Decision-Making and Knowledge Management, Information System and Communication - Coursework Example

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM Customer Inserts His/her Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 09/05/ 2011 Organization as system The term organization is use broadly to refer to entire firm, as well as one as one part of it. It can be made up of many thousands of people or only handful. For corporate leader, the organization encompasses the entire company, and from the vantage point of unit manager, the organization may be simply that unit. For the purpose of this discussion organization can taken to mean both the whole organization, as well as to the smaller organization nested within the large firms. Organization functions as system which is made up of parts. This parts are interrelated such that each part can affect the way other parts functions and the way all parts operates together which is a determining factor of which the system works. This has been a fundamental challenge over the traditional management school of thought. Traditionally Managers learned to manage an organization by managing its separate pieces (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). For example managers divide organization into different function such as production, sales, logistics, marketing and service. The problem to kind of this management is sub-optimization from parts to achieve their objective in the expense of whole. The solution to this kind of problem is to change the whole system. The system perspective emphasizes that everything is connected to everything else and that it's often worthwhile to model businesses and processes in terms of flows and feedback loops (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006).When an organization function as a system there will be a thinking that stresses a linkage and relationships that flows throughout the organization. System perspective emphasizes that any given employee or unit or activity is part of a larger entity and that ultimately those entities, working together, are justified by the results they produce (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). To effectively, nimbly, and proactively adapt to the demands of a rapidly changing environment, all system components – inputs, processes, outputs, and feedback – must be managed (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). Information system and communication The goal of information systems is production of appropriate information products for end users. Examples: Management reports and business documents using text and graphics display, audio responses, and paper forms. Common information products include messages, reports, forms, and graphic images, which may be provided by video displays, audio responses, paper products, and multimedia. Information Systems have three major roles in the business this includes business applications of IS support an organization’s business and processes, business decision-making and strategizing competitive advantage. Information Systems is resources that come in five perspectives which are: 1. People Resources: a. Specialists – systems analysts, software developers, system operators. b. End Users – anyone else who uses information systems. 2. Hardware Resources: a. Machines – computers, video monitors, magnetic disk drives, printers, optical scanners. b. Media – floppy disks, magnetic tape, optical disks, plastic cards, paper forms. 3. Software Resources: a. Programs – operating system programs, spreadsheet programs, word processing programs, payroll programs. b. Procedures – data entry procedures, error correction procedures, paycheck distribution procedures. 4. Data Resources: a. Product descriptions, customer records, employee files, inventory databases. 5. Network Resources: a. Communications media, communications processors, network access and control software. Information Systems can also be look through five activities which are: 1. Input of Data Resources: Data entry activities such as recording and editing. a. Example: Optical scanning of bar-coded tags on merchandise. 2. Processing of Data into Information: Calculating, comparing, sorting, classifying, and summarizing. Organize, analyze, and manipulate data, thus converting them into information for End Users. Data must be maintained by a continual process of correcting and updating activities. a. Example: Calculating employee pay, taxes, and other payroll deductions. 3. Output of Information Products: a. Example: Producing reports and displays about sales performances. 4. Storage of Data Resources: Basic system component of information systems. Data is retained and organized for a later use. a. Example: Maintaining records on customers, employees, and products. 5. Control of System Performance: Producing feedback about the information system’s input, processing, output, and storage activities. Monitoring and evaluating feedback to determine if the system is meeting established performance standards. a. Example: Generating audible signals to indicated proper entry of sales data. Decision making and knowledge management Quality of knowledge management is what determines a quality of decision making. What enhances the appropriate exploitation of possible organization knowledge resource is strong effectiveness and efficiency decision making. This is an argument that is seen to oppose the use of software which encapsulates knowledge. The software tools that offer knowledge management are becoming artifacts in the organization. The development of such tools should completely comply with organization practice so that it auger with every day activity and integrate with organization practice. Towards this end, I can therefore argue that a multidisciplinary approach that can be use to develop knowledge management services to capture organization knowledge are knowledge elicitation, sharing and construction of decision making quality. Define ontology model should be use as base that properly support web-base tool that serves as a forum of reciprocal knowledge exchange. This should be convey through a structure that is argumentative and it ultimate aim is to support the related decision making process. E-commerce E-commerce has brought a significant and a fundament changes in the economy and the way business are executed. E-commerce forces has engages companies to adopt various in order to expand the market over and above the competitor. Competition is all about attracting and retaining customers by streamlining the products and services to the consumer needs. This achieved through restructuring the business processes to deliver products and services in a more effective and efficient ways. What is all about E-commerce is the huge investment that the companies are expected to make. This has made the E-commerce business to appear like they are underperforming. Most of the businesses in the e-commerce are still occupied in making investment and brand building phase but they are yet to make profit. Visual attractiveness and web site are the primary method that increase customer base. This is what many e-businesses or Internet Company focuses on. The clear path to profitability is the shift of focus from building a customer base to increasing revenue growth and it should be accompanied with the re-valuation of the current business strategies. To achieve a competitive advantage internet companies which commonly referred to dot com must incorporates five competitive models which was use by McCarthy's (1960) for making mix model and Porter's (1980, 1985). IT Strategic management What has emerged as top priority is the desire to build deeper customer relationships that is consistent with market dynamics. The decisive advantage over the competitor is believed to be in the ability to understand the customer want and prediction on the behavior changes. Where the knowledge management capabilities is weakest is how coming up with the customers expectation strategies in the dynamic market. Heavy investment in the customer care management system has been made but little has been achieved in capturing and exploiting information on behavior and preference of the customer. What makes the matter interesting is how firms are much aware of the situation that must be change in order for them to compete successfully in an increasingly customer-driven business environment (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). It is widely accepted by many chief executive that customer preference and behavior is an area that require greater efforts to improve the quality of corporate information at all time. The success and the endeavors of every firm lie in doing a lot more about the customer than merely capturing mountains of information about customers. Firms must learn how to analyze the customer information by identify what drives customer behavior. This has been shown by a number of companies that are already showing how customer segmentation and analytics can drive increased value (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket chain, uses information from its Club card loyalty card to understand purchasing behavior, enabling promotions to be planned and targeted to meet customer requirements. The success of this scheme is based on its ability not only to capture information about customer preferences, but to analyze this data to support decisions on pricing or marketing strategy (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). Another example is provided by Wanadoo, which is the largest ISP in the UK with more than 2.5m customers. The firm has applied analytics to help reduce churn, a term describing the defection of customers to rival telecoms providers (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). Wanadoo was able to sift through terabytes of customer data (5m customer records are generated per day) to report churn, to understand the issues that irritate customers most, and even to identify potential “churners” before they leave (O'Brien & Marakas, 2006). If the customers were found to be on the verge of quitting, and were deemed as high-value clients, Wanadoo was able to offer an incentive such as a discounted tariff to retain the customers. Competitive and advantage The strategic role of IS involves using information technology to develop products, services, and capabilities that give a company major advantages over the competitive forces it faces in the global market. This is accomplished through strategic information architecture the collection of strategic information systems that support or shape the competitive position and strategies of a business enterprise. So a strategic information system can be any kind of IS (TPS, MIS, DSS, etc.) that uses information technology to help an organization gain a competitive advantage, reduce a competitive disadvantage, or meet other strategic enterprise objectives. Competition is a positive characteristic in business, and competitors share a natural, and often healthy, rivalry. This rivalry encourages and sometimes requires a constant effort to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. This ever-present competitive force requires significant resources on the part of a firm. Guarding against the threat of new entrants also expends significant organizational resources. Not only do firms need to compete with the other firms in the marketplace, but they must also work to create significant barriers to the entry of new competition. This competitive force has always been difficult to manage, but is even more so today. The Internet has created many ways for a new entrant to enter the marketplace quickly and with relatively low cost of entry. In the Internet world, a firm’s biggest potential competitor may be one that is not yet in the marketplace but could emerge overnight. The threat of substitutes is another competitive force confronting business. The effect of this force is seen almost daily in a wide variety of industries. It is often at its strongest during periods of rising costs of inflation. Airline prices get high and people substitute car travel on their vacations. Finally, a business must guard against the often opposing forces of customer and supplier bargaining power. If the customer’s bargaining power gets too strong, they can drive prices to unmanageably low levels or simply refuse to buy the product service. If a key supplier’s bargaining power gets too strong, it can force the price of goods and services to unmanageably high levels or can simply starve a business by controlling the flow of parts or raw materials essential to the manufacture of the product. The constant struggle to achieve a measurable competitive advantage in an industry or marketplace occupies a significant portion of an organization’s time and money. Creative and innovative marketing, research and development, and process reengineering, among many other activities, are used to gain that elusive and sometimes indescribable competitive advantage over rival firms. Reference: James A. O'Brien, George M. Marakas, (2006), Management information .McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Read More