Course Title: Management Information System (Spring 2020) sec.

02

Assignment
Table of Contents
Case 1: Modernization of NTUC Income (p.105)....................................................................................3
Case 2: Identifying Market Niches in The Age of Big Data (p.133).......................................................5
Case 4: The pleasures and pitfalls of BYOD (p.241)...............................................................................7
Case 4: The Battle over Net Neutrality (p.302).......................................................................................9
Case 1: Modernization of NTUC Income (p.105)

1. What were the problems faced by Income in this case? How were the problems resolved
by the new digital system?

Many problems are faced by the income in terms of designing the insurance structure and the
various paper works associated with it. It includes various tedious factors such as

 The business processing involves the request for insurance which is the most time-
consuming process.

 The up gradation of HP 3000 is time consuming as well as expensive and it frequently

breaks. Generally, the failure of hardware increases the downtime for the completion to
around 6 days.

 The space also appears to be the biggest factor as all the cartons are out and occupies
approximately three warehouses.

The major problems were resolved in the month of June 2003 when the decision was made to
shift to eBao LifeSystem from eBao technology. The various subsystems of this are
Supplementary Resources, Policy Administration and Sales Management. These will help in
catering the various needs of the organization. The various capabilities include the acceptance of
various business processes, design the barcode technology and others.

2. What types of information systems and business processes were used by Income before
migrating to the fully digital system?

The major forms of business process and information system used by the company are in the
form of HP 3000 and COBOL programs in the early 1980s. The COBOL programmes went
through major technical failures. On the other hand, the COBOL programmes are very slow
 in developing various plans for raising the revenue of the company and lost the sales
opportunities.

3. Describe the Information systems and IT infrastructure at Income after migrating to the
fully digital system?

As per James Kang, the CIO of the income the eBaoLifeSystem from eBay technology is:

 Barcode technology, customer centric design, seamless integration and imaging

 It concludes of new channels, new products and various business process
 The application of more communication lines minimizes the downtime occurrence
with loaded balance.

4. What benefits did Income reap from the new system?

The various benefits of the income reap are as follows:

 Time savings for restoring the previous data

 Formation of paperless environment

 Firstly access of the various system anywhere, anytime

 Evolving opportunity to sell the various goods and services as per the personal
choices of the customer.

5. How well is Income prepared for the future? Are the problems described in the case
likely to be repeated?

In my opinion the income is well prepared for the income for the future. They have more
flexibility in terms of development of latest technology like eBoa system. This aspect of modern
technology helps the company to retain its position in the market and to compete with the major
competitors. In my view the adaption of modern tools of technology will never lead to these
kinds of issue.
Case 2: Identifying Market Niches in The Age of Big Data (p.133)

1. Describe the kinds of data being analyzed by the companies in this case

The various data associated with the digital book is collected and sold to the publisher which
helps him to gather information related to the book. This helps in the understanding of various
facts like if the book is completely finished or if any pages of the book has been skipped or not.
Aircrafts are assembling various data associated with the customers to make the client profiles.
This information helps in designing various facilities in the airlines as per the choice of the
customer. The vehicle and automobile industry utilizes the database to perform complex
calculations and to stoke automobiles as per the buyer request. The various organizations gather
information in terms of utilizing the vehicle internet associations. They implementation of
various strategies helps in the execution of security concerns in various organizations. The Ford
Company has used various resources to increase its buyer correspondences.

2. How is this fine-grained data analysis improving operations and decision making in the
companies described in this case? What business strategies are being supported?

The concept of E- data helps the writers in accomplishing their tasks and to find the glitches
associated with the work. In addition, it helps editors to choose the manuscripts for publishing.
The various business strategies help in the analysis of various issues and help to focus on market.

The data collected by the Airline industry helps the airlines to gain customer satisfaction and
plan various facilities as per the choice of the customer. Business strategies developed by the
company helps in gaining customer satisfaction and develop marketing pitches.

The data collection method adopted by the car companies helps to identify the choice of the
customer in the present context. It also increases the selling of the car due to the understanding of
the demands of the present customer.
3. Are there any disadvantages to mining customer data? Explain your answer.

Customer data mining has various disadvantages. It leads to the disclosure of the confidentiality
of the customer. This interferes in the compliance of privacy and security of the customer. This
leads to the huge amount of data loss in the form of loss of personal information and may give
rise to the fraudulent in the society. Mining of customer data often leads to the misuse of various
personal data of the customer. The various issues are in the form of security issues, privacy
issues, inaccuracy of information and others.

4. How do you feel about airlines mining your in-flight data? Is this any different from
companies mining your credit card purchases or Web surfing?

In my opinion, the mining of in-flight data will allow the airline to satisfy its customers. The various
data will help the airline company to know about the demand of the customers. In my point of
view the airline organizations should take help of the modern technology and the internet of
things to gather the private data related to the customer to deliver ultimate flying experience.
However, in general data mining is a serious offense and against the privacy rights of the
customers.
Case 4: The pleasures and pitfalls of BYOD (p.241)

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of allowing employees to use their personal
smartphones for work?

One of the biggest advantages of permitting the staff to use their personal smartphones for work
is that they need to spend less on equipment. One of the major disadvantages of letting the
employees use their personal Smartphone at work is the fact that every employee will have
different mobile platform, therefore a large amount of the IT resources will be required to
manage the various devices. The lack of effective tracking facilities to track various devices wills
emerge as the biggest problem.

2. What management, organization, and technology factors should be addressed when

deciding whether to allow employees to use their personal smartphones for work?

In terms of deciding whether the employees should be allowed to use their personal Smartphone
many of the things have to be kept in mind. Various aspects like productivity and time
management has to be given priority. The organization has to decide whether the usage of
personal device will be helpful for the company and increase its productivity. The IT system of
the company needs to be upgraded for implementing this.
3. Compare the BYOD experiences of IBM and Intel. Why did BYOD at Intel work so
well?

BYOD experience of IBM BYOD experience of Intel

It is creating major challenges for the IT team It utilizes BYOD positively. It is using it to
of the company and not saving any money for enhance its performance.
the employee’s of the IBM as the devices of
the employees are full with software.
It has incorporated additional software in the It hammered this strategy and developed
form of programmes. service level argument.
It has improved the employee satisfaction and It has developed 40 applications which
increased the productivity of the employees. include travel tools to schedule the flight.

4. Allowing employees use their own smartphones for work will save the company money.
Do you agree? Why or why not?

The decision to let the employees to use their personal Smartphone will definitely cut down the
expense of the company, but for a limited time. The cost of the maintenance of high-end IT
department to facilitate this will be far more costlier. The company has to develop the application
to work on various platforms as well.
Case 4: The Battle over Net Neutrality (p.302)

1. What is network neutrality? Why has the Internet operated under net neutrality up to
this point in time?

Net neutrality is the idea which enables all the leading internet service providers to make sure the
equal distribution application and net contents to the customers. Till this point of time the net
neutrality has been widely used as there is no available rule concerning the restriction policies.

2. Who in favor of net neutrality? Who's opposed? Why

The conception of net neutrality has been widely accepted by the all the internet users of the
present context. The American government even supports it. The American government believes
in the concept of open internet and believes in the concept of first come first serve. It is possible
due to the net neutrality that the everyday users are able to access free and hassle-free internet
usage. Only the big telecommunication companies are finding it difficult to design and structure
the pricing of various facilities.

3. What would be the impact on individual users, businesses, and government if Internet
providers switched to a tiered service model?

The businesses, individual users and the government will have negative impacts if they switch to
the tiered service model. These have various adverse effects like the price of the internet usage
will increase. The individual users have to switch over other rental services as the major internet
service providers might block the streaming of various applications like the Netflix and Hula.
The price of the services comprising heavy bandwidth such as Skype, YouTube and others will
increase. The switching over will impact and affect the US government as well.
4. It has been said that net neutrality is the most important issue facing the internet.
Discuss the statement.

As this statement confines that nothing has been done to help the government to control the
usage of internet since its initiation. Although, in reality there are many serious issues and
aspects affecting the usage of internet other than net neutrality.

5. Are you in favor of legislation enforcing network neutrality? Why or why not?

Personally, I support the concept of net neutrality. I do like the conception and the idea behind
the net neutrality. In my opinion, this will imply equal opportunity for all in terms of the usage of
internet and other applications. AS I can understand the biggest drawback of this is that it
reduces the overall speed of the internet. However, personally I never faced any kind of issue
using this source of internet.