Ch 1 Questions Flashcards
What are the 6 business objectives?
1) Operational excellence
2) New products, services, and business models
3) Customer and supplier intimacy
4) Improved decision making
5) Competitive advantage
6) Survival
What is operational excellence?
Business continuously seeks to improve the efficiency of their operations in order to achieve higher profitability.
Info systems and technology are one of the most important tools available to managers for achieving higher levels of efficiency and productivity in business operations.
What are new products, services, and business models?
Info systems and technology are a major tool enabling firms to create new products, services, and entirely new business models.
A business model describes how a company produces, delivers, and sells a product to create wealth.
What is customer and supplier intimacy?
When a business knows it customers and serves them well, the customers generally respond by returning and purchasing more. This raises revenues and profits.
Likewise with suppliers, the more a business engages with its suppliers, the better suppliers can provide vital inputs. This lowers costs.
What is improved decision making?
Managers rely on forecasts, best guesses, and luck. This results in the over/under production of goods and services, misallocation of resources, and poor response time.
Info systems have made it possible for managers to use real-time data from the market place when making decisions.
What is competitive advantage?
Doing things better than your competitors. Charging less for superior products and responding to customers and suppliers in real time all add up to higher sales and profits that competitors cannot match.
What is Survival?
Necessity for business. Many federal and state statutes and regulations create a legal duty for companies and its employees to retain records, including digital records.
What business objectives does a pharmaceutical robot meet?
Reduce number of incorrect dosages/medications given to patients.
Reduce the handling of dangerous medications by nurses.
Freeing up pharmacists to do more specialized work as opposed to just putting medicines in individual bags.
Record retention.
What are the major business functions? Where are enterprise systems most often used?
Sales/Marketing
Accounting/Finance
Manufacturing/Production
Human Resources
What are functions of sales and marketing systems?
Identify customers.
Make customers aware of the product.
Selling the product.
What are functions of finance and accounting systems?
Paying the creditors.
Creating financial statements.
Managing the cash accounts.
What are the functions of manufacturing and production systems?
Assembling the product.
Checking for quality.
Producing bills of material.
What are the functions of Human Resources systems?
Hiring employees.
Evaluating employee’s job performance.
Enrolling employee’s in benefit plans.
What are complementary assets?
Asset that derives value from its primary investment.
Company spends money to help make primary assets profitable.
What is a real world example of a complementary asset?
Hospital trying to implement a new information system (electronic medical record system). They may spend more money on training, management support, or building up the infrastructure of the hospital so that it can handle the application.
