Chapter 02 Flashcards
When a firm uses IT to create virtual organizations of business partners, it is pursuing a growth strategy.
True | False
False
When a firm uses IT to create virtual organization of business partners, it is pursuing an alliance strategy. (True)
When customers become dependent on mutually beneficial inter-enterprise information systems, they become reluctant to switch to a company’s competitors because they would incur all following costs except:
- Time
- Money
- Innovation
- Effort
3. Innovation
When a firm develops ways to differentiate their products and services from their competitors’, it is pursuing a _______________ strategy.
- differentiation
- alliance
- innovation
- marketing
1. differentiation
The practice of becoming the largest purchaser of products from a given supplier is an example of:
- Cost leadership
- Growth strategies
- Differentiation
- Locking in the supplier
4. Locking in the supplier
According to the textbook case, innovation in information systems at Universal Orlando comes from thinking like a:
- Customer
- Competitor
- Employee
- IT specialist
1. Customer
Explicit knowledge deals with:
- Data, documents, and things written down or stored on computers.
- “How-to” knowledge, which resides in workers.
- Using data mining techniques to capture external information.
- All of the choices are correct.
1. Data, documents, and things written down or stored on computers.
A strategic use of information technology would be to leverage investment in information system specialists, hardware, software, databases, and networks from operational uses into strategic applications.
True | False
True
The value chain framework can be used to view a firm as a series, a chain, or a network of basic activities that add value to its products and services, and thus add a margin of value to the firm.
True | False
True
The goal of knowledge management systems (KMS) is to help knowledge workers _______________ important business knowledge.
- create
- organize
- distribute
- All of the choices are correct.
4. All of the choices are correct.
Knowledge-creating companies constantly create new business knowledge and then disseminate it throughout the company in order to quickly build the new knowledge into their products and services.
True | False
True
Tacit knowledge deals with:
- Data, documents, and things written down or stored on computers.
- “How-to” knowledge, which resides in workers.
- Using data mining techniques to capture external information.
- None of the choices are correct.
2. “How-to” knowledge, which resides in workers.
According to the text, the Internet:
- Has limited competition world-wide
- Has created many ways to enter the market quickly, with relatively low cost
- Has created new entry barriers to competition
- Has decreased prices world-wide
2. Has created many ways to enter the market quickly, with relatively low cost
Virtual companies develop alliances and extranet links that form _______________ information systems with suppliers, customers, subcontractors, and competitors.
inter-enterprise
_______________ are the costs in time, money, effort, and inconvenience that it would take a customer or supplier to move its business to a firm’s competitors.
Switching costs
Although large investments in technology can create entry barriers for present or prospective players in an industry, the barriers can evaporate over time as competitors employ the new technologies. This is an example of IT becoming a competitive _______________.
necessity
All of the following are competitive forces in the marketplace except:
- Alliances
- Competition
- Substitutes
- Bargaining
1. Alliances
A company that places a strategic focus on customer value recognizes that __________, rather than __________, has become a primary determinant in a customer’s perception of value.
- service, price
- price, quality
- quality, service
- quality, price.
4. quality, price.
Explicit knowledge involves the “how-to” knowledge that resides in workers.
True | False
False
Explicit knowledge is made up of data, documents, and things written down. (True)
The value chain framework can be used to view a firm as a series, a chain, or a network of basic activities that:
- Add value to its products and services, and thus add a margin of value to the firm.
- Lower costs along the product development chain.
- Create the perception of value and goodwill to employees.
- Create a smooth-flowing chain of events between the supplier and the customer.
1. Add value to its products and services, and thus add a margin of value to the firm.
Business process reengineering (BPR) combines a strategy of promoting business innovation with a strategy of making major improvements to business operations so that a company can become a much stronger and more successful competitor in the marketplace.
True | False
True
In addition to the five basic competitive strategies, the text describes several key strategies implemented with information technology. Which of the following is not one of those strategies?
- Locking in customers
- Building switching costs
- Creating alliances
- Raising barriers to entry
3. Creating alliances
Most products and services have some sort of substitute available to the consumer.
True | False
True
In the Internet world, a firm’s biggest competitor may be one that is not yet in the marketplace but could emerge almost overnight.
True | False
True
Which of the following is not a strategy of a virtual company?
- Share infrastructure and risk with alliance partners
- Link complementary core competencies
- Migrate from selling products to selling solutions
- Increase concept-to-case time
4. Increase concept-to-case time
When a firm strives to find ways to help its suppliers and customers reduce their costs or to increase the costs of their competitors, it is pursuing a strategy of _______________.
- innovation
- alliance
- cost leadership
- growth
3. cost leadership
When a business effectively builds in switching costs, its customers and/or suppliers become reluctant to switch to another competitor.
True | False
True
_______________ is defined as the restructuring and transforming of a business process by a fundamental rethinking and radical redesign to achieve improvements in costs, quality, speed, and service.
Reengineering
A(n) _______________ company can make a profit in markets with broad product ranges and short model lifetimes, and it can produce orders individually and in arbitrary lot sizes.
Agile
Enterprise Intelligence, Information Creation, Sharing, and Management, and Document Management are the three levels of _______________.
knowledge management
A customer-focused business has a strategic focus on customer _______________, which recognizes that quality rather than price has become the primary determinant in a customer’s perception of value.
value
Information technology can enable a company to develop relationships with its customers in virtual communities.
True | False
True
Capturing and distributing expert stories, real-time information management, communication and collaboration, and new content creation are part of the _______________ level of knowledge management.
information creation, sharing, and management
A(n) _______________ strategy is a competitive strategy by which a firm develops unique products or services from those of its competitors, or makes radical business changes that may alter the fundamental nature of the industry.
- alliance
- growth
- differentiation
- innovation
4. innovation
Business process reengineering (BPR) incorporates all the following strategies, except:
- Lowering prices as a competitive strategy
- Promoting business innovation
- Making major improvements to business operations
- None of the choices are correct.
1. Lowering prices as a competitive strategy
All of the following are support processes, except:
- Customer relationship management
- Procurement of resources
- Technology development
- Employee benefits intranet
1. Customer relationship management
When using the value chain concept, managers should seek to develop strategic information systems for those activities that they view as the “weakest link” in the value chain.
True | False
False
Managers should try focus on the basic processes that add the most value to a company’s products or services. (True)
All the employees within a marketing department, from clerical staff to top managers, form a cross-functional team.
True | False
False
A cross-functional team includes employees from several different departments or specialties. (True)
A serious problem of competitive advantage is that:
- It normally doesn’t last very long and it isn’t sustainable over the long term
- Competitors figure out how it was done and do the same thing
- A competitive advantage can become a competitive necessity
- All of the choices are correct.
4. All of the choices are correct.
Companies like Wal-Mart extend their networks to their customers and suppliers in order to build innovative continuous inventory replenishment systems that would lock in their business. This creates a(n) _______________ information system.
- leveraged
- inter-enterprise
- intra-enterprise
- locked-in
2. inter-enterprise
Investments in information technology can allow a business to lock in customers and suppliers, and lock out competitors, by building valuable new relationships with them.
True | False
True
When an organization uses information technology to develop products, services and capabilities in order to gain a strategic advantage over competitive forces in the global marketplace, it is using information systems in a _______________ role.
strategic
Business process reengineering (BPR) is often referred to as:
- Streamlining
- Reengineering
- Quickening
- None of the choices are correct.
2. Reengineering
When a firm develops ways to differentiate its products from a competitor’s, it is pursuing a cost leadership strategy.
True | False
False
When a firm develops ways to differentiate its products from a competitor’s, it is pursuing a differentiation strategy. (True)
Which of the following is a competitive strategy?
- New entries into the market
- Innovation
- Bargaining power
- Substitutes
2. Innovation
Not everything innovative will serve to differentiate one organization from another.
True | False
True
Expanding a company’s product offering into global markets is an example of a(n) _______ strategy.
- cost leadership
- differentiation
- growth
- alliance
3. growth
The value chain concept can help managers decide where and how to apply the strategic capabilities of information technology.
True | False
True
Business process redesign includes all the following, except:
- Top-down participation
- Long time requirements
- Brand new business processes
- Incremental levels of change
4. Incremental levels of change
The competitive threat of _______________ is often at its strongest during periods of rising costs or inflation.
substitutes
Organizations are changing from a competitive environment in which mass-market products and services were standardized, long-lived, information-poor, and exchanged in one-time transactions to an environment in which companies compete globally with niche-market products and services that are
- individualized
- short-lived
- exchanged on an ongoing basis with customers
- All the choices are correct.
4. All the choices are correct.