Course: MBAV 5401-09F-7B09, Management Information Systems.

Class: HOM#14B.
Professor Richard Yellen.
Student Name: Thanh Khanh Nguyen.
Student ID: 179080.

Section Exam I

Question I: Describe a new business for which you think a “virtual organization” – which
has no physical office or headquarters – could be an effective design, and some ways
that the leaders of such an organization could use IT to help them effectively run their
business.

I believe that the concept of a “virtual organization” can be best applied to jobs which
require creativity and flexible working hours such as those of fashion designers, software
programmers, etc. I would use the job of fashion designing to illustrate how “virtual
organization” could function and how the leader of that organization runs their business.

A meeting can be held via Internet in a virtual conference weekly or fortnightly. In the
meeting, the leader lets his group members know the general idea of the collection or
the trend of fashion in that season. The designers contribute their opinions and share
their experience. The leader then recapitulates the ideas or styles, divides the work
between them and decides the deadline for submission.

The designers do their tasks offline creatively and freely without any constraint, which
makes them work more effectively. If there is anything they feel uncertain about, and
vice-versa, if the leader wants to make any changes, they can contact one another for
discussion or clearer instruction.

When the deadline comes, all the members attend an online meeting. They show their
products for the evaluation and ideas of others and the leader. Thanks to this, the leader
can assess the work and decide the appropriate pay for the designers. The products will
be put into production line or sold to other fashion brands.

The design of a “virtual organization” gives employees the opportunity to work anyplace,
anytime so that they will make the most of their ideas, imagination and ability and
achieve success in their career, which is equivalent to the success of the organization.

Question II: Provide an example of how a business function with which you are familiar
(e.g., marketing, finance, operations/production, accounting, human resources) can be
highly dependent on IT.

I used to work as a sales staff in the Overseas Sales Department in Fusheng (VN)
Industrial Co., Ltd. so I choose the activities in this department to illustrate the
dependence on IT of the Sales/Marketing function as follows:

The communication between me and customers, depending on IT, becomes smooth and
convenient, especially when the customers are abroad. Instead of wasting money on
long-distance phone calls for a discussion, we can talk on Skype, which is much
cheaper. When using Skype, if there is anything we cannot understand because of the
language barrier, we can type the words so that two sides get the correct meaning and
continue the talk. In addition, customer’s requirements, queries or complaints will be
forwarded to the relevant departments and feedback will be given to them in a short time
and in a precise way via the e-mail system.

Reasonable policies for each customer can be adopted thanks to data management.
Based on the information of each nation and each customer I may collect on the
Internet, I can market the relevant products and offer the best prices while keeping our
profit margin. Based on the quantities and amounts a customer purchases and pays, I
can give them special treatment such as discounts or urge them to buy more. Based on
the profitability that a customer may bring to the company, I can decide in or against
introducing them the production line or technical drawings which constitute our business
secret.

The role of the ERP system in the management of purchase orders will be mentioned in
Question VI.

In conclusion, IT is reliable to help me handle the data of customers and follow my work
in a more efficient and convenient way.

Question III: Has the popularity of the Internet and the related adoption of TCP/IP by
many organizations and networks helped or hindered the movement towards a single
standard protocol such as OSI? Why?

Developed in the late 1980s, the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model
was considered as the standard set of protocol. Until 1990s, the Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was employed by both the Internet and Intranets
and has become the “de facto standard set of protocols for networking” around the world
in the early twenty-first century, which puts a stop to the movement towards the OSI
model.

The structure of OSI is more sophisticated but less practical than that of TCP/IP. It has
seven layers namely Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation and
Application layers. TCP/IP has four layers which are considered the simplification of the
seven layers of the OSI: Hardware, Networking, Transport and Application Layers.
Therefore, it will take more time for the data of some services such as Voice over
Internet Protocol or Video Conference to be processed and transmitted via OSI;
whereas, fast speed of data processing and transmission, even with some minor
mistakes, which TCP/IP can perform for those services is preferred.

Today, as the Internet becomes popular among organizations and networks, TCP/IP has
been used worldwide and ended the development of OSI.

Question IV: Consider a large company with which you are somewhat familiar (because
of your own work experience, a parent’s work experience, a friend’s work experience, or
your study of the company). Use your imagination to suggest new ways in which the
Internet could be used in this company.

Hochiminh City Power Company is a monopoly on electricity in this city. They now have
a website but its content is poor, with the major inappropriate focus on their
EVNTelecom service. Personally, I think the Internet could be used to improve the
following tasks:
- Customer service: At present, the power in three or four districts of the city is
administered by one branch of the company. When a customer wants to pay their bill,
they must arrange payment right at the branch where they made registration. Customers
can pay via bank; however, not many people in Vietnam are used to this way of
payment. By using Internet, things will be easier. Each customer is given an account,
which may be the code of their electricity-meter. When they pay for the bill, they can go
to any branch in the company system. The cashier there will login the system and check
the account and collect their payment. By this way, customers can arrange payment on
their way to work, universities with their most convenience.

The current website can also provide customers with the new policy, the schedule of
blackout, etc. Besides, a forum can be created to collect customers’ feedback on the
service, staffs, etc. so that the company can improve.

- Internal exchange: Now, when there is any shortage of spare parts occurring in one
branch, the technical staffs have to contact all branches in the city and wait for their
check to know in which branch the spare parts are available and ride there to collect,
which takes a lot of time and may affect the society and manufacture. If Internet is
adopted and all data are connected, from his computer, a staff can find out where the
parts are available and make relevant paper to take the spare parts there in a much
shorter time.

There are some other activities in this company that Internet can take part in such as
putting out to tender on their website to choose the best supplier of spare parts. If used
in a suitable way, Internet will help the company save time, money and best serve their
customers.

Question V: What is a vertically integrated information system? Give an example.

A vertically integrated information system is one that can work vertically across levels in
an enterprise or in an industry.

In an individual enterprise, a vertically integrated production management system can

collect information of current orders, control the inventory and the production line. It can
give the summary of these data and make a daily, weekly or monthly report that the
middle manager can use to know which materials or parts are used most and least,
whether they are sufficient for production or not, whether the workers in the line are
productive or not. Based on the analysis that this system provides, the top managers
can determine a strategy for the enterprise; for instance, they can require a better
methodology of production to save labor and materials if they find any unreasonableness
in the production line.

Similarly, in a group of factories, a production management system may be applied for

individual factories and the headquarters. Data of the inventory, production line, labor,
etc. collected at the factory level will be transmitted to the headquarters periodically,
probably every day. Also, these data are presented in the same form so that they can be
processed both in the factory and headquarters levels.

Question VI: What are the primary reasons for implementing an ERP system?
The ERP system is widely used in enterprises because of the following reasons:

- The ERP applications are integrated, which makes common business functions closely
connected and work smoothly and successfully together. For example, when the
Purchase Order is received, the sales staff enters the codes of customers, products, etc.
into the system and creates a Sales Order, which will be sent to the related departments
like Production Control, Accounting, and warehouse. The information about the
availability of spare parts, delivery date of complete products or the progress of the
orders will be available so that the sales staff can inform the customers anytime they are
asked. After delivery, the due date of payment is ready for the sales staff and the
accountant to remind customers.

- The ERP system offers an enterprise an opportunity to adopt a new way of operating.
Many companies may not be satisfied with the traditional working style in which each
department works separately. When a problem occurs, the staff has to carry papers
around, which wastes time. The situation will be worse if a vital decision cannot be made
on time and the company may lose its competitiveness. When the ERP system is used,
the data are connected but each department can still have their own information which
cannot be changed by unauthorized staffs. Also, when the managers want to make
decisions or planning, they can collect information from the relevant departments
promptly and precisely.

- The ERP system once helped enterprises overcome the Y2K problem thanks to its
coding of four-digit year.

Although the implementation of the ERP system takes time, money and effort, its
advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. It helps connect the individual departments
with one another to create a new and effective design and increase the competitiveness
for an enterprise.

Question VII: What are analysis and design patterns and why are they useful for
information systems development?

Analysis and design patterns are the key process when new information systems are
developed. They include the following principles:

- Choose an appropriate scope: We have to select what components should be included

in or excluded from a system. If there are too many components, the system would
become difficult to control. If there are few, the system may not be exploited fully. At the
same time, interrelationships among the components should be paid attention to in case
the change in or replacement of one component may result in the unexpected change in
another one.

- Logical before physical: Before any system is built or developed, logical factors such as
the way in which the system is used, the number of people use it, how each part of the
system performs, etc. should be considered first. Then, physical ones like components
to be used or improved are thought about. By this way, we can avoid miscalculating the
cost and correcting the discrepancies between theory and practice. In addition, when
there are many choices among physical parts, understanding the logical factors, we can
choose the most suitable one for practical use.
- Problem-solving principles: First, it would be more manageable that we break a
problem, which may seem to be tough as a whole, into smaller ones and deal with them,
one by one. Second, there should be various solutions to be given and considered so
that the best one could be selected. Third, the problem should be approached stage by
stage and re-evaluated as it and our understanding of it might change when we examine
it.

In conclusion, analysis and design patterns are useful for information system
development because they help specify the components required for a system, what and
how that system performs and solutions to the problems occurring in the operation of the
system.

Question VIII: Describe two ways that a prototyping approach can be used within the
Definition phase of a traditional SDLC methodology.

Prototyping approach is one which helps to create a system or part of a system quickly
for users’ evaluation. Within the Definition phase of a traditional SDLC methodology,
there are two ways that a prototyping approach can be used:

In the first way, prototyping approach is used as the Requirements Definition step after
the Feasibility Analysis one. In the prototyping to define requirements, the IS specialists
introduce the versions of screens and reports of the system which are not connected to
the database to users and receive their feedback. After this step, the rest steps in the
SDLC process are unchanged. Later, in the system design and building steps, the
prototypes can be referred to as they reflect what the users need from the system.

In the second way, the prototyping phase replaces both steps of the Definition phase
with three ones including Determine Basic Requirements, Prototype the System and
Pilot the Prototype but the rest phases in the SDLC process remain unchanged. In this
prototype phase, a simplified system with limited function is created and run to evaluate
its feasibility. If the prototype is successful, it will be developed into the actual system.
The experience accumulated during the process of using the prototype will help users
have good preparation when the full system is implemented.