Information systems and the internet

Question 1

E-Business

Answer 1

• Using web technology to
  
  • Improve business processes
  • Enhance communication with partners, suppliers, vendors and customers
  • Perform business transactions securely
• Potential areas in the business:
  
  • Production processes: procurement, ordering stock, payment, supplier communication, production control
  • Customer-focused processes: marketing, selling, customer support, order and payment processing
  • Internal management processes: training, recruitment, employee services

Question 2

E-Commerce

Answer 2

• E-Commerce can be defined as:
  “any exchange of information or business transaction that is facilitated by the use of information and communication technologies”
• E-Commerce goes beyond home computer users
• Most parties involved are companies and public authorities

Question 3

Types of e-commerce activities (transaction types)

Answer 3

• B2B: transaction between businesses
• B2C: companies selling products to customers
• B2G: transactions between businesses and public sector organisations
• C2C: transactions between private individuals

Question 4

E-Commerce Systems

Answer 4

• E-shops and e-malls
• E-procurement
• E-auctions
• Content providers
• Market segmenters, infrastructure providers
• Specialist service providers

Question 5

Drivers for using the internet for Business

Answer 5

• Why choose the Internet for e-commerce?
  
  • consider return on investment
  • consider opportunities for outreach
• cost
• flexibility
• protecting investment
• connectivity
• low risk
• improved customer service
• globalisation

Question 6

Relationship between E-commerce and E-business

Answer 6

figure

Question 7

tangible benefits of e-business and e-commerce

Answer 7

• increased sales from new sales leads, giving rise to increased revenue from:
  
  • new customers, new markets
  • existing customers (repeat-selling)
  • existing customers (cross-selling)
• marketing cost reductions from
  
  • reduced time in customer service
  • online sales
  • reduced printing and distribution costs of marketing communications
• supply-chain cost reductions from:
  
  • reduced levels of inventory
  • increased competition from suppliers
  • shorter cycle time in ordering
• administrative cost reductions from more efficient routine business processes such as recruitment, invoice payment and holiday authorisation

Question 8

intangible benefits of e-business and e-commerce

Answer 8

• corporate image communication
• enhancing brand
• more rapid, more responsive marketing communications including PR
• faster product development lifecycle enabling response to market needs
• improved customer service
• learning for the future
• meeting new partners, supporting existing partners better
• better management of marketing information and customer information
• feedback from customer on products

Question 9

The Cloud

Answer 9

• Services and Solutions that are delivered or consumed in real time over the Internet
• Cloud computing is a delivery model of computing services over the Internet
• It enables real-time development, deployment, and delivery of a broad range of products and services
• We face an increasing importance of cloud computing
• Gartner sees the cloud as one of the top 5 technology trends in the next years
• How does cloud computing change business?

Question 10

the established ones <-> the challengers

Answer 10

IBM
Google
SAP
Oracle
Amazon
Microsoft
<->
salesforce
workday
servicenow
netsuite
xero

Question 11

Characteristics of the Cloud

Answer 11

1. Ease of use
2. Specific for one purpose
3. Simplicity
4. Collaboration
5. Mobile Access
6. Customer Success Management

Question 12

Business intelligence

Answer 12

“the result of applying tools and techniques to the data and information available within and without an organization to facilitate a better understanding of both its environment and its operation and thereby improve the decision-making process.”

Question 13

Key Features of Business Intelligence

Answer 13

• Internal and external inputs
• Structured and unstructured data
• Improved support for creating business strategy
• Gaining competitive advantage
• Improving support for decision making
• Increasing the use of performance indicators
• External drivers

Question 14

elements of BI Systems

Answer 14

• data warehouse
• analytics
• data mining
• business activity monitoring
• dashboard
• OLAP

Question 15

Tools and Techniques for Business Intelligence

Answer 15

• Decision support systems
• Group decision support
• Document management systems
• Online analytical processing (OLAP)
• Data warehousing
• Data mining
• Digital dashboards

Question 16

Expert systems

Answer 16

• A computer system that emulates the decision-making ability of a human expert
• A big hype in the 1980s, almost vanished during the 1990s
• Revival nowadays through Robotic Process Automation:
• A software application that replicates the actions of a human being interacting with the user interface of a computer system

Question 17

Process Intelligence in Business Process Management Systems

Answer 17

• Digital dashboards used for process monitoring and control
  
  • Runtime monitoring (Business Activity Monitoring)
  • Post-mortem monitoring (Business Process Analytics)
• Business Process Analytics
  
  • Dashboards for cycle time, duration histogram, process activity, activation ranking, frequent paths