9th%20Module:%20Course%20Unit%20Review%20and%20Practical%20Applications:%20Oracle,%20SAP%20and%20Medical%20Information%20Systems

1

• 9th Module Course Unit Review and Practical
  Applications Oracle, SAP and Medical Information
  Systems
• Structure
• Information Systems Management increased
  importance increased responsibilities.
• The Information Systems Function a business in
  microcosm?
• The Future change and more change
• Practical applications (will be updated weekly as
  the lecture progresses)

2
Information Systems Management increased
importance increased responsibilities

• Responsibilities for those who provide
  Information Systems services have increased in
  terms of business, organisational and management
  responsibilities.
• The responsibilities are therefore no longer just
  technical, but predominantly organisational.

3

• Consequently, it is important to know about
  business applications.
• IT managers need to see their organisation from a
  service perspective. They need to be able to
  demonstrate that
• their services support organisational objectives
• investments are justified and effective
• the systems are protected, secure, robust and
  reliable
• user needs are satisfied
• the information systems function is cost
  effective and well managed.

4

• Being effective requires new skills, processes
  and procedures that are based on business- rather
  than on technical considerations only.
• Each of the 8 previous modules has tried to show
  how business/organisational considerations
  influence important areas of Information Systems
  and how IT managers can respond to these demands.
• For the Information Systems function, it is not
  only enough to be effective in business terms,
  but it is also essential that its managers are
  open to scrutiny by the rest of the organisation
  or by external auditors.

5

• This also involves conforming to documented
  standards of practice that help to ensure quality
  and reliability.
• The re-thinking in these terms often represents a
  major change for many IT professionals, as they
  only used to be involved in technical decisions
  in the past.

6

• The Information Systems Function a business in
  microcosm
• In many ways the Information Systems function is
  becoming like a small business on its own.
• It has to formulate strategies and plans, deliver
  products and services, manage its assets, and
  demonstrate effectiveness/efficiency in its area
  (Duncan, 1997).

7

• In modules 1, 2 and 8, aspects of organisational
  environment were discussed in which the
  Information Systems function operates. Moreover,
  a picture of its market/customer was given.
• In module 3, strategy and planning processes were
  described which are needed to provide effective
  Information Systems support for an organisation.
• Modules 4 and 6 addressed approaches to
  delivering products and services.

8

• Modules 5 and 7 (and partly module 3) addressed
  ways of evaluating, managing and protecting
  Information Systems assets.
• In addition, throughout the entire lecture the
  need for effectiveness and efficiency was
  stressed.
• This range of Information Systems activities has
  tried to clarify that Information Systems
  services can no longer be seen from a purely
  technical perspective.
• Information Systems managers are increasingly
  asked to demonstrate the full range of business
  skills.

9

• In addition, it is expected from Information
  Systems managers that they are able to manage the
  Information Systems function under the same
  constraints and pressures as any other part of a
  business (Duncan, 1997).

10
The Future change and more change

• As discussed in Modules 2 and 8, changes in IT
  enable changes to the structure of organisations.
• The difficulty faced by many Information Systems
  managers is how to assimilate these new
  technologies within organisational practices and
  a business-driven management framework.

11

• A major study of the impact of new IT solutions,
  the MIT Management in the 1990s research program
  (Morton, 1991), came to the conclusion that this
  trend of change will continue in the future. This
  MIT research program produced a model for the use
  of IT in organisations, based on the assumption
  that organisations work in a rapidly changing
  environment.

12

• Although the Information Systems function as well
  as its managers will become more business-like
  under the pressures discussed in this lecture and
  the study guide, uncertainties and risks arising
  from technological and organisational change will
  continue to have an impact on organisations and
  their Information Systems professionals.

13

• Case Study 1 (based on a real case)
• A large mobile phone provider in Britain has
  several shops in each city.
• The company tries to win new customers by
  offering free phones on any contract (e.g.
  Nokias 7650).
• A customer, who is employed on a full-time
  contract, has never overdrawn any account and
  lives in the UK for 5 years. He comes into the
  store and is approached by one of the shops
  employees.

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• The employee tries to convince the customer to
  choose one of their contracts, and the customer
  is finally convinced that the deal is good and
  accepts.
• In the next step, the employee tries to put
  information about the customer in the providers
  information system.
• The employee faces a number of problems which
  delay the input of the customers details by 45
  minutes.

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• The employee struggles with the following things
• The employee does not know how to activate the
  system by getting to the site where customer
  information can be entered.
• The employee does not really know about email and
  has difficulties to enter the email address of
  the customer into the system, e.g. the employee
  does not know that email addresses contain the _at_
  sign, and s/he is confused by the ending ac.uk
  and instead enters ecuk into the field provided.

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• 3. The employee enters wrong information, e.g.
  date of birth 2003 and does not know how to jump
  between fields that were constructed with php.
• 4. The employee cannot explain to the customer
  what the individual fields mean, e.g. when the
  system prompts about the number of credit cards,
  the employee thinks it is the total number of
  credit cards (from any country) rather than the
  number of credit cards offered by UK institutions.

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• The providers system asks the following
  questions
• The home address and the number of years he lived
  at the home address (without leaving the
  possibility to enter if someone has moved within
  the UK, e.g. the customer lived in college
  accommodation for 5 years and lives in London for
  1 month, which is now his home address). All the
  system allows to enter is that the customer has
  lived at his home address for 1 month, without
  the chance to enter that he lived in the UK
  before.

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• The system does not ask for the type of
  profession, whether it is full-time, whether
  there is regular income, whether the person went
  to university before accepting his job etc.
• All the system allows to enter is
  employed/unemployed with the option to say how
  long the person was employed.
• After entering the customer details, which took
  the employee 45 minutes, the system gives the
  answer contract denied.
• Asking what the problem is, the employee says
  s/he does not know.

19

• The employees boss comes along and says that the
  employee should try again, but before sending the
  information off, the employee should call the
  companys headquarter to explain things, because
  otherwise the contract would be rejected
  automatically again.
• The employee struggles again to insert the data
  and the customer fears he faces another 45
  minutes of waiting.
• The customer sees that there is auto-fill-in of
  his data, which the employee does not know how to
  deal with.

20

• The customer offers to take over the job of the
  employee and to enter his data.
• The employee is very happy about this offer and
  hands over the keyboard to the customer, who
  enters all the data within 1 minute by using the
  auto-fill-in option, and he also corrects the
  wrongly entered information.
• The customer then reminds the employee that s/he
  needs to call the company headquarters to
  explain things.
• The employee refuses to do (s/he did not seem to
  understand the bosss instructions in the first
  place and s/he sends the online form off)

21

• The contract is denied again and the employee
  starts to speculate about whether the customer
  has a bad credit file.
• In addition, the employee informs the customer
  that he must never apply for a contract again,
  because his records are stored and so is the fact
  that his application repeatedly got denied.
• The employee asks the customer to leave the
  store. The customer feels discriminated.
• The customer, who was always patient and knows
  that he cannot have a bad credit file, asks where
  he can find out his credit data.

22

• The employee tells the customer that there is no
  way to find out and that there is no way to get a
  mobile phone contract.
• The employee does not know that every customer
  has a right to see his/her credit file.
• S/he also tells the customer that his details
  cannot be revealed due to security reasons.
• The employee apologises for having taken so much
  of the customers time and asks him to leave the
  store.

23

• Imagine the customer, the anonymous Dr. Rainer
  S., writes a letter to the companys headquarter,
  explaining the situation.
• Imagine you are working in a team that deals with
  the companys information systems, with training
  employees to use the information systems, and
  with creating aptitude tests to select suitable
  employees.
• The letter of complaint is forwarded to you from
  the senior management.
• What actions would you take to make sure that
  cases like this are unlikely to happen in the
  future?

24

• You should work in groups of 5 to 7 people and
  discuss possible actions for the next 2 hours.
• Within these 2 hours, I will go from group to
  group and give advice. Please do not hesitate to
  ask me about usual business practices of similar
  cases in companies.

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• It is worth to consider the following issues
• It would be necessary to check whether the
  employee really has those difficulties when
  dealing with customers. Therefore, it would be
  necessary to contact the store where s/he works.
• The information provided by the customer gives a
  range of information, e.g. that employees do not
  interact competently with the information
  systems, that there are problems in terms of
  communication between individual stores and the
  headquarters, and in terms of service and
  security management.

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• Necessary actions by the information systems
  division would be to ensure that employees
  understand the organisations information systems
  (either by training the employees or by making
  the systems more self-explanatory/user friendly,
  e.g. instead of writing No. of credit cards the
  display could say No. of credit cards in the UK).
• The information systems division could create a
  computerised aptitude test that checks the
  general IT knowledge of potential employees
  before employing them, e.g. whether they can
  write emails, fill in electronic forms, etc.).

27

• All employees would need to be informed on how to
  communicate with the headquarters when an
  application is denied.
• Employees need to be told that it is
  discriminating to speculate about customers
  credit history in case an application is denied.
  The mobile phone provider might get a bad
  reputation if its employees treat customers like
  that. Employees also need to be informed how
  customers can find out about their credit file.

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• Employees need to be informed that it is a major
  security risk if they let customers use the
  companys information systems, e.g. the employee
  was logged in and handed the keyboard over to the
  customer to let him enter all the details. A
  customer with bad intentions could have taken
  advantage of being logged into the mobile phone
  providers system.

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Practical Applications Oracle, SAP and Medical
Information Systems

• The following lectures will deal with practical
  applications and professional systems. The Module
  9 files will be updated weekly as the lecture
  progresses.

30

• Oracle and SAP
• Both Oracle and SAP store information in
  databases. Historically, they are both known for
  their strength as relational database systems.
  You might wonder what relational database systems
  are.

31

• As you all know, databases store information in
  tables and each of these tables have unique
  names.
• In the business context, it is certainly not
  enough to have only one table, as so many
  different things need to be stored.
• Just imagine a basic company that needs to store
  information about its employees (their salary,
  their address, their length of contract, etc.),
  its customers (their delivery address, their
  billing details, etc.), the companys products,
  its accounting division, etc.

32

• It would certainly not be very sensible to store
  all these data in the same table. Therefore, all
  these data are stored in different tables.
• However, the information in these tables somehow
  needs to be combined or linked with each other.
  One could also say these tables need to be
  related to each other.
• Relating the information in these tables with
  each other is the basic idea of a relational
  database.
• More information with some examples can be found
  at http//www.islandnet.com/tmc/html/articles/ora
  reln.htm

33

• But Oracle and SAP are more than that. In fact,
  both of them are real software giants.
• The following slides will refer to both companys
  business philosophy.
• Oracle
• SAP

34

• Oracle
• Oracles 5 principles are
• Globalisation
• Simplification
• Standardisation
• Automation
• Innovation
• Source http//www.oracle.com/products/index.html

35

• Along with these 5 principles, Oracle developed 5
  product lines
• Database
• Application Server
• Collaboration Suite
• Developer Suite
• E-Business Suite
• In addition, Oracle provides many services,
  including customer support/consulting, education,
  financing, etc.

36

• Database
• Oracles current database is 9i and is often
  chosen by customers because of its performance,
  reliability and security. Oracles next
  generation database is already waiting (10g),
  which is the first database designed for grid
  computing.
• You may wonder what grid computing means
• Grid computing clusters servers together to act
  as a single large machine that automatically
  shifts server resources between applications
  according to demand. Due to the dynamic
  allocation of resources it dramatically reduces
  IT costs. CERN in Geneva played a major role in
  its development (this is the same place where Tim
  Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web back in
  1989).

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• More information about grid computing can be
  found at
• http//www.linuxuser.co.uk/articles/issue21/lu21-A
  ll_you_need_to_know_about-Grid_computing.pdf

38

• Application Server
• Oracles application Server is used by more than
  16,000 customers and acts as the application
  server for Oracles database. Its current version
  9i will soon be replaced by the 10g Application
  Server, which is the first database server
  designed for grid computing.
• 10g offers automated management capabilities to
  increase the flexibility of businesses to respond
  quickly to changing business requirements.

39

• This works by offering reusable web services that
  can be adapted to business needs.
• By applying grid computing technology, systems
  will have better availability at lower hardware
  and administration costs.

40

• Collaboration Suite
• The idea behind this is to enhance communication
  with the freedom to use several devices, e.g.
  email, voicemail, web conferencing applications,
  electronic calendar and file management
  applications all work together. This happens with
  the help of an underlying, secure database.

41

• Developer Suite
• The developer suite is a set of tools to create
  business applications that are optimised to run
  on the Oracle infrastructure. The developer suite
  typically includes a package supporting
• Any development approach (declarative, modelling,
  etc.)
• Any language (Java, XML, HTML, SQL)
• Any platform (LINUX, UNIX, Windows)
• Different development life cycles (designing,
  testing, debugging, maintenance, etc.)

42

• E-Business Suite
• The Oracle E-Business Suite consists of several
  modules (e.g. ordering/selling products,
  logistics, service, finance, etc.).
• Oracle aims to help companies make more informed
  decisions and improve their business operations
  whilst decreasing their expenses.

43

• What follows is a practical exercise on a Medical
  Information System running Oracles 9i Lite.
• I will show you a video about an information
  system in healthcare. It is about the hospitalist
  company IPC that tries to keep physicians
  connected with wireless devices and the help of
  Oracle 9i Lite. More information about this
  approach can be found at
• http//oracle.com/customers/profiles/PROFILE4529.H
  TML

44

• The video can be found at
• http//oracle.com/customers/index.html?healthcare.
  html
• Please try to extract the following information
  from the video
• What is the purpose of this company?
• What advantages does the wireless solution offer
  to IPC healthcare?
• How does this model succeed to cut costs in
  healthcare and improve care?
• Are there other advantages by storing the data in
  the database?

45

• Please make notes during the video and discuss
  the answers to these questions after the video.
  You should work in groups of 5 to 7 people.
• I will go from group to group to assist should
  there be any questions.

46

• Answers to the questions
• What is the purpose of the company
• To cut costs through reducing administrative work
  of support staff, hardware such as desktop
  computers, office space for doctors, etc. (as all
  data are stored in a secure database that can be
  accessed through a wireless network).
• To give doctors more time to deal with patients,
  as their administrative duties are less.

47

• What advantages provides the wireless solution to
  IPC healthcare?
• The wireless solution allows to enter and access
  data immediately and without delay due to
  paperwork.
• The wireless solution is cheaper than desktop
  computers.
• Patient files do not get lost this way and
  doctors have no difficulties reading their
  colleagues writing.

48

• How does this model succeed to cut costs in
  healthcare and improve care?
• The answer to this question is somewhat redundant
  to previous answers.
• The wireless solution cuts cost because less time
  needs to be spent on administrative matters, e.g.
  the patients records, the doctors bills, the
  recommended medication, etc. is no longer stored
  on paper and no longer needs to be processed by
  support staff. It all happens automatically.
• Specialist doctors no longer need offices, which
  saves space, electricity, computers,

49

• 3. Doctors have more time to dedicate to
  treatment and can coordinate care in a better way
  by direct data transmission.

50

• Are there other advantages by storing the data in
  the database?
• Audits work more efficiently, because the
  database allows to study whether doctors
  administer the correct medication/dose for
  specific illnesses and provide the right advice.
• The system can also give warning messages if a
  completely wrong treatment approach is chosen for
  a particular illness.
• The system could be extended to allow doctors
  communicate over a long distance.

51

• This would be necessary when expert advice is
  necessary, but only few experts exist.
• The immediate update of patient records in the
  database will eventually lead to better care for
  the patients.

52

• The Association of Medical Directors of
  Information Systems (AMDIS) also specialises in
  Medical Information Systems.
• Their website is http//www.amdis.org/
• The aim of this company is to apply IT to improve
  care offered by physicians and the practice of
  medicine.
• (see demonstration by referring to the above
  link)

53

• Among other things, they specialise in
• Handheld devices (PDAs)
• Expert systems (medical diagnosis, finding the
  best specialists for a particular illness, quick
  medical reference, advice on prescription).
• Electronic journal about Medical Information
  Systems

54

• Another company specialising in Medical
  Information Systems is HKS.
• Their website is http//www.hksys.com/
• Their aim is to develop software that allows to
  improve the quality of delivering care and
  keeping records, e.g. one of their services is to
  track the history and progress of patients
  undergoing organ transplantation.
• (see demonstration by referring to the above link)

55

• Another example is MEDITECH.
• Their website is http//www.meditech.com/
• Their mission is to provide software that enables
  clinicians to deliver patient care effectively by
  making sure that electronic records about
  patients are available whenever and wherever
  clinicians need to access them, taking advantage
  of new technologies (e.g. wireless handheld
  devices).

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• Their goal is to enable effective patient
  management and to save costs by making use of
  technological advantages.
• (see demonstration by referring to the link on
  the preceding page)

57

• SAP
• SAP stands for Systems, Applications and
  Products in Data Processing. Founded in Germany
  in 1972 by 3 former IBM employees, its original
  name used to be Systemanalyse und
  Programmentwicklung.
• Like Oracle, SAP provides more than a relational
  database (although it is based on tables). SAP
  aims to provide fully functional and completely
  integrated business solutions.

58

• It was originally aimed at large businesses, but
  tries to move into the market of small and medium
  sized businesses as well.
• Its website can be found at http//www.sap.com/
• SAP offers solutions in 5 major areas.

59

• SAP Solutions
• mySAP business suite
• Industry solution portfolios
• Solutions for small and medium sized businesses
• SAP cross applications
• SAP NetWeaver

60

• Specific features of SAP solutions
• SAP can be applied to many different industries.
  In fact, each SAP solution is tailored to the
  specific processes, standards, techniques, etc.
  within each industry.
• SAP have developed unique business practices that
  have proven successful in the past. Based on this
  experience, they try to adopt the best possible
  business practices to the specific demands of
  every customer.

61

• SAP develops solutions that businesses of almost
  any size can afford.
• Because it uses open, scalable technologies,
  businesses are able to start very small (with
  relatively low investment) and expand as a
  companys needs evolve.
• The open technology standards of the business
  suite allow to integrate new technologies into
  already existing systems.
• SAP has many collaborations with consulting,
  application, implementation and service providers
  to ensure high business standards.

62

• mySAP business suite
• mySAP business suite is aimed to help companies
  manage business processes. It is built for
  complete integration of business processes.
• It integrates business processes such as
  Financials, Human Resources, Product Lifecycle
  Management, etc.
• More information is available at
  http//www.sap.com/solutions/business-suite.asp

63

• mySAP Business Suite allows employees,
  customers, and business partners to work together
  ... supporting databases, applications, operating
  systems, and hardware from almost every major
  vendor.
• Source
• http//www.sap.com/company/

64

• Industry Solution Portfolios
• SAP provides solutions for 23 different
  industries such as the Public Sector, Healthcare,
  Higher Education and Research, Financial Service
  Providers, Telecommunications, etc.
• A full list can be found at
• http//www.sap.com/solutions/industry/
• SAP tries to build on its 30 years long
  experience in these business sectors to offer
  solutions to individual businesses.

65

• Solutions for small and medium sized businesses
• SAP tries to offer cost-effective solutions to
  small and midsize businesses based on SAPs
  experience in the specific industry of the
  business.
• I will show you a demo that will guide you
  through a typical solution for small to midsize
  businesses.
• Source http//www.sap.com/solutions/smb/

66

• SAP cross applications (xApps)
• In todays ever changing business world, it must
  be possible to align existing systems with new
  systems.
• SAP xApps combines already existing,
  heterogeneous systems with new systems and
  technologies into cross-functional business
  processes.
• Source http//www.sap.com/solutions/xapps/

67

• SAP NetWeaver
• SAP NetWeaver is an integration and application
  platform designed to work with a companys
  already existing systems and software. This
  reduces the need for custom integration and thus
  assists in decreasing costs.
• NetWeaver embraces Internet standards such as
  HTTP, XML, and Web services. Ensuring openness
  and interoperability with Microsoft.NET and J2EE
  environments such as IBMWebSphere.
  http//www.sap.com/solutions/netweaver/

68

• NetWeavers strength lies in combining structured
  with unstructured information. It delivers a
  flexible infrastructure that allows to integrate
  SAP and non-SAP solutions easily.
• Source http//www.sap.com/solutions/

69

• Practical Exercise
• I will show you the demo about SAP Business One,
  a solution for small to midsize businesses.
• Please give a rating about the User Interface.
  Would you improve certain aspects? If so, which
  ones. If not, why are you satisfied?
• How does SAP Business One facilitate information
  retrieval and communication for CEOs, Operations
  Managers, Sales Managers, Sales Representatives?
• Based on the demo, do you think SAP Business One
  will be useful for small to midsize businesses?
  If so, what are your arguments in favour of SAP
  Business One? If not, what are your arguments
  against SAP Business One?
• How does SAP Business One facilitate to make
  decisions?

70

• 5. Now you have seen a demonstration of an SAP
  business solution. Please compare the SAP
  database with mainstream database software such
  as Microsoft Access. What differences are you
  able to figure out?
• 6. What SAP features would be likely to convince
  a company to choose an SAP business solution?
• 7. You know that SAP and Oracle used to support
  each other, e.g. SAP R/3 often runs on an Oracle
  database, though it would also run on other
  relational databases. Nowadays, however, SAP and
  Oracle seem to be in fierce competition. Try to
  get your own picture about this competition by
  checking out the following website
  http//www.sapclub.com (this website used to be a
  discussion forum and job-finder for SAP experts.
  See yourself what has changed).

71

• Data Security and Identity Authentication
• The following practical advice was provided by
  Götz Pätzold, who is Logistics Director in a
  company that applies SAP business solutions.
• Götz Pätzold is an expert in the application of
  SAP systems such as R/3.
• Götz Pätzold kindly volunteered to answer
  questions about data security and identity
  authentication, and provided further insights
  about SAP applications from a companys
  perspective.

72

• I asked him questions that were originally
  inspired by a student who had asked me these
  questions in the lecture.
• The questions were Given that companies need
  help from SAP consultants occasionally, how does
  the company make sure that protected data on the
  companys database are kept secret? Are SAP
  consultants able to view the records of the
  database when they fix a problem? If not, how can
  they fully understand the problem? If yes, how
  can the company ensure that confidential
  information remains confidential?

73

• I am summarising Götz Pätzolds answers below
• First of all, the problem with keeping
  confidential information confidential exists in
  every company, e.g. when an employee leaves the
  company, s/he often knows a lot of confidential
  information. The former employee has to keep this
  information confidential, because the contract
  s/he signed when joining the company required
  her/him to keep this information confidential
  (also if leaving the company or being asked to
  leave).

74

• So the data security of records in the companys
  database is a legal issue and anyone with access
  to the companys database is legally bound to
  keeping this information confidential.
• Similarly, SAP consultants have to sign a
  contract with their customers and are legally
  bound to keep information from their customers
  database confidential.

75

• Before an SAP consultant accesses the database,
  the following steps usually happen
• The customer (i.e. the company with the SAP
  business solution) generally sends an OSS message
  to SAP (OSS stands for Online Service System).
• SAP tries to solve the problem by giving advice
  on the phone, per email, etc.
• If the problem cannot be solved this way and the
  company needs to resolve the problem quickly, an
  SAP consultant is sent to the company.

76

• Another way of getting help is through SAPs
  online help option, which is available at
• http//help.sap.com
• If you are running SAP R/3, you could go to the
  respective release (e.g. 4.70) and get a
  hypertext help menu.
• This help option is free and available to every
  registered user. If the problem is really tricky,
  however, it might not be possible to get round
  investing money by calling a consultant.

77

• When the company decides to call an SAP
  consultant and to give her/him access to their
  system, s/he will have to sign a contract that
  legally binds her/him to keep protected
  information confidential.
• The company usually gives the consultant a user
  ID and password to allow her/him access to their
  system (just like each employee receives a user
  ID and password).
• The consultant, however, only receives a
  temporary user ID and password. It would also be
  possible to restrict access to those aspects
  where the problem seems to lie.

78

• The reasons for many problems are insufficient
  functioning of upgrades and changes to the
  system. Because information systems are
  integrated to a large extent, it can be tricky to
  give only limited access to the consultant. In
  many cases, the employees of the company do not
  know where the problem seems to lie so that they
  need to demonstrate the problem to the
  consultant.
• Moreover, limited access is often too limited to
  let the consultant do the job, so that further
  changes would be necessary (which involve extra
  time and costs).

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• Because it usually takes a while until the
  problem is solved, it would also be quite costly
  if an employee permanently looked over the
  shoulder of the consultant.
• It is possible to find out from the systems
  records, however, whether the consultant accessed
  areas s/he was not supposed to access. The
  consultants know about this problem and are
  usually motivated to avoid legal consequences.

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• In principle, however, the problem of getting
  access to protected data exists.
• It can be solved easier when dealing with
  employees, because their day to day business
  practices can be defined more clearly (and so can
  the areas where they are permitted access).
• Another way of tackling this problem is to
  exclude highly sensitive data from the companys
  database, such as the salaries of the CEO and the
  governing body, etc.

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• User authorisation is very advanced in SAP. There
  are reasons for this Imagine a company employed
  an intern and permitted him/her to perform all
  operations on the companys database. This intern
  could (perhaps accidentally) ruin the whole
  company or the companys customers.
• For this reason, SAP focused on user
  authorisation, e.g. since R/3 Release 4.6C, all
  employees are given roles within the company, and
  according to their roles, employees are allowed
  to perform pre-specified operations.

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• For example product managers, accountants, sales
  managers, controllers, etc. all have specific
  roles within the company. The actions/decisions
  they are permitted depend on their roles within
  the company.
• In SAP, these roles are industry-specific and
  sometimes even customer-specific. This is
  necessary because all industries/customers are
  unique, and therefore it is necessary to make
  sensible decisions about their employees roles.
• What follows are some practical examples.

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• SAP allows for group-specific and user-specific
  authorisation, e.g. there might be a number of
  employees who do the same job, e.g. in a bank,
  all employees sitting behind the counter are
  allowed to perform the same operations on the
  banks information system.
• Since this bank has hundreds or even thousands of
  branches, it would not make sense if
  authorisation for each of these employees would
  be performed individually, because they all do
  the same type of work. In this case,
  group-specific user authorisation saves a lot of
  time.

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• Examples would be
• withdraw money, calculate exchange rates, pay
  cheque into account, check customers details for
  authorisation such as date of birth or mothers
  maiden name, etc.

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• For some roles in the senior management, however,
  it is vital to consider user authorisation very
  carefully, because limited access to information
  could delay decisions, which might inhibit to run
  the business successfully.
• For this reason, it is important that more senior
  managers are given enough authority to make
  necessary decisions. In this case, user-specific
  authorisation is needed.
• One example would be to change the conditions of
  the offer to avoid that the customer makes the
  deal with the companys competitor (you have seen
  such an example in last weeks demo).

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• The levels of authorisation in SAP systems
  generally are
• No access
• Read
• Enter/Change Data
• In general, large organisations need to have a
  more detailed authorisation system, because the
  role of each employee is better defined. In small
  companies, employees need to be allowed more
  actions/decisions, because employees often have
  several roles.

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• How are changes to the existing system (e.g.
  upgrades) dealt with in practice?
• SAP developers often deal with 3 systems
• The production system (this is the main system of
  the company).
• The developers system (this is where developers
  try changes before implementing them into a
  prototypical system and later into the production
  system).
• A prototype system (this is where the intended
  changes to the production system are simulated
  and evaluated to see whether they would work
  successfully in reality).

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• Referring to confidential data, it is sometimes
  possible that SAP consultants do not necessarily
  have to see details from the production system.
• Rather, they can work with imaginary data in the
  prototype system. If everything works in the
  prototype system (which emulates the production
  system), the program code will be transferred and
  the production system will apply this code to
  real data.
• This way, an SAP consultant not always needs to
  have access to the companys production system.

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• Summary
• There are a variety of ways to prevent that IT
  consultants take advantage of confidential data.
• They include legal issues (contracts that ensure
  those people who take advantage of confidential
  data are made liable), clearly defined access,
  temporary user IDs, using prototypical systems
  with simulated data, tracing the actions of
  consultants.

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• However, there is never any absolute protection
  from the misuse of confidential information (but
  the same problem holds true in every company.
  Moreover, it also holds true for more traditional
  forms of storing data, e.g. on paper. Before the
  use of information systems, employees also had
  access to confidential information, e.g. in
  accounting, in the personnel unit, etc.).

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• Practical Exercise Transport for London
• I will show you a video of an SAP solution for
  the London Transport System. Please try to
  extract the following information from the video
• Which different forms of transport are involved?
• What advantages of a single, integrated transport
  system were mentioned in the video?
• How can these advantages be achieved with a
  single, integrated system?
• Can you think of any other advantages where the
  SAP solution might be a good idea?

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• Answers to the questions
• Which different forms of transport are involved?
• Buses, the London Underground, Dockland Light
  Railway, Taxies, River Transport.
• What advantages of a single, integrated transport
  system
• were mentioned in the video?
• Human Resources, e.g. the system allows to check
  whether staff are properly trained, have the
  relevant experience, whether taxi drivers have
  licenses, etc. In addition, costs can be saved by
  using a single, integrated solution with a single
  database, which allows a single payroll system.

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• 3. How can these advantages be achieved with a
  single, integrated system?
• A single, integrated solution allows to store all
  relevant data of employees in a single database.
  Moreover, problems in terms of maintenance or
  other safety issues are stored in a single
  database. This facilitates communication about
  problems or possible safety risks. If all the
  information about safety risks are stored in a
  relational database, one could search for all
  reported problems within the past week and list
  them in order of priority. This would allow to
  organise maintenance work to ensure that safety
  problems are solved as soon as possible. If each
  form of transport was separate and no integrated
  solution would exist, the co-ordination of these
  issues would be more complicated and more
  expensive.

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• 4. Can you think of any other advantages where
  the SAP solution might be a good idea?
• Last week you have learned that SAP business
  solutions can be updated and upgraded easily when
  demands are changing, e.g. SAP allows to
  integrate existing systems with novel systems. In
  a city like London, it is quite likely that
  demands will change over time, so that it is
  vital to have a solution that can adapt to
  change.

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• Latest Information on the Information Systems
  Research Cycle
• Hevner and March (2003) published a recent
  article on how information systems differ from
  closely related disciplines such as management
  science, computer science, economics,
  organisational psychology, social sciences,
  systems engineering, etc.
• In their words Information Systems research
  should combine the creativity and precision of
  design science with the empiricism and discipline
  of behavioural science.

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• Expressed differently, the goal of information
  systems research is to make use of the latest
  technical advances, but also to test how these
  can be adapted to business solutions. The way
  this can be tested is inspired by behavioural
  sciences, which use sophisticated statistical
  methods. As a result, it can be evaluated whether
  a particular implementation is better than
  alternative implementations.

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• The typical goal of design science (creating the
  latest technical advances) is utility. The
  typical goal of behavioural sciences is finding
  the truth (e.g. is the latest technical invention
  really better than previous inventions).
• In many cases, later inventions might be better
  than previous inventions to some extent, but the
  cost would not outweigh the benefits if an
  organisation chose to implement the latest
  technology. This can be found out by applying
  techniques from management science such as
  cost-benefits analyses.

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• In order to find out about the benefits, however,
  the latest technical advances need rigorous
  assessment, which is provided by the behavioural
  sciences research methods. These methods were
  originally inspired by the natural sciences that
  tried to quantify the impact of variations of the
  tested material.
• A practical example How much faster can an
  online bookstore process customers orders during
  peek-time when using Oracles 10g database and
  application server instead of Oracles 9i
  database and application server. As explained
  earlier, 10g is the first database and
  application server based on grid-computing
  technology.

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• In the example above, the tested material is
  Oracle 10g vs. Oracle 9i. In behavioural
  sciences, the tested material is referred to as
  independent variables.
• The impact, which is referred to as dependent
  variables in behavioural sciences, is the
  quantifiable measure speed of processing
  customers orders. It can be measured on a time
  scale, e.g. in milliseconds, seconds, minutes,
  hours, etc.

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• More information on linking the design and
  behavioural sciences is provided by Hevner et al.
  (in press), March and Smith (1995), Markus,
  Majchrzak and Gasser (2002), Walls, Widmeyer and
  El Sawy (1992).

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• Final Review of the main topics
• Below I am summarising the most important aspects
  of this course. In order to prepare for the exam,
  you should be able to understand the following
  aspects
• What Information Systems are and what role they
  play in the organisational context (see details
  in Module 1).

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• You should be able to understand the difference
  between a mainstream database application such as
  Microsoft Access and databases in an integrated
  Management Information System (such as the
  business solutions provided by Oracle and SAP).
• You should know about the strategic role of
  information systems (e.g. how a company could get
  a sustainable advantage through the use of
  information systems, see Module 2).

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• You should be familiar with strategy and planning
  in the context of information systems, e.g. there
  are different forms of planning such as bottom-up
  and top-down approaches.
• It is also essential to know about the
  difficulties of translating organisational
  requirements into technological requirements
  (e.g. what is the right information system for a
  particular organisation). Module 3 (theory) and
  Module 9 (the demos, videos and practical group
  exercises) give you hints on how to find the
  right solution for a particular organisation.

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• You should be able to tell how an organisation
  can make sure that the implementation of an
  information system works according to plan, (e.g.
  that everything stays within budget, the user
  needs and professional standards are adhered to,
  and that the outcome of the system is of good
  quality). Module 4 refers to this.
• You should know about the importance of
  evaluation, possible forms of evaluation and the
  problems that are associated with it in the
  context of information systems. See Module 5.

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• Nowadays far more employees make use of IT
  resources than in the past (where only
  specialists used IT devices). As a result, many
  non-experts interact with Information Systems.
  Consequently, the demands on service have become
  stronger in an attempt to fulfil the users
  needs. You should know about these demands and
  about different approaches to fulfil these needs.
  Module 6 gives you some useful hints.

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• Similarly, you should be aware of the need for
  security management, authorisation, computer
  systems audits, etc., because they play important
  roles in all integrated management information
  systems. Module 7 delivers the theory on this and
  the end of Module 9 gives some expert advice on
  how these issues are dealt with in practice.
• You should also know how information systems have
  influenced and changed organisations over time.
  You can find some advice on this in Modules 1 and
  8.

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• You should also familiarise yourself with methods
  of organisational learning, because
  organisational learning is important for the
  introduction of new information systems in almost
  every organisation. A review of organisational
  learning can be found at the end of Module 8.
• Questions in the exam will be essay-based to a
  large extent. This means that your knowledge as
  well as your critical opinion on these main
  topics will be assessed.

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• To prepare for the exam, you should know about
  the main topics and you should be able to
  critically reflect problems of information
  systems and business solutions.
• The practical exercises I have done with you
  should prepare you to develop some critical ideas
  about existing management information systems. In
  this lecture and the additional revision in
  April, I will therefore revise these practical
  exercises with you.

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• References
• Hevner, A.R. et al. (in press). Design Science in
  Information Systems Research. To appear in
  Management Information Systems Quarterly, March
  2004.
• Hevner, A.R. March, S.T. (2003). The
  Information Systems Research Cycle. IEEE
  Computer, 36 (11), 111-113.
• March, S.T. Smith, G.F. (1995). Design and
  Natural Science Research on Information
  Technology. Decision Support Systems, 15 (4),
  251-266.

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• Markus, M.L., Majchrzak, A. Gasser, L. (2002).
  A Design Theory for Systems that support Emergent
  Knowledge Processes. Management Information
  Systems Quarterly, 26 (3), 179-212.
• Scott Morton, M.S. (1991). The Corporation of the
  1990s Information Technology and Organisational
  Transformation. Oxford Oxford University Press.
• Walls, J.G., Widmeyer, G.R. El Sawy, O.A.
  (1992). Building an Information System Design
  Theory for Vigilant EIS. Information Systems
  Research, 3 (1), 36-59.