Information Technology for Managers

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Information Technology for Managers

• Dr. Michael L. Gibson

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Information Technology is IT and Thats that

• We will refer to information technology as IT

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Gibson Profile

• Undergraduate degree was in Business Economics
  (Georgetown College, KY)
• MBA degree (University of Kentucky)
• DBA degree (University of Kentucky)
• Close to 30 years experience in information
  systems as a practitioner and educator

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Objectives of Course

• Learn the extensive substance of IT
• How IT has impacted organizations
• IT and Networks
• Relation of IT to marketing, management,
  accounting and finance
• Using and managing IT

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Organizations, Environments, and Information
Technology

• Chapter 1 TURBAN et al.

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The New World of Business

• Business pressures
• What are the three dimensions of competition???
• Environmental, organization, and technological
  factors
• Who is king???
• What can we say about competition???
• Organizational responses
• Reaction to existing pressure or initiative to
  defend against future pressure
• Information Systems (IS) and Information
  Technology (IT)

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Business Pressures

• Market pressures
• Technological pressures
• Societal and governmental pressures

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Market Pressures

• Global economy - strong competition
• Because some people believe that trade without
  tariffs is best for everybody
• Because the iron curtain came down and Russia and
  China moved to market economies
• Why else?
• Leveling of playing field
• Changing nature of the workforce
• Diversification of the work-force
• IBM, GM, FORD, DEC have undergone major
  restructuring--eliminated hundreds of thousands
  of jobs
• Powerful customers

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Technological Pressures

• Technological innovation and obsolescence
• to lower cost
• to increase quality
• to lower time to market
• Information overload
• The core of todays IT is real-time interaction

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Societal Pressures

• Social responsibility
• Government regulations
• Health, safety, environmental control, equal
  opportunity, etc.
• Government deregulation
• Typically intensifies competition
• Shrinking budgets and subsidies
• Ethical issues
• Much more harsh in industry than in academia
• Business requires far more discipline than
  academia
• Avoid damage to organizational image
• Ethics change from one country to another
• E-mail surveillance

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Relationships between business drivers, critical
response activities and information technology
Business Drivers
Critical Response Activities
Information Technology
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Framework for Organization/Societal IT Impact
IT
Organizational Strategy
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Organizational Responses

• Strategic systems
• Continuous improvement efforts
• Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
• Business alliances
• Electronic commerce

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Critical Response Activities
Business Drivers Pressures
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Electronic Commerce--what is it?

• Computers communicating via telecommunications
  networks to accomplish business transactions
• Not just an electronic store front
• Not even with a guest book
• Money must change hands--goods must be purchased
• Dynamic creation of customer files

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Strategic Systems

• Strategic systems provide organizations with
  strategic advantages, thus enabling them to
  increase their market share, to better negotiate
  with their suppliers, or to prevent competitors
  from entering their territory.
• The difficulty is maintaining competitive
  advantage (American Hospital Supply)

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Continuous Improvement Efforts

• Improved productivity
• Just-in-time
• Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Improved decision making
• Managing information and knowledge
• Innovation and creativity
• Change management
• Customer service

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TQM and IT

• IT increases the speed of inspection
• IT improves the quality of testing
• IT reduces the cost of performing various quality
  control activities

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Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

• Continuous improvement vs. BPR
• Reducing Cycle Time (Business Process Time)
  Costs, while improving quality
• Empowerment of employees (Decisions pushed down
  in organizations)
• Customer-focused approach
• Restructuring and team-based structure
  (Organizational structure fits the process)

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Change Management

• BPR is in reality change management focused on
  business processes)
• Change Management Principles
• Investigation of change and readiness for change
• Making the change
• Institutionalize the change throughout the
  organization
• Change Levers
• People and culture
• Policies and Procedures (Business processes)
• Organizational Structure
• Technology

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Continuous improvement vs. BPR

• IMPROVEMENT
  BPR
• Level of change Incremental Radical
• Starting point Existing process Clean slate
• Freq. of change Continuous One-time
• Time required Short Long
• Participation Bottom-up Top-down
• Typical scope Narrow Broad
• Risk Moderate High
• BPR IS NOT CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
• Both are applied to business processes, however

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Time-to-market

• Also called cycle time
• Time from the inception of an idea until its
  implementation

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Business Alliances

• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• (and supply-chain management)
• SAP/R3
• Electronic Commerce

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Information Systems and Information Technology

• What is an information system?
• What is a computer-based information system?
• What is the difference between computers and
  information systems?
• What is information technology?

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What Is an Information System?

• An information system (IS) collects, processes,
  stores, analyzes, and disseminates information
  for a specific purpose.
• The data collected is on real-world people,
  place, things, concepts, and events.
• The information system is designed to support the
  business system.

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What Is a Computer-Based Information System?

• Hardware
• Software
• Database
• Network
• Procedures (OR PROCESSES)
• People

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A Computer System
Output
Input
Processing
Primary
Storage
Secondary
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Examples of Information Systems at Work Worldwide

• Managing accounting information across Asia
  (Account information flowing to headquarters via
  electronic)
• Russians live in Moscow and work in California
  (Commuting electronically)
• Tracking UPS packages with pen computers
• Mercy Hospital provides patient-focused care
  (Teams of multidisciplinary care-givers providing
  80 of the work)

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Information Technology Developments and Trends

• General trends
• Processing speeds will go up
• No. of instructions processed in a single machine
  clock cycle will increase
• Storage technology will increase storage
  densities substantially
• Increased integration of the phone, the Internet,
  cable TV, will continue
• Networked computing
• Bandwidths will go up by an order of magnitude

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General Trends

• Computers will be 50 times more powerful in ten
  years
• GUI interfaces--ICONS, pull-down menus, but not
  command languages
• Storage and memory will increase
• Data warehouses
• Multimedia and virtual reality
• Intelligent systems

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General Trends

• Object-oriented environment will move toward
  components
• Document management
• Compactness

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Networked Computing

• Client/Server architecture
• Portability (compact computers attached to many
  devices)
• Integrated home computing (T.V., telephone,
  computers, home security, etc.)
• The Internet and information superhighways
  (50million in 1997 750 million in 2007)
• Intranets and Extranets

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Client/Server Architecture

• A form of distributed computing--the software
  application is distributed across the network
  (centralized storage of data and some systems and
  distributed execution of systems to process data)

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Internet vs. Intranets vs. Extranets

• The Internet is global
• Intranets are local to the firm, private, but
  work just like the Internet
• Extranets are collections of Intranets that
  connect an enterprise
• An enterprise is a collection of firms that
  produce a product from beginning to end
• The amount of information in the Internet more
  than doubles each year

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Networked Computing

• Electronic commerce
• Intelligent agents (software to aid in
  interacting with the computer and computer
  systems e.g. aid Internet navigation, database
  access, etc.)
• The Networked enterprise

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Be able to define

• kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terrabyte
• millisecond, microsecond, nanosecond, picosecond
• mass customization
• virtual corporation
• information system
• data warehouse

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If you dont major in MIS

• New job creation is all IT driven and related
• Marketing? What is your exposure to database
  marketing?
• Accounting? What is your exposure to ERP?
• Management? What is your exposure to
  technological innovation and diffusion? To the
  management of technology?
• Finance? What is your experience with web-based
  financial systems?
• BECOME A TECHNOCRAT WITHIN YOUR DISCIPLINE