Learning Objectives

Chapter One
1. Understand the concept of a system and how it
relates to information systems.
2. Explain why knowledge of information systems
is important for business professionals and
identify five areas of information systems
knowledge they need.
Foundations of 3. Give examples to illustrate how the business
Information Systems applications of information systems can
in Business support a firm’s business processes,
managerial decision making, and strategies for
©2008,The McGraw-Hill Companies, All Rights Reserved
competitive advantage. 1- 2
McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Learning Objectives Learning Objectives

4. Provide examples of several major types of
information systems from your experiences
with business organizations in the real world.
5. Identify several challenges that a business
manager might face in managing the
successful and ethical development and use of
information technology in a business.
6. Provide examples of the components of real
world information systems. Illustrate that in an
information system, people use hardware,
software, data and networks as resources to
perform input, processing, output, storage, and
control activities that transform data resources
into information products.
7. Demonstrate familiarity with the myriad of
career opportunities in information systems.

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Case 1: Sew What? Inc.: The Role

of IT in Small Business Success
• Sew What? provides custom theatrical draperies and
fabrics for stages, concerts, fashion shows, and special
events worldwide.
• After launching the company web site, they acquired
clients from all over the world and their revenue has been
growing more than 45% per year.
• Sew What? runs most of its business with Intuit’s Quick-
Books Enterprise Solutions & Dell PowerEdge servers.
• Recently, the National Federation of Independent
Businesses (NFIB) and Dell Inc. presented Sew What?
“Small Business Excellence Award” in recognition of its
innovative use of technology to improve its customers’
experience.
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Case Study Questions
1. How do information technologies contribute to the
business success of Sew What? Give several examples
from the case regarding the business value of
information technology that demonstrate this conclusion.
2. If you were a management consultant to Sew What?
Inc., what would you advise Megan Duckett to do at this
point to be even more successful in her business? What
role would information technology play in your
proposals? Provide several specific recommendations.
3. How could the use of information technology help a
small business you know be more successful? Provide
several examples to support your answer.
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 Why study Information Systems and
Real World Internet Activity Information Technology?
1. Search the Internet to help you evaluate the business • Vital component of successful businesses
performance of Sew What? Inc. and its competitors at
the present time. • Helps businesses expand and compete
– What conclusions can you draw from your research about • Businesses use IS and IT
Sew What?’s prospects for the future? – To improve efficiency and effectiveness of business
– Report your findings and recommendations for Sew processes
What?’s continued business success to the class.
– For managerial decision making
2. Small businesses have been slower to integrate
– For workgroup collaboration
information technology into their operations than larger
companies.
– Discuss the reasons for this state of affairs, identifying
several possible IT solutions and their business benefits
that could help small businesses be more successful.
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What is a system? What is an Information System?

• A system • An organized combination of

– Is a set of interrelated components – People
– With a clearly defined boundary – Hardware
– Working together to achieve a common set of – Software
objectives – Communications networks
– Data resources
– Policies and procedures
• That stores, retrieves, transforms, and
disseminates information in an organization

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Information System (IS) versus Information IS Knowledge Framework for Business

Technology (IT) Professionals
• IS is all the components and resources
necessary to deliver information and functions to
the organization
• IT is hardware, software, networking and data
management

• In theory, IS could be paper based

• But we will focus on Computer-Based
Information Systems (CBIS)

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 What should a Business Professional
Fundamental Roles of IS in Business
know about IS?
• Foundation Concepts: fundamental behavioral, • Support of business processes and operations.
technical, business and managerial concepts • Support of decision making by employees and
• Information Technology: Hardware, software, managers.
networks, data management and Internet-based
technology • Support of strategies for competitive advantage.
• Business Applications: Major uses of the IS in
the organization
• Development Processes: How to plan, develop
and implement IS to meet business opportunities
• Management Challenges: The challenges of
effectively and ethically managing IT
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What does IS do for a business? Trends in Information Systems

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What is E-business? How e-business is being used

• The use of Internet technologies

– to work and empower business processes, electronic
commerce, and enterprise collaboration
– within a company and with its customers, suppliers, and
other business stakeholders.
• An online exchange of value.

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 E-business use Types of IS

• Reengineer internal business processes

• Enterprise collaboration systems: support
communications, coordination and collaboration
among teams and work groups, e.g., virtual
teams
• Electronic commerce: buying, selling, marketing
and servicing of products and services over
computer networks

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Operations support systems Types of Operations Support Systems

• What are they? • Transaction Processing Systems

– Efficiently process business transactions – Record and process data from business transactions
– Control industrial processes – Examples: sales processing, inventory systems,
accounting systems
– Support communications and collaboration
• Process Control Systems
– Update corporate databases
– Monitor and control physical processes
– Example: in a petroleum refinery use sensors to
monitor chemical processes
• Enterprise Collaboration Systems
– Enhance team and work group communications
– Examples: e-mail, videoconferencing

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Two ways to process transactions Management Support Systems

• Batch Processing: • What are they?

– Accumulate transactions over time and process – Provide information and support for effective decision
periodically making by managers
– Example: a bank processes all checks received in a
batch at night
• Online Processing:
– Process transactions immediately
– Example: a bank processes an ATM withdrawal
immediately

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 Types of Management Support Systems Operational or Management Systems

• Management Information Systems (MIS) • Expert Systems

– Provide reports and displays to managers – Provide expert advice
– Example: daily sales analysis reports – Example: credit application advisor
• Decision Support Systems (DSS) • Knowledge Management Systems
– Provide interactive ad hoc support for decision making
– Support creation, organization and dissemination of
– Example: A what-if-analysis to determine where to
business knowledge throughout company
spend advertising dollars
– Example: Intranet access to best business practices
• Executive Information Systems (EIS)
– Provide critical information for executives and
managers
– Example: easy access to actions of competitors

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Classifications of IS by scope Challenges and Opportunities of IT

• Functional business systems

– Focus on operational and managerial applications of basic
business functions
– Examples: support accounting, finance or marketing
• Strategic information systems
– Help get a strategic advantage over its customers
– Examples: shipment tracking, e-commerce web systems
• Cross-functional information systems
– Systems that are combinations of several types of information
systems
– Provide support for many functions

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Measuring success of an IS Developing IS Solutions

• Efficiency
– Minimize cost, time and use of information resources
• Effectiveness
– Support business strategies
– Enable business processes
– Enhance organizational structure and culture
– Increase the customer and business value
• What’s the difference between Efficiency and
Effectiveness?

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 Ethical challenges of IT applications Ethical responsibilities

• What uses of IT might be considered improper or

harmful to other individuals or society?
• What is the proper business use of the Internet
or a company’s IT resources?
• How can you protect yourself from computer
crime?

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Challenges of IT Careers Career Opportunities in IS

• Outsourcing of basic programming to India, the

Middle-East and Asia-Pacific countries
• Strong employment opportunities in other areas
in IS
• Shortage of qualified IS personnel
• Long-term job outlook positive and exciting

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Job growth IS Function represents

• Among the fastest growing occupations through • Major functional area of business
2012 • Important contributor to operational efficiency,
– Systems Analyst, employee productivity, morale, customer service
– Database administrators, and satisfaction
– Other managerial-level positions • Major source of information and support for
– Network specialists effective decision making
– Information security
• Vital ingredient in developing competitive
products and services in the global marketplace
• Dynamic and challenging career opportunity
• Key component of today’s networked business
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 Case 2: Autosystems: The Business Value of a
Successful IT System for a small Manufacturer
• Autosystems is an automotive lighting designer and
manufacturer located in Belleville, Ontario.
• A few years ago it installed the ActivEntry shop floor
reporting system to move shop floor information into the
manufacturing planning and control system.
• They now have the ability to capture labor, efficiency,
production, scrap, etc., on time and by work center, for
every cell, and are able to talk about that every day in their
team meetings.
• Production managers can review information from all three
plants.
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Real world activities
1. Go to the Infor Global Solutions Web site,
www.infor.com, to find other stories that
describe the business value of manufacturing
planning and control systems.
– Discover any common reasons for the success
of these companies with their systems?
– Present your findings to the class.
2. Search the Internet for examples of problems
that companies have had with manufacturing
systems.
– Discuss your findings and what solutions you
can propose to help companies avoid the
problems you discovered.
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What is a system?
• A system
– Is a set of interrelated components
– With a clearly defined boundary
– Working together to achieve a common set of
objectives
– By accepting inputs and producing outputs in an
organized transformation process
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Case Study Questions
• Why did Autosystems decide to install the
ActivEntry system? Why did the company feel
it was necessary to integrate it with its
TRANS4M system?
• Which three business benefits, of the many
that resulted from the use of ActivEntry, gave
the company the most business value? Defend
your choices.
• What changes are already being planned to
improve the use of ActivEntry? What other
improvements should the company consider?
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Real World Group Activity
1. Search the Internet for examples of problems
that companies have had with manufacturing
systems.
– Discuss your findings and what solutions you can
propose to help companies avoid the problems you
discovered.
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Systems have three basic functions:
• Input involves capturing and assembling
elements that enter the system to be
processed
• Processing involves transformation process
that convert input into output
• Output involves transferring elements that
have been produced by the transformation
process to their ultimate destination
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 Cybernetic system A Cybernetic system

• All systems have input, processing and output

• A cybernetic system, a self-monitoring, self-
regulating system, adds feedback and control:
– Feedback is data about the performance of a system
– Control involves monitoring and evaluating feedback to
determine whether a system is moving towards the
achievement of its goal

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A business as a system Information systems model

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Components of an IS Components of an IS (cont.)

• People Resources • Data Resources

– End users: the people who use the IS or the – Facts about the business transactions
information from the IS
– Processed and organized information
– IS specialists: the people who develop and operate IS
– Databases of organized data
• Hardware Resources
– All physical devices used in information processing • Network Resources
– Machines, data media, peripherals – Communications media
• Software Resources – Network infrastructure: hardware and software
– All information processing instructions including – The Internet, intranets and extranets
programs and procedures
– System software, application software and procedures

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 Data versus Information
• Data are raw facts about physical phenomena or
business transactions
• Information is data that has been converted into
meaningful and useful context for end users
• Example:
– Sales data is names, quantities and dollar amounts
– Sales information is amount of sales by product type,
sales territory or salesperson
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Recognizing IS
• As a business professional, you should be able
to look at an IS and identify
– The people, hardware, software, data and network
resources they use
– The type of information products they produce
– The way they perform input, processing, output, storage
and control activities
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Case Study Questions
1. Why should manufacturing companies build smart
products and provide smart services? What business
benefits can they gain? Provide several examples
beyond those discussed in this case.
2. What information technologies are used by the
companies in this case to build smart products and
provide smart services? What other IT components
might be used? Give examples of the capabilities they
would provide.
3. What are some limitations of a smart products and
smart services strategy? Give several examples of
challenges that a business might encounter, and explain
how it might overcome them.
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IS Activities
• Input of data resources
– Data entry activities
• Processing of data into information
– E.g., calculate, compare, sort, classify, summarize
• Output of information products
– Messages, reports, forms and graphic images
• Storage of data resources
– Data elements and databases
• Control of system performance
– Monitoring and evaluating feedback
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Case 3: Heidelberg, Honeywell and Eaton: Using IT
to Build Smart Products and Services
• Today it will not be enough for a companies to offer
valuable services for their products but they will have to
provide “smart services.”
• To provide smart services, companies must use
information technology to build “smart products,” products
with awareness and connectivity into the products
themselves.
• Typically, smart products can detect that a part is
approaching failure and alert users, thus giving the
company opportunity to provide maintenance services and
enjoy the resulting benefits.
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Real World Internet Activity
1. Use the Internet to investigate how Heidelberg,
Honeywell, and Eaton are proceeding in their use of
smart products and services.
– Discover if they are expanding this approach and what
benefits they are claiming for this strategy.
2. Now expand your Internet investigation to other
manufacturing companies to find several that are
building smart products and offering smart services.
– What business value are they claiming for themselves and
their customers?
– If this search is fruitless, select several companies from
your Internet research and explain how and why they might
employ a smart products and services strategy.
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 Real World Group Activity

3. What security and privacy concerns might

consumers have about Eaton’s Home
Heartbeat service?
– Discuss the rationale for these concerns, and
consider what could be done to reduce any threats to
security and privacy posed by such services while
also improving the value of this new use of
information technology.

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