Technology and Information Systems Quiz

Essentials of Management Information Systems

• Fifteenth Edition text
• Copyright © 2024, 2021, 2019 Pearson Education, Inc.

Learning Objectives

• 1.1 Understand why information systems are essential for running and managing a business.
• 1.2 Define an information system, explain how it works, and identify its people, organizational, and technology components.
• 1.3 Apply a four-step method for business problem-solving to solve information system-related problems.
• 1.4 Describe the information systems skills and knowledge essential for business careers.
• 1.5 Understand how MIS can help your career.

Video Case

• The New HQ Is in the Cloud: Salesforce President

Smart Shelves Reinvent the Retail Space

• Business Challenges:
  • Mounting competition from online retailers
  • Taking advantage of new technology opportunities
• Information System:
  • Smart Shelf enables stores to view and track products in real time
  • Demographic Engine application enables stores to personalize shopper experiences
• Additional Details:
  • Illustrates brick-and-mortar retail stores' use of innovative systems to compete against online retailers
  • Demonstrates leading-edge digital technologies driving business operations and management decisions
  • Highlights technology's potential for raising ethical concerns
  • Shows how new technology requires redesigning jobs and procedures, altering how companies operate.

How Information Systems Are Transforming Business

• Trillions invested in information technology and information systems since the past two decades
  • The Internet and mobile platforms are essential business tools
  • Effective supply chain management is crucial for business efficiency
  • Social networks are used by almost all major firms to communicate with customers
  • Digital advertising is growing faster than traditional advertising
  • Laws mandate businesses to retain data for extended periods.

Key Challenges in Management Information Systems

• New Technologies:
  • Cloud computing, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Mobile platforms
• Management and People:
  • Return on investment (ROI)
  • Online collaboration
  • Social networking
• Organizations:
  • Security and privacy
  • Social business
  • Remote work (telework)

Globalization Challenges and Opportunities

• Reduced advantages of developed countries due to the Internet and global communications
  • Increased competition for jobs, markets, resources, and ideas
  • Interdependence of global economies
  • Lower operating and transaction costs globally
  • Requires new understandings of skills, markets, and opportunities

Business Drivers of Information Systems

• Business investments in IT to achieve these objectives:
  • 1. Operational excellence
  • 2. New products, services, and business models
  • 3. Customer and supplier intimacy
  • 4. Improved decision making
  • 5. Competitive advantage
  • 6. Survival
  • 7. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) leadership

Operational Excellence

• Information systems and technologies improve efficiency and productivity, resulting in higher profits
• Example: Walmart
  • Combined information systems and best practices to achieve operational efficiency, generating $559 billion in sales in Fiscal 2021.
  • Became the most efficient retail store in its industry in part due to digital links between suppliers and stores

New Products, Services, and Business Models

• Information systems and technologies enable firms to create new products, services, and business models (e.g., business model).
• Example: Apple
  • Innovative products and services including iTunes, iPods, iPhones, and iPads transformed existing models of music distribution.

Customer and Supplier Intimacy

• Customers who are treated well tend to be repeat customers
• Companies employ IT to build close relationships with customers (e.g., keeping track of preferences).
• Example: Ritz Carlton Hotel
  • Uses IT to create an intimate relationship with customers, including tracking preferences
• Example: Tal Apparel
  • Uses IT to enhance supplier intimacy

Improved Decision Making

• Accurate information is essential for effective decision-making.
• Real-time data enables better decision-making
• Example: Coca-Cola Bottling Company Consolidated
  • Digital dashboards combine data from hundreds of disparate sources

Competitive Advantage

• Achieving business objectives often leads to a competitive advantage
• Using information systems can provide a competitive advantage due to lower costs, superior products, or improved responsiveness
• Example companies like Apple, Walmart, and UPS are leaders due to their utilization of information systems

Survival

• Information systems are often necessary to keep up with competitors and meet regulatory requirements.
• Example: Citibank's introduction of ATMs
• Further example: Regulations like the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Leadership

• Pressure from employees, customers, investors, and governments regarding business conduct.
• Environment: Energy use, carbon footprint, sustainability, recycling practices, pollution, and natural resource conservation.
• Social responsibility: corporate citizenship, actions concerning employees, suppliers, customers, and the community.
• Governance: relates to company leadership, executive pay, internal controls, shareholder rights, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

ESG Leadership (Continued)

• Facilitate growth, reduce costs, minimize legal and regulatory issues, increase employee productivity, and optimize assets and investments
• Information systems are key to achieving ESG goals.
• Exmaple: Major industrial company
  • Cloud-based ERP system helps suppliers track, report, and reduce their carbon impact

What is an Information System?

• Information technology: the hardware and software a business uses to achieve objectives
• Information system: interrelated components that manage information to:
  • Support decision making and control
  • Help with analysis, visualization, and product creation
• Data: streams of raw facts
• Information: shaped data into meaningful, useful form

Figure 1.1 Data and Information

• Presents examples of data and information, including product, sales, and store details.

What is an Information System? (Continued)

• Activities: Input, Processing, Output
• Feedback: Output returned to relevant members of the organization to evaluate or correct input.
• Distinction between computer/computer program and information system.

Figure 1.2 Functions of an Information System

• Diagram showing an information system's input, processing, output, feedback, and environmental factors (suppliers, customers, regulatory agencies, stakeholders, competitors)

The Role of People and Organizations

• People, organizations, and technology are interconnected parts of information systems impacting effectiveness
• Information systems literacy: includes behavioral and technical approaches
• Computer literacy: mainly focused on knowledge of IT
• Management information systems (MIS): encompasses behavioral and technical aspects of information system development, use, and impact on managers and employees

Figure 1.3 Information Systems Are More Than Computers

• Visual representation showing organizations, technology, and people are interconnected factors within information systems

Dimensions of Information Systems

• Organizations:
  • Coordination through structured hierarchy and business processes
  • Business processes (e.g., fulfilling an order, hiring an employee)
  • Culture: fundamental set of assumptions, values, and ways of doing things (e.g., UPS's customer first approach)
• People:
  • Skilled people for building, maintaining, and using systems
  • Employee attitudes influence system productivity
  • Role of managers involves perceiving business challenges, setting strategy, allocating resources, and creative work
• Technology:
  • IT Infrastructure: foundation for information systems (hardware, software, data management, networking, communications)

Cloud Computing, Big Data, and the Internet of Things (IoT)

• Internet of Things (IoT): Network of physical objects with embedded sensors and software for connecting and exchanging data over the internet
• Big Data: Millions of data points (IoT devices, websites) analyzed for predictions or behavior patterns
• Cloud computing: A centralized system for data storage, management, and processing across the internet using remote computing centers

Spotlight on Technology: UPS Competes Globally with Information Technology

• Class Discussion:
  • Inputs, processing, and outputs of UPS's package tracking system.
  • Technologies used by UPS and how they relate to UPS's business strategy.
  • Strategic business objectives addressed by UPS's information systems.
  • Impact of UPS's information systems' unavailability

A Model of the Problem-Solving Approach

• Problem solving: Four-step process (problem identification, solution design, choice, implementation)
• Problem identification: Agreement on problem existence, definition, causes, and potential solutions considering organizational resources.
• Typical organizational problems: Outdated processes, culture, attitudes, turbulent environment, task complexity, inadequate resources
• Typical technology problems: Insufficient/aging hardware, outdated software, insufficient database capacity, incompatibility of old systems with new tech, rapid technological change
• Typical people problems: Lack of employee training, performance evaluation difficulties, legal/regulatory compliance, work environment, poor/indecisive management, lack of support and participation

A Model of the Problem-Solving Approach (Continued)

• Solution design: Create multiple solutions to understand a range of possibilities
• Solution evaluation and choice: Factors like cost, feasibility with available resources, and implementation time
• Implementation: involves building/purchasing solutions, training, change management, outcome measurement, and feedback

The Role of Critical Thinking in Problem Solving

• Critical thinking: Sustained judgment suspension, awareness of perspectives, and data-driven approaches
  • Important elements include maintaining doubt, considering multiple viewpoints/ perspectives, analyzing and testing alternatives, and understanding limitations

The Connections Among Business Objectives, Problems, and Solutions

• Business objectives become challenges when not met
• Information systems often provide solutions, partially or entirely, to these challenges

How Information Systems Will Affect Business Careers

• Success in the job market requires a diverse set of skills, including problem-solving and technical abilities.
• Career opportunities depend on the capacity to help firms utilize information systems to reach objectives
• Accounting: accountants use info systems to summarize transactions, organize data, and perform financial analysis
• Finance: strong link between information systems and finance management. Skills needed include using systems for financial reporting and strategies.

How Information Systems Will Affect Business Careers (Continued)

• Marketing: undergoing significant technology-driven changes. Skills required include data analysis for customer behavior and product performance, and using enterprise systems.
• Operations Management: production managers, administrative managers, and analysts utilize hardware/software for operations. Use of databases and analytics for coordinating and optimizing resources is needed.
• Management: information systems have transformed the job of management and it is impossible to manage without them. Use of desktop tools and enterprise-wide application coordination is critical.

How Information Systems Will Affect Business Careers (Continued)

• Information systems: fast-changing field requiring the ability to utilize new and emerging technology, including leading implementation of new systems
• Outsourcing and offshoring: involves two types—domestic and low-wage countries; outsourcing frequently involves production programming, systems maintenance, and customer support

How Information Systems Will Affect Business Careers (Continued)

• Common themes applicable to various occupations include understanding how information systems facilitate business objectives, developing data analysis skills, understanding information system impact on the legal, social, and ethical environment, effective communication, and teamwork

Spotlight on People: Will a Robot Steal Your Job?

• Discusses class discussion regarding ethical dilemmas of automating jobs, stakeholders' concerns, and potential consequences of decisions
• Exploring potential impacts of robots on people and organizations, and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on automation
• Identification of the types of work and personnel potentially most affected by the increasing use of robots and automation

How MIS Can Help Your Career

• Focuses on a specific company (Alpha Financial Analytics Data Services) and covers aspects of position description, job requirements, interview questions, and author tips.

Copyright Information

• Copyright information for the work and materials, emphasizing their restricted use and instructor-only permissions

Test your understanding of key concepts related to technology and information systems. This quiz covers problem-solving approaches, the role of information systems, and the impact of technology on business transformation. Challenge yourself with questions that explore the differences between data and information, as well as the drivers for IT investment.