Chapter 1 & 2: Management Information Systems - Business Driven MIS/Decisions and Processes

Question 1

What is the first-mover advantage?

Answer 1

When a company can significantly increase its market share by being first with a new competitive advantage.

Question 2

What is competitive intelligence?

Answer 2

Process of gathering info about the competitive environment to improve a company’s ability to succeed.

Question 3

What is the 5 forces model?

Answer 3

Porter’s 5 forces model analyzes competitive forces to access potential for profitability in an industry.
The 5 forces are…
1. Buyer power
2. Supplier power
3. Threat of substitute products or services
4. Threat of new entrants
5. Rivalry among existing competitors

Question 4

What are the 3 generic strategies managers can use to develop competitive advantages?

Answer 4

1. Broad cost leadership
2. Broad differentiation
3. Focused strategy

Question 5

In which 2 categories does a value chain analysis group a firm’s activities?

Answer 5

Primary value activities and support value activities.

Question 6

What are primary value activities (value chain analysis)? 5

Answer 6

1. Inbound logistics
2. Operations
3. Outbound logistics
4. Marketing and sales
5. Service

Question 7

What are support value activities (value chain analysis)? 4

Answer 7

1. Firm infrastructure
2. HR mgmt
3. Technology development
4. Procurement

Question 8

What are the 6 steps in the decision-making process?

Answer 8

1. Problem identification
2. Data collection
3. Solution generation
4. Solution test
5. Solution selection
6. Solution implementation

Question 9

How structured are decisions at different levels of management?

Answer 9

Operational level decisions are structured decisions.
Managerial level decisions are semistructured decisions.
Strategic level decisions are unstructured decisions.

Question 10

What are CSFs and KPIs and which are more specific?

Answer 10

Critical Success Factors - crucial steps companies perform to achieve their goals and objectives and implement strategies.
KPIs are used to evaluate progress toward CSFs
KPIs are more specific than KPIs

Question 11

What is a common internal KPI?

Answer 11

ROI - earning power of a project

Question 12

How many KPIs should a company use?

Answer 12

Only a few, 3-5

Question 13

What is the difference between efficiency and effectiveness MIS metrics?

Answer 13

Efficiency metrics measure the performance of the MIS itself. Focuses on the extend to which a firm is using its resources in an optimal way.
Effectiveness metrics measure the impact MIS has on business processes and activities. Focuses on how well a firm is achieving its goals and objectives.

Question 14

List (5) efficiency metrics?

Answer 14

1. Throughput
2. Transaction speed
3. System availability
4. Information accuracy
5. Response time

Question 15

List (4) effectiveness metrics?

Answer 15

1. Usability
2. Customer satisfaction
3. Conversion rates
4. Financial

Question 16

What is benchmarking?

Answer 16

Process of continuously measuring system results and comparing results to optimal system performance.

Question 17

What type of MIS system is used for operational, structured decision making?

Answer 17

Transaction processing system

Question 18

What type of MIS system is used for managerial, semi-structured decision making?

Answer 18

Decision support system

Question 19

What type of MIS system is used for strategic, unstructured decision making?

Answer 19

Executive information system

Question 20

What is a Transaction Processing System (TPS)?

Answer 20

Basic business system that serves the operational level (analysts) and assists in making structured decisions. Inputs are source documents.

Question 21

What is OLTP?

Answer 21

Online Transaction Processing. Operational MIS system that captures transactions and event info using technology to process the info according to defined business roles and stores and updates information.

Question 22

What is OLAP?

Answer 22

Online Analytical processing is a managerial MIS system that manipulates info to create business intelligence in support of strategic decision making.

Question 23

What are DSSs?

Answer 23

Decision support systems help make managerial decisions to model info using OLAP which provides assistance in evaluating and choosing among different courses of action.

Question 24

What are the (4) common DSS analysis techniques?

Answer 24

1. What-if analysis
2. Sensitivity analysis
3. Goal-seeking analysis
4. Optimization analysis

Question 25

What is EIS?

Answer 25

Executive information system, a specialized DSS that supports senior-level execs and unstructured, long-term, nonroutine decisions.

Question 26

What is granularity?

Answer 26

Level of detail in the model or decision-making process. Moving up the organizational pyramid, managers deal with less details.

Question 27

What are the 4 areas of AI primary overview?

Answer 27

1. Natural language processing
2. Natural language understanding
3. Knowledge representation
4. Knowledge planning

Question 28

What are expert systems?

Answer 28

Computerized advisory programs that imitate the reasoning processes of experts in solving difficult problems.

Question 29

What is a genetic algorithm?

Answer 29

AI system that mimics evolutionary through survival-of-the-fittest process to generate increasingly better solutions to a problem.

Question 30

What is overfitting and underfitting?

Answer 30

Overfitting - when a machine learning model matches training data so closely that the model fails to make predictions on new data.
Underfitting - when a machine learning model matches has poor predictive abilities because it did not learn the complexity in the training data.

Question 31

What are the 4 types of bias in machine learning?

Answer 31

1. Sample bias
2. Prejudice bias
3. Measurement bias
4. Variance bias