Learning Information Systems

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Information Systems

Rationale

Information Systems is the discipline concerned with the development, use, application and influence of information technologies. An information system, following a definition of Langefors, is a technologically implemented medium for recording, storing, and disseminating linguistic expressions, as well as for drawing conclusions from such expressions.

 

The technology used for implementing information systems by no means has to be computer technology. A notebook in which one lists certain items of interest is, according to that definition, an information system. Likewise, there are computer applications that do not comply with this definition of information systems. Embedded systems are an example. A computer application that is integrated into clothing or even the human body does not generally deal with linguistic expressions. One could, however, try to generalize Langefors' definition so as to cover more recent developments.

One of the better descriptions of this discipline came from Alan Lee, "...research in the information systems field examines more than just the technological system, or just the social system, or even the two side by side; in addition, it investigates the phenomena that emerge when the two interact." Lee AS (2001) "Editor’s Comments" MIS Quarterly 25(1), iii-vii

See also

Introduction to Information Systems Science Technology

 

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 Learning Outcomes

The objective of this course is to provide management students with a conceptual and empirical understanding of the dynamic issues facing organisations as they attempt to successfully integrate information technology for competitive advantage. The course is "problem based", focusing on a practical and pragmatic approach to studying information technology in business. We will use a comprehensive framework of 5 consideration areas to reflect upon topics. These include Technical, Strategic, Human Resources, Management of Change, and Ethical/Security considerations.

Overall, this course is designed to

(1) develop manager's critical skills for understanding and evaluating information technology issues,

(2) impart knowledge about IT vocabulary, trends, and challenges, and

(3) practice and apply this knowledge through case analysis and practical exercises.

By the completion of this course, you will have increased your

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Introduction. Foundation of Information Systems in Business.

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A Strategic Information System (SIS) is a type of Information System that is aligned with business strategy and structure. The alignment increases the capability to respond faster to environmental changes and thus creates a competitive advantage. An early example was the favorable position afforded American and United Airlines by their reservation systems, Sabre and Apollo. For many years these two systems ensured that the two carriers' flights appeared on the first screens observed by travel agents, thus increasing their bookings relative to competitors. A major source of controversy surrounding SIS is their sustainability.

Impacts of Adoption

Strategic Information System (SIS) is a system to manage information and assist in strategic decision making. A strategic information system has been defined as, "The information system to support or change enterprise's strategy." by Charles Wiseman (Strategy and Computers 1985).

Resume: Model of 3-era information system by Galliers & Somogyi

Strategic information system is different from other systems as: -

"Why General Managers Need to Understand Information Systems" Pdf
A Strategic Framework for The Information Economy, NOIE, AU Pdf

 

Competing with Information Technology

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Information Technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is: "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." In short, IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit and retrieve information, securely.

Information Technology

In this definition, the term "information" can usually be replaced by "data" without loss of meaning. Recently it has become popular to broaden the term to explicitly include the field of electronic communication so that people tend to use the abbreviation ICT (Information and Communication Technology). Strictly speaking, this name contains some redundancy.

 

Major Computing Companies

Hardware: Acer - Alcatel-Lucent - AMD - ASUS - Cisco - Dell - Freescale - Fujitsu Siemens Computers - Infineon - Intel - Juniper - Lenovo - LG - Matsushita - Motorola - NEC - Nokia - Nortel Networks - NVIDIA - NXP - Philips - Qimonda - Qualcomm - Samsung - Sony - STMicroelectronics - Texas Instruments - Toshiba -VIA
Software: Adobe - CA - Oracle - Red Hat - SAP

Hardware/software: Apple - EMC - Fujitsu - Hitachi - HP - IBM - Microsoft - NetApp - Siemens - Sun - Thomson
Dot-com: Amazon.com - AOL - eBay - Google - Yahoo!
Technology consulting: Accenture - ACS - Atos Origin  - Bearing Point - Capgemini - Cognizant - CSC - Deloitte - EDS - HCL Technologies - Infosys - LogicaCMG - Satyam - TCS - Wipro

 Oracle is not Magic, It Just Takes Years of Experience

 

Information Technology Governance, IT Governance or ICT Governance, is a subset discipline of Corporate Governance focused on information technology systems and their performance and risk management. The rising interest in IT governance is partly due to compliance initiatives (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley (USA) and Basel II (Europe)), as well as the acknowledgement that IT projects can easily get out of control and profoundly affect the performance of an organization.

Corporate IT Governance Process

Strategies for Information Technology Governance by Wim Van Gremberge

A characteristic theme of IT governance discussions is that the IT capability can no longer be a black box. The traditional handling of IT management by board-level executives is that due to limited technical experience and IT complexity, key decisions are deferred to IT professionals. IT governance implies a system in which all stakeholders, including the board, internal customers and related areas such as finance, have the necessary input into the decision making process. This prevents a single stakeholder, typically IT, being blamed for poor decisions. It also prevents users from later complaining that the system does not behave or perform as expected:

A board needs to understand the overall architecture of its company's IT applications portfolio ... The board must ensure that management knows what information resources are out there, what condition they are in, and what role they play in generating revenue... [1]

 

Competitive Advantage - Definition

A competitive advantage is an advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and service that justifies higher prices.

Competitive Strategies

Following on from his work analysing the competitive forces in an industry, Michael Porter suggested four "generic" business strategies that could be adopted in order to gain competitive advantage. The four strategies relate to the extent to which the scope of a businesses' activities are narrow versus broad and the extent to which a business seeks to differentiate its products.

 

 Competitive Strategies

Five Forces

 

 

Information Technologies: Computer Hardware

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Computer Hardware is the physical part of a computer,(not to be confused with software which is not physical) including the digital circuitry, as distinguished from the computer software that executes within the hardware. The hardware of a computer is infrequently changed, in comparison with software and data, which are "soft" in the sense that they are readily created, modified or erased on the computer. Firmware is a special type of software that rarely, if ever, needs to be changed and so is stored on hardware devices such as read-only memory (ROM) where it is not readily changed (and is therefore "firm" rather than just "soft").

Most computer hardware is not seen by normal users. It is in embedded systems in automobiles, microwave ovens, electrocardiograph machines, compact disc players, and other devices. Personal computers, the computer hardware familiar to most people, form only a small minority of computers (about 0.2% of all new computers produced in 2003). See Market statistics.

 Hardened Open Source IP Technology

Hardware Fundamentals by Brain Brown Html
Tom Hardware Guide Html
What is the Java Platform and it's business impact Pdf

 

Information Technologies: Computer Software

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Software, consisting of programs, enables a computer to perform specific tasks, as opposed to its physical components (hardware) which can only do the tasks they are mechanically designed for. The term includes application software such word processors which perform productive tasks for users, system software such as operating systems, which interface with hardware to run the necessary services for user-interfaces and applications, and middleware which controls and co-ordinates distributed systems.

Certification

Information Technology: Data Resource Management

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Data Resource Management (DRM) is the development and execution of architectures, policies, practices and procedures that properly manage the full data lifecycle needs of an enterprise.

The international organization dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of data resource management is called DAMA.

See also

 The DAMAI Curriculum Framework

Business Information Services Library

External links

Related Large Organizations

Related Local Organizations

Local Educational Programs in Information and Data Resource Management

Business Intelligence

MetaData

Techniques

Periodicals

Information Technology: Telecommunications and Networks

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Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. In modern times, this process almost always involves the sending of electromagnetic waves by electronic transmitters but in earlier years it may have involved the use of smoke signals, drums or semaphore. Today, telecommunication is widespread and devices that assist the process, such as the television, radio and telephone, are common in many parts of the world. There is also a vast array of networks that connect these devices, including computer networks, public telephone networks, radio networks and television networks. Computer communication across the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging, is just one of many examples of telecommunication.

Copy of the original phone of Alexander Graham Bell at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris
Copy of the original phone of Alexander Graham Bell at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris

Telecommunication systems are generally designed by telecommunication engineers. Early inventors in the field include Elisha Gray, Guglielmo Marconi and John Logie Baird. In recent times, optical fibre has radically improved the bandwidth available for intercontinental communication, helping to facilitate a faster and richer Internet experience. And, digital television has eliminated effects such as snowy pictures and ghosting. Telecommunication remains an important part of the world economy and the telecommunication industry's revenue has been placed at just under 3% of the gross world product.

A Telecommunications Network is a network of telecommunications links and nodes arranged so that messages may be passed from one part of the network to another over multiple links and through various nodes.

Telecommunications network links (including their endpoints or "nodes") may in turn be built out of hierarchical transmission systems.

Examples of telecommunications networks are:

Structure

In general, every telecommunications network conceptually consists of three planes (so called because they can be thought of as being, and often are, separate overlay networks):

  • The Control Plane is the part of the network that carries control information (also known as signalling).
  • The Data Plane or User Plane is the part of the network that carries its users' traffic.
  • The Management Plane is the part of the network that carries the operations and administration traffic required for network management.

See also

External links

 Telecommunications Management Network Model

 

Business Applications: Electronic Business Systems

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Electronic Business, or "E-business", may be defined broadly as any business process that relies on an automated information system. Today, this is mostly done with Web-based technologies. The term "e-business" was coined by Lou Gerstner, CEO of IBM.

EBS Conceptual Architecture

Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers.

In practice, e-business is more than just e-commerce. While e-business refers to more strategic focus with an emphasis on the functions that occur using electronic capabilities, e-commerce to be a subset of an overall e-business strategy. E-commerce seeks to add revenue streams using the Worldwide Web or the Internet to build and enhance relationships with clients and partners and to improve efficiency using the Empty Vessel strategy. Often, e-commerce involves the application of knowledge management systems.

E-business involves business processes spanning the entire value chain: electronic purchasing and supply chain management, processing orders electronically, handling customer service, and cooperating with business partners. Special technical standards for e-business facilitate the exchange of data between companies. E-business software solutions allow the integration of intra and inter firm business processes. E-business can be conducted using the Web, the Internet, intranets, extranets, or some combination of these.

 

Business Applications: Electronic Commerce Systems

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Electronic Commerce is exactly analogous to a marketplace on the Internet. Electronic Commerce (also referred to as EC, e-commerce eCommerce or ecommerce) consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions; in this context, it can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Electronic commerce typically uses electronic communications technology of the World Wide Web, at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although of course electronic commerce frequently depends on computer technologies other than the World Wide Web, such as databases, and e-mail, and on other non-computer technologies, such as transportation for physical goods sold via e-commerce.

Standard Order Schematic

E-Commerce according to Person Halls book E-Commerce started in 1994 with the first banner ad being placed on a website.

According to the October 2006 Forrester Research report entitled, "US eCommerce: Five-Year Forecast And Data Overview, "Nontravel online retail revenues will top the quarter-trillion-dollar mark by 2011. The driver of this growth? A segment of the most active Web shopping households that is roughly 8 million strong. This group of consumers is extremely comfortable with technology and values convenience above all else in the online retail experience. As retailers begin to wade through their copious data warehouses and understand the who, what, when, where, why, and how of this segment, they will benefit from targeting these customers."[1]

Business Applications: Decision Support Systems

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Decision Support Systems are a class of computer-based information systems including knowledge based systems that support decision making activities.

Decision Support System

 

Developing Business/IT Solutions

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Business Development includes a number of techniques designed to grow an economic enterprise. Such techniques include, but are not limited to, assessments of marketing opportunities and target markets, intelligence gathering on customers and competitors, generating leads for possible sales, followup sales activity, formal proposal writing and business model design. Business development involves evaluating a business and then realizing its full potential, using such tools as marketing, sales, information management and customer service. For a sound company able to withstand competitors, business development never stops but is an ongoing process.

Business Solutions

Successful business development often requires a multi-disciplinary approach beyond just "a sale to a customer." A detailed strategy for growing the business in desirable ways is frequently necessary, which may involve financial, legal and advertising skills. Business development cannot be reduced to simple templates applicable to all or even most situations faced by real-world enterprises. Creativity in meeting new and unforeseen challenges is necessary to keep an enterprise on a path of sustainable growth.

Small to medium-sized companies often do not establish procedures for business development, instead relying on their existing contacts. Other times they assume that because they know people in high places that their business development problems are solved and that somehow new business will come to them. The ramifications of such thinking can be significant in the event they are unable to leverage those relationships, which very often are personal or weak. Then they will have no new business in the pipeline.

 

The pipeline refers to flow of potential clients whom the company is in the process of developing. Each potential client in the pipeline is given a percent chance of success with projected sales volumes attached. The weighted average of all the potential clients in the pipeline can be used for staffing to manage the new business when it comes in.

For larger and more well-established companies, especially in technology-related industries, business development often refers to creating and managing strategic relationships and alliances with other, "third party" companies. In these instances the companies will leverage one anothers' expertise, technologies or other intellectual property to expand their products, services, functionality and/or market reach without having to invest in building or acquiring these with internal resources. Revenues are typically shared in some sort of royalty arrangement. For example, a company with a successful technology will partner with a company that has an existing customer base and sales force, and together they will penetrate that market, sharing the proceeds.

External links

 

Introduction to Business Service Management

Business Service Management (BSM) is a goal for businesses, and a promise from potential providers. A good BSM plan goes beyond the standards of typical IT management; it fuses the goals of IT and business. A Business Service Platform (BSP) is the foundation of an effective BSM solution. By employing a BSP solution, the entire business uses tools that monitor, report, and manage business services. In addition, the overall strategy includes a powerful relationship mapping data repository as the foundation of a robust and versatile cross-platform configuration management database (CMDB). Ultimately, a BSP will provide real-time monitoring of business service health and status.

IT is a set of tools designed to help organizations meet their corporate objectives and business goals. Regardless of the existing technology or applications, it is critical that services provide accurate information immediately. IT sometimes offers streamlined solutions for complex management issues by leveraging the power of technology to process large amounts of data, and transforms that data into meaningful information. Most of the time, this is not the case. In many real-world situations, IT poses new challenges for businesses. IT can slow a business’s response time substantially, especially in environments that combine multiple, disparate systems under one major business activity.

Following the Business Path to ITIL

Aligning IT and Business Goals for Business Service Management

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, BSM was introduced as a strategy to align IT and business goals once and for all by helping management know how the performance and availability of IT resources affected the mechanisms that power business.

While this strategy promises a lot, it is often difficult to determine how well BSM is working, or how well it might work. To do so, IT executives must evaluate how quickly they are able to understand and locate the root causes of any problem. To do this, a BSM strategy should provide effective monitoring, reporting, and managing for multiple, disparate systems. A BSM implementation that consistently incorporates these three key components moves beyond a typical model and is a Business Service Platform (BSP) solution. It is from this platform that management gains full control of the response time of IT functions through monitoring, reporting, and managing mechanisms. To successfully implement a BSP solution, the overall plan should include a powerful relationship mapping data repository as the foundation of a robust and versatile, cross-platform CMDB. In addition, a BSP should provide real-time health and status monitoring of business services.

Business Service Management Vendors

Security and Ethical Challenges

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Information Security is the process of protecting data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, destruction, modification, or disruption.[1] The terms information security, computer security and information assurance are frequently used interchangeably. These fields are interrelated and share the common goals of protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information; however, there are some subtle differences between them. These differences lie primarily in the approach to the subject, the methodologies used, and the areas of concentration. Information security is concerned with the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data regardless of the form the data may take: electronic, print, or other forms.

Heads of state and military commanders have long understood the importance and necessity of protecting information about their military capabilities, number of troops and troop movements. Such information falling into the hands of the enemy could be disastrous. Governments, military, financial institutions, hospitals, and private businesses amass a great deal of confidential information about their employees, customers, products, research, and financial status. Most of this information is now collected, processed and stored on electronic computers and transmitted across networks to other computers. Should confidential information about a businesses customers or finances or new product line fall into the hands of a competitor, such a breach of security could lead to lost business, law suits or even bankruptcy of the business. Protecting confidential information is a business requirement, and in many cases, it is also a legal requirement, and some would say that it is the right thing to do. For the individual, information security has a significant effect on Privacy, which is viewed very differently in different cultures.

The field of information security has grown and evolved much in recent years. As a career choice there are many ways of gaining entry into the field. The field offers many areas for specialization including Information Systems Auditing, Business Continuity Planning and Digital Forensics Science to name a few.

Security is everyone’s responsibility. Security awareness poster. U.S. Department of Commerce/Office of Security.
Security is everyone’s responsibility. Security awareness poster. U.S. Department of Commerce/Office of Security.

This article presents a general overview of information security and its core concepts.

Security and Encryption

Ethics of Technology is a subfield of ethics addressing the ethical questions specific to the Technology Age. Some prominent works of philosopher Hans Jonas are devoted to ethics of technology.

Ethics and Technology

Technology itself is incapable of possessing moral or ethical qualities, since "technology" is merely tool making. Thus, "ethics of technology" refers instead to two basic subdivisions.

In the former case, ethics of such things as computer security and computer viruses asks whether the very act of innovation is an ethically right or wrong act. Similarly, does a scientist have an ethical obligation to produce or fail to produce a nuclear weapon? What are the ethical questions surrounding the production of technologies that waste or conserve energy and resources? What are the ethical questions surrounding the production of new manufacturing processes that might inhibit employment, or might inflict suffering in the third world?

In the latter case, the ethics of technology quickly break down into the ethics of various human endeavors as they are altered by new technologies. For example, bioethics is now largely consumed with questions that have been exacerbated by the new life-preserving technologies, new cloning technologies, and new technologies for implantation. In law, the right of privacy is being continually attenuated by the emergence of new forms of surveillance and anonymity. The old ethical questions of privacy and free speech are given new shape and urgency in an Internet age. Such tracing devices as RFID, biometric analysis and identification, genetic screening, all take old ethical questions and amplify their import.

See also

 

Enterprise and Global Management of Information Technology

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Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) refers to the management techniques, metrics and related tools (such as computer software) designed to assist companies in making high-level (strategic) decisions.

Empowering Finance for E-Business

Typically, a business using SEM would incorporate a strategic information system, to manage information and assist in strategic decision making. A strategic information system has been defined as, "The information system to support or change enterprise's strategy." by Charles Wiseman (Strategy and Computers 1985).

Sprague has defined three classifications of strategic information systems:

  1. Competitive system
  2. Cooperative system
  3. The system changes operations of organization

Key concepts in strategic enterprise management include:

See also

Software

 

Information Technology Management (or IT management) is a combination of two branches of study, information technology and management.

Strictly speaking, there are two incarnations to this definition. One implies the management of a collection of systems, infrastructure, and information that resides on them. Another implies the management of information technologies as a business function.

Strategic Technology Management

The first definition stems from the practice of IT Portfolio Management and is the subject of technical manuals and publications of various information technologies providers; while the second definition stems from the discussion and formation of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

The ITIL has been in practice throughout regions of the world mainly conducted by IT service providers consulting companies. The relative paucity in the use of the best practice set can be attributed to a lack of awareness among IT practitioners. However the lack of ready-to-use tools also presents a significant barrier.

Some organizations that value such practices tend to engage consultants to introduce the practice. Such implementations can conflict with the home-grown culture due to a lack of internal buy-in. Other organizations implement the practices by spending resources to develop in-house tools.

Most in-house developed tools tend to focus on one or a few specific areas where the orgnizations feel the most pains. To reap the full advantages, tools will need to be integrated with the organization's IT data in the center.

See also

 

Recommended Texts

Introduction to Information Systems

Introduction to Information Systems, 13/e

James A. O'Brien, Northern Arizona University
George M. Marakas, University of Kansas

ISBN: 0073043559
Copyright year: 2007

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Management Information Systems : New Approaches to Organization and Technology Management Information Systems : New Approaches to Organization and Technology by Kenneth C. Laudon, Jane Price Laudon 

Review: Utilizing technology to explain information systems and technology, this best seller prepares readers for the ever-changing demands of information systems management. The authors focus on the interconnections between technology, the organization, and IS management. Explores all of today's leading-edge topics such as intranets and extranets, firewalls and Internet security, Internet-based group collaboration, and supply chain management. Tracks emerging technologies and organizational trends using real business examples to illustrate MIS issues and concepts. Features an enhanced Web site for management problem solving, with electronic commerce tours of real companies, international links to Web sites around the world, and more. Offers an optional CD-ROM with figures, graphs, photos, audio, video, exercises, and summaries. The ideal reference for executives and managers who want to learn more about management information systems. 

Official Prenhall Web (with resources for instructors)

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Information Systems

 

 

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