

• E-business applies digital technology and the internet to business processes,
• E-commerce is a subset of e-business and involves buying and selling goods/services using the internet
• E-government uses internet technology to effectively communicate information to citizens, employees, and businesses.

Social Business Applications.

• Social networks facilitate connection through personal and business profiles.
• Crowdsourcing leverages collective knowledge to generate new ideas and solutions
• Shared workspaces support coordination of projects and tasks.
• Blogs and wikis are platforms for publishing and accessing knowledge, opinions, and experiences.
• Social commerce facilitates social interaction and opinion-sharing regarding purchasing experiences.
• File sharing enables the transfer, sharing, and collaboration on various documents, photos, and videos.
• Social marketing allows for interactions between customers and businesses to gain insights.
• Communities support open forums for discussion, sharing expertise

Systems for Collaboration and Social Business.

• Collaboration systems support short-term and long-term work, both formal and informal (teams)
• Collaboration is crucial due to changing work nature, increasing professional interactions, organizational changes, and focus on innovation/culture.
• The combination of collaborative culture and technology can increase productivity, improve quality, drive innovation, and better customer service. Implementing these systems supports greater transparency and decision-making efficiency.
• Tools include email, instant messaging, wikis, virtual worlds, collaboration platforms, virtual meetings, cloud collaboration services (Google Drive, Google Docs) among others.
• Critical enterprise capabilities include profiles, content sharing, feeds and notifications, groups and team workspaces, tagging and bookmarking, and permission management

Checklist for Managers for evaluating and selecting collaboration/social software.

• Understanding firm's challenges
• Identifying possible solutions
• Analyzing product costs and benefits
• Evaluating security risks
• Considering user input for implementation and training
• Evaluating vendor capabilities

The Information Systems Department.

• A Formal organizational unit which supports IT services.
• Led by a Chief Information Officer (CIO) and potentially other senior roles like CSO, CKO, CPO, or CDO.
• Including programmers, systems analysts, IS managers and end users.
• IT governance includes strategies, policies, decision rights, and accountability for IT. This organization can be centralized, decentralized, or some form in-between.