1.3 Business Strategy & IT / IS Strategy Flashcards
Define Competitive Advantage
Benefit over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value (lower prices, greater benefits and service that justifies higher prices)
Define Strategy
Method or plan chosen to bring about a desired future (achievement of goal, solution to problem)
What action are executives required to perform in order to implement a strategy?
Establish the position of the organisation in their market sector
Strategy (development) factors
Who their competitors are
Who are their suppliers and how can they ensure best service
Who their customers are and how can they ensure customer loyalty
How can they stop potential new companies entering their market space
What substitute products / services might customer buy, replacing those that the organisation offers
Define Business Strategy
Working plan for achieving its vision, prioritising objectives, competing successfully, and optimising financial performance with its business model
Factors brought together for an IS Strategy
Business aims of the company
Understanding of the information needed to support these aims
Implementation of computer systems to provide that information
Plan for the development of systems towards future vision of role of information systems in organisation
Elements of the decomposed IS Strategy
Information Strategy
Information Technology Strategy
Information Management Strategy
Change management / implementation strategy
Describe the elements of the decomposed IS Strategy
Information Strategy
Acts as vital person / thing between business and IS strategy
What information is required?
Where is information required to support primary tasks, or key goals of business strategy?
Appropriateness of critical assumptions behind business strategy in light of changing environment and changing perceptions
Information Technology Strategy
Concerned with applications and platforms
How to provide the information
Technological infrastructure necessary to fulfil requirements of information strategy
Information Management Strategy
How information services are organised for different aspects of institution (centralised, distributed, out-sourced)
Policy issues
Globalisation challenges and opportunities
Internet and global communications have greatly changed how and where business is done
Drastic reduction of costs of operating & transacting on global scale
Competition for jobs, markets, resources, ideas
Growing interdependence of global economies
Requires new understandings of skills, markets, opportunities
