ASSIGNMENT

Module I: MIS

1. Identify at least two trends in the global business

environment that have made information systems so
important?

Digital convergence is an approach by which all types of media and

communication will be digitized allowing them to be used through a single
worldwide network. The speed and computing capacity of technology
continues to advance at dizzying speeds and in ways we can hardly
imagine.

Interactive Multimedia :-

One trend highly touted by the experts is that of the “information

appliance.” Do we need to have a separate device for watching television,
another one for listening to music, a different one called a telephone, and
yet a whole separate device for computing? Some people say we can do all
of that with one central appliance with a variety of input and output
devices.

If you watch the mergers taking place in the corporate world between the
telephone companies Notes and cable TV companies, you can start to
understand another major change that may be in store for us. The
companies are working toward a convergence of the “entertainment
outlets” we know as television and the Internet. Why can’t we download a
movie off the Internet whenever we’re ready to watch it instead of having
to follow a TV channel’s set schedule? This idea may be a reality in a few
years.

The music industry is struggling with the issue of music downloaded from
websites. How do the musicians protect their copyrighted work while
making the music more accessible to the public? How do the music
publishing companies protect their business from disintermediation, the
process of eliminating the middleman from transactions?

EMERGENCE OF NEW ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS:-

MIS Information Technology has to be the most powerful instrument to

reduce the co-ordination cost. While the traditional uses of IT tried to
facilitate the internal processes of the enterprises, the Interorganizational
Information Systems (IOS) are addressed towards the efficiency of a group
of enterprises.

IT influences the nature, punctuality and detail level of the information

shared by enterprises .

IT reduces the transaction costs, while it provides a better management of

the risks.

IT reduces the co-ordination costs.

In order to benefit from the advantages of IT, the enterprises have to keep
in mind that IT cannot be isolated from its organizational context. In order
to make the most of the whole potential of the IOS, it will be required that
the managing directors get involved with the project, since they have a
wider and more strategic view of the company.

2. What are the key management challenges involved in

building, operating and maintaining information
 systems today?

The Strategic Business Challenge : If organizations merely automate what

they are doing today, they are largely missing the potential of information
technology.

The Globalization Challenge : To develop integrated, multinational,

information systems, businesses must develop global hardware, software
and communication standards; create cross-cultural accounting and
reporting structures; and design transnational business processes.

The Information Architecture Challenge : Many companies are saddled

with expensive and unwieldy information technology platforms that
cannot adapt to innovation and change. Their information systems are so
complex and brittle that they act as constraints on business strategy and
execution.

The Information Systems Investment Challenge : A major problem raised

by the development of powerful, inexpensive computers involves not
technology but management and organizations.

The Responsibility and Control Challenge : Too often we find it easier to

blame the computer for messing up than to realize it’s only doing what a
human being told it to do
 3. Elucidate how digital convergence is used to digitize
the types of media and communication.

Digital Convergence :-

Digital convergence is an approach by which all types of media and

communication will be digitized allowing them to be used through a single
worldwide network. The speed and computing capacity of technology
continues to advance at dizzying speeds and in ways we can hardly
imagine.

Interactive Multimedia :-

One trend highly touted by the experts is that of the “information

appliance.” Do we need to have a separate device for watching television,
another one for listening to music, a different one called a telephone, and
yet a whole separate device for computing? Some people say we can do all
of that with one central appliance with a variety of input and output
devices.

If you watch the mergers taking place in the corporate world between the
telephone companies Notes and cable TV companies, you can start to
understand another major change that may be in store for us. The
companies are working toward a convergence of the “entertainment
outlets” we know as television and the Internet. Why can’t we download a
movie off the Internet whenever we’re ready to watch it instead of having
to follow a TV channel’s set schedule? This idea may be a reality in a few
years.

The music industry is struggling with the issue of music downloaded from
websites. How do the musicians protect their copyrighted work while
making the music more accessible to the public? How do the music
publishing companies protect their business from disintermediation, the
process of eliminating the middleman from transactions?
Role of Information Technologies on the Emergence of New
Organizational Forms:-

During the last years, a consensus is emerging that to survive in the

competitive turbulence that is engulfing a growing number of industries,
firms will need to pinpoint innovative practices rapidly, to communicate
them to their suppliers and to stimulate further innovation. In order to be
competitive, companies are forced to adopt less hierarchical and more
flexible structures, and to define strategies able to combine reduced costs,
high quality, flexibility and a quick answer to customer requirements.
Nowadays, there are very few companies with enough resources to form
its value chain on their own.

Therefore, some changes are taking place within individual companies and
in their relations with other organizations, creating new structures in which
relationships between customers and suppliers are suffering considerable
changes. One of these changes is concerned with the formation of
networks in which there is a division of labor that allows each company to
exploit their distinctive advantages, and be more competitive globally. In a
network model, a set of juridically independent companies establish
cooperative long-term links in order to achieve a higher level of
competitiveness.

The enterprises that belong to a network have not all the elements needed
for manufacturing a product or providing a service under their absolute
control. Therefore, the success of this kind of structures is conditioned by
the coordination degree obtained along the realization of inter-
organizational activities, which requires an efficient communication
system among the partners. The Information Technology (IT) represents a
supportive element that facilitates the transfer of information across
organizational boundaries. In this unit we analyze the inclusion of the
Interorganizational Information Systems (IOS) concept within the network
model and discuss the role IT plays in enabling organizational
transformation towards emergent forms of organization.

In order to attain relatively low costs in the last two decades the
enterprises followed strategies of backward-forward integration, based on
the improvement of the effects of the experience curve and the scale
economies. We consider that this internal growth may be inadequate to
face the new situations appearing in the nineties and, no doubt, those that
will appear in the next century. The individual enterprise has less
capability for foreseeing the consequences of the different business
decisions; however, the need for competing in a more and more complex
context requires the adoption of quick decisions, which facilitate the
flexibility of the enterprise. New technologies, fast changing markets and
global competitiveness are revolutionizing relationships both within and
between organizations. Thus, the new environment requires from the
enterprises a strategy able to agglutinate reduced costs, high quality,
flexibility, and a quick response to the needs of the customer.

Nowadays, the enterprises have to compete in a more and more turbulent

scene, which obliges them to adopt less hierarchical and more flexible
structures. During the last years, a major transformation in the strategy of
many enterprises has been observed with a tendency to disintegration. This
is accompanied by a need for increasing the quality of the products or
services offered, which requires more interdependency among the
different corporate units. As a consequence of it, several transformations
both inside the enterprises and in the relationships between them are
taking place, which establishes new structures through which the
relationships among competitors, customers and suppliers are changing
substantially. One of these changes is the cooperation established among
different enterprises, which allows them to develop their competitive
capability. Companies are forming strategic alliances because there is an
increasing acknowledgement that organizations operate in a relational
context of environmental connectedness and that organizational survival
and performance depend upon connections with other organizations.

However, an IOS allows to obtain operative advantages too, such as:

 Reducing paperwork and manual operations;
 Reducing the stock levels;
 Accelerating the product and material flow;
 Standardizing of procedures;
 Accelerating the flow of information about changes on the demand;
 Reducing telecommunication costs.

Importance of Digital convergence:-

1.The IT is a basic support that facilitates the co-ordination of different

enterprises through EDI systems, shared databases, e-mail, video
conferences, which will allow them to work together.

2. They will be able to share information on the markets, on the needs for
materials, on stock levels, production schedules, and delivery programs.

3.A key factor in an efficient exchange of information within a network is

the computer connection of its members.

4. The computer links accelerate the transference of information since it

provides the automatic transmission of data between physically distant
computers.

5. These links can be used as a strategic instrument to increase the

competitiveness of the enterprise, binding it electronically with its
customers and suppliers through inter-organizational systems

4, Most of the studies suggest that the use of IT without

concomitant organizational changes is unlikely to yield
significant gains in terms of organizational performance.
Comment.?
There is a growing body of conceptual papers and case studies on
IT-enabled organizational transformation in the information
systems literature. Most of the studies suggest that the use of IT
without concomitant organizational changes is unlikely to yield
significant gains in terms of organizational performance.
Four R’s of Business Transformation:-

Business Transformation can be defined as “The orchestrated

redesign of the genetic architecture of the corporation, achieved
simultaneously – although at different speed – along the four
dimensions of reframing, restructuring, revitalization and renewal.”
By this definition a biological model has been developed that we
call the Four R’s of transformation are:
 Reframing is the shifting of a company’s conception of what it is
and what it can achieve with new visions and a new resolve.
 Restructuring is a girding of corporate loins, getting it to achieve a
competitive level of performance by dealing with the body of
corporation and competitiveness. The need to be lean and fit is the
primary consideration.
 Revitalization is about igniting growth by linking the corporate
body to the environment.
 Renewal deals with the people side of transformation, and with
the spirit of the company. It is about investing individuals with new
skills and new purposes, thus allowing the company to regenerate
itself.

IT and Organizational Design:-

An important and fast-growing technological innovation during

this century is computer-based information systems. Computer-
based information systems (CBIS or only IS) provide an
opportunity for businesses to improve their efficiency and
effectiveness, and even to gain a competitive advantage. IT is also a
catalyst of fundamental changes in the structure, operations and
management of organizations. Most businesses in the industrial
world could not compete, and many could not even survive without
computers and software. Now IT is an integral part of the products
and services delivered to customers.
Competition leads to environmental uncertainty and increases both
the need for and the rate of innovation adoption. By adopting IS,
businesses will be able to compete in three ways:

 IS can change the industry structure and, in doing so, alter the
rules of competition;
 IS can also create competitive advantage by offering business new
ways to outperform their rivals; and
 IS spawns new businesses, often from within existing operations
of the business.

These five levels of IT-induced Reconfiguration are explained as

following:

▪ Level 1: Localized Exploitation (Automation), which is concerned

with the exploitation of IT within business functions.

▪ Level 2: Internal Integration, a logical extension of the first in the

sense that IT capabilities are exploited in all the possible activities
within the business process. Two types of integration are critical
here: technical integration and the organizational integration by
using common IT platform to integrate the organization’s business
processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

▪ Level 3: Business Process Redesign, involving the

reconfiguration of the business using IT as a central lever.
 ▪ Level 4: Business Network Redesign concerned with the
reconfiguration of the scope and tasks of the business network
involved in the creation and delivery of the products and services.

▪ Level 5: Business Scope Redefinition concerned with the

underlying principle of a corporation, pertaining to the possibilities
of enlarging the business mission and scope (through related
products and services) as well as shifting the business (through
substitution of traditional capabilities with IT-enabled skills).

5.Describe why you need Information Systems.

Information Technology is reshaping the basics of business, customer

service, operations, product and market strategies, and distribution are
heavily, or sometimes even entirely, dependent on IT. The computers that
support these functions can be found on the desk, on the shop floor; in the
store, even in briefcases. Information technologies, and its expense, have
become an everyday part of business life. The fundamental reasons for the
use of information technology in business are:

• Support of business operations

• Support of managerial decision making
• Support of strategic competitive advantage.

The Need for Information Systems:-

For many years’ computer technology was relegated to the backrooms or

basements of a corporation. Only the “techies” worried about it and were
often the only ones who really knew how it all worked. Now computers
are all over the organization - one on every desk. It’s not enough for you to
know how to pound a keyboard or click a mouse. It is not even enough for
you to know how to surf the Web. Now every employee, including you,
must know how to take advantage of Information Systems to improve your
organization and to leverage the available information into a competitive
advantage for your company.