Chapter 14: Strategies for information Flashcards
What are strategies for information?
- Developments in technology
- Knowledge management
- Cyber security
What are the benefits of a proposed information system?
The benefits of a proposed information system should be evaluated against the cost.
Several factors need to be considered. These include the following:
- Increased revenue
Improved marketing and use of data analytics can help organisations achieve a
competitive advantage.
- Cost reduction
Automated production, computer aided manufacturing and improved stock
control may improve profitability.
- Enhanced service
Computerised systems may improve reliability and CRM systems can help to
manage customer relationships.
- Improved decision making
Accurate and up-to-date information can aid forecasting and scenario planning.
What are the stages to follow when developing and implementing a new information system?
- Analysis: Identify the needs of the new system
- Design: Design a system that needs those needs
- Programming: Outline specifications to programmers
- Testing: Ensure that requirements have been met
- Conversion: Existing data is migrated to the system
- Implementation: User training an on-going maintenance
What is digital disruption? How has digital technology been used to disrupt industries?
Digital disruption refers to the rapid change that is happening in many industries as organisations move to digital transformation. This is through the use of technological advances to challenge the status quo and create value in new ways.
Digital technology has been used to disrupt many industries, including:
Transport e.g. Uber taking on traditional taxi firms
Accommodation e.g. Airbnb competing against hotels
Advertising e.g. social media influencers competing with traditional advertising agencies
What is data analytics and the process to be followed?
Data analytics is one way management are fighting digital disruption
Data analytics is the process of collecting, organising and analysing large sets of data to discover patterns and other information which an organisation can use for future decisions.
Collection of data: Organisations have access to greater quantities of data available from a number of internal and external sources.
Organisation of data: Once the data has been captured it needs to be organised and stored for future use, often using data warehousing facilities.
Analysis of data: Data mining software uses statistical algorithms to discover correlations and patterns to create useful information.
What is Big Data and the four Vs?
Big Data is a term that describes large volumes of data that inundate a business on a day-to-day basis.
4Vs of Big Data:
- Volume (Considers the amount of data fed into the organisation): Does the organisation have the resources
available to store and manage this data? Or does it have the financial resources required to invest in or upgrade IT/IS?
- Velocity (Considers the speed that data is fed into the organisation): Are systems able to capture and process
‘real time’ data? Does the organisation have the skills to provide timely analysis of this data?
- Variety (Considers the various formats of data received): Are systems compatible and capable of
accepting various forms of data? Legally, is the data owned by the organisation or by the third party?
- Veracity (Considers the reliability of the data being received): Can the organisation challenge data
received from third parties? Is the data received fully representative of the whole data population?
What are the barriers and limitations of Big Data?
Data overload
Ability to verify the data
Representative data
Shortage of talent to analyse the data
Fear of cyber attack
Legal and regulatory compliance
What are the benefits of Machine Learning, the Internet of things and Automation?
Machine learning
Is a subset of AI that applies algorithms or other techniques to data to give computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed to do so.
Performance can be improved with experience of repeating processes.
– This can reduce costs, improve efficiency and reduce dependence on
human intervention
– For example: computer speech recognition to translate audio into text.
Automation
The creation of technology and its application to control and monitor activities without human interference. Cognitive technologies and artificial intelligence facilitate the process of automation.
– Benefits include more productivity, accuracy, consistency and availability
– Challenges include the investment required, lack of operating skills and potential redundancies.
Internet of things
This describes the inter-connection via the internet of computing devices embedded in every-day objects, enabling them to send and receive data.
This has benefits for individuals (e.g. a heating system that responds to the changes in weather) and also for businesses.
What is a digital asset and what are two examples? How should a business treat them?
A digital asset is any text or data file that is formatted into a binary source which includes the right to use it; digital files that do not carry this right are not considered digital assets.
Two common types of digital asset are:
Media assets (images and multimedia)
Textual content (documents, PDF files)
A business needs to protect and manage their digital assets in the same way they would manage their tangible assets. If a logo was wrongly altered and then used within an advertisement it could damage the reputation of the company.
Businesses use methods such as encoding, encryption and watermarks to protect digital assets
How do you implement a digital asset management strategy?
This requires the consideration of a number of practical issues:
Infrastructure capabilities and storage needs – this may need to be outsourced to a digital management company if the business does not have the capability
Management support – implementing a new strategy will be disruptive and expensive and will need management support
Selection of supplier – needs to be able to retrieve the assets on a timely basis and provide the necessary support.
What is blockchain technology and what is its main benefit?
A blockchain has been described as a decentralised, distributed and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that the record cannot be altered without the consensus
of all involved parties.
The main benefit of blockchain is that is gives added security in the digital era.
As new transactions take place, they form a block which gets added to the chain; the chain is never broken and so the transaction is permanently recorded and cannot be altered retrospectively. One of its main uses is to provide security for cryptocurrency
What is cryptocurrency and what are some of its considerations?
A form of digital currency designed to facilitate the virtual exchange of transactions.
Cryptocurrencies are not controlled by a central banking mechanism, which has led to the value fluctuating dramatically. Companies looking to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment need to consider the following:
Impact on reputation – as cryptocurrencies can be sent anonymously they have been used by criminals as a way to transfer proceeds of crimes, leading to a negative reputation associated with it.
Capabilities required – the infrastructure to collect cryptocurrency needs to be in place. Intermediaries exist to collect currency such as Bitcoin and exchange for sterling. There is a charge for this service due to the fluctuations in value.
What is knowledge management?
Knowledge management is a range of strategies and tools that capture all of the knowledge that is valuable to an organisation, and deliver it to the people in such a way that it can be acted on quickly, to
the competitive advantage of the business.
Knowledge management considers the process of collecting, storing and using the knowledge held within an organisation. This includes the following:
Designing and installing techniques and processes to create, protect and use explicit knowledge.
Designing and creating environments and activities to discover and release tacit knowledge.
- Knowledge is the potential for action based on data, information, intuition and experience.
- Explicit knowledge is knowledge that the company knows it has.
- Tacit knowledge is personal knowledge and expertise held by people within the organisation that has not been formally documented.
What are the stages to follow when implementing a knowledge management strategy?
- Identify the knowledge that exists within the organisation
- Capture and document existing knowledge
- Disseminate knowledge to appropriate people
- Determine ways that knowledge can be developed and tracked
- Ensure that key strategic knowledge is kept secure and confidential
What is cybersecurity and what are some of the risks?
Cyber security is the protection of systems, networks and data in cyberspace. Cyber risk is any risk of financial loss, disruption or damage to the reputation of an organisation from some sort of failure of its IT systems.
Human threats – hackers may be able to get into the organisation’s internal network, either to steal data or to damage the system
Fraud – the theft of funds by dishonest use of a computer system
Deliberate sabotage – commercial espionage or malicious damage or industrial action
Viruses and other corruptions – these can spread through the network to all of the organisation’s computers
Denial of Service (DoS) – an attempt by hackers to prevent legitimate use of a service. This is likely to result in frustrated customers and lost sales
