Information Systems EXAM Flashcards
Strategic Business objectives of information systems
- operational excellence
- new products, services & business models
- customer supplier intimacy
- improved decision making
- competitive advantage
- survival
Business processes
The manner in which work is organized, coordinated, and focused to produce a valuable product or service. May be assets or liabilities
Enterprise systems
Collect data from different functions and store data in a single central database. Resolve problem of fragmented, redundant data.
Supply chain management systems
Manage the firm’s relationships with suppliers.
Customer relationship management systems
Provide information to coordinate all of the business processes that deal with customers in sales, marketing, and service to optimize revenue, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.
IT governance
Strategies and policies for using IT in the organization.
Agency theory
The firm is a nexus of contracts among self-interested parties requiring supervision. It can reduce agency costs.
Postindustrial organizations
Organizations flatten because in postindustrial societies, authority relies on knowledge and competence rather than formal positions
Five competitive forces
Traditional competitors
new market entrants
substitutes
customers
suppliers
IS strategies for dealing with competitive forces
low-cost leadership
differentiation
focus on market niche
strengthen customer and supplier intimacy
Business Value Chain Model
The firm is viewed as a series of activities that add value to products or services. Includes primary and support activities.
The value web
A firm’s value chain is linked to the value chain of its suppliers, distributors, and customers
Business Ecosystem
Industry sets of firms providing services/products
Keystone firms
Dominate the ecosystem and create platforms used by other firms
Niche firms
Rely on platforms developed by keystone firms
Individual firms
Consider how IT will enable them to become profitable niche players in larger ecosystems
Metcalfe’s law and network economics
The value of a network grows exponentially as a function of the number of network members
Scalability
Ability to expand to serve larger number of users
Data redundancy
The presence of duplicate data in multiple data files so that the same data is stored in more than one place
Data inconsistency
The same attribute may have different values
Relational DBMS
Represents data as two-dimensional tables called relations and relates data across tables based on common data elements
Operations of a relational DBMS
Select: creates a subset of rows that meet specific criteria
Join: combines relational tables to provide users with information
Project: enables users to create new tables containing only relevant information
Data warehouse
stores current and historical data from many core operational transaction systems
Data marts
Subset of the data warehouse. Summarized or highly focused portion of firm’s data for use by specific population of users
Data mining
Tools for analyzing large pools of data. Find hidden patterns and infer rules to predict trends
Text mining
extracts key elements from large unstructured data sets
Web mining
The discovery and analysis of useful patterns and information from the world wide web
Sentiment analysis
Mines text comments in an email message, blog, social media conversation or survey to detect favourable and unfavourable opinions
Data quality audit
Structured survey of the accuracy and completeness of data in an information system
Data cleansing
Consists of activities for detecting and correcting data in an IS
Client/server computing
Distributed computing model. Clients are linked though network controlled by network server computer. The internet is the largest implementation of client/server computing/
Protocols
Rules that govern the transmission of information between two points
Hypertext transfer protocol
Communications standard used for transferring web pages
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Uses tiny tags with embedded microchips containing data about an item and location, and antenna
Security
Policies, procedures, and technical measures used to prevent unauthorized access, alteration, theft, or physical damage to IS
Controls
Methods, policies, and organizational procedures that ensure safety of organization’s assets & operational adherence to management standards
Computer viruses
Rogue software programs that attach to other programs in order to be executed, usually without user knowledge or permission
Worms
Programs that copy themselves from one computer to another over networks
Trojan Horse
A software program that appears to be benign but then does something unexpected. Often transports a virus into a computer system
SQL injection attacks
Hackers submit data to web forms that exploits site’s unprotected software and sends rogue SQL query to database
Spyware
Keylogging records keystroked made on a keyboard, can steal passwords etc.
Spoofing
masquerading as someone else or redirecting a web link to an unintended address
Sniffing
an eavesdropping program that monitors information travelling over a network
Social engineering
Tricking employees into revealing their passwords
Business continuity planning
Focuses on how the company can restore business operations after a disaster strikes
Public key encryption
Uses two different keys, one private and one public which are mathematically related so that data encrypted with one key can be decrypted using the other
Enterprise Systems
Suite of integrated software modules and a common central database
Supply chain
A network of organizations and business processes for procuring raw materials, transforming these materials into intermediate and finished products and distributing the finished products to customers
Bullwhip effect
Information about product demand gets distorted as it passes from one entity to next across supply chain
Pushed-based supply chains
Production master schedules are based on forecasts or best guesses of demand and products are pushed to customers
Pull-based supply chains
aka demand-driven or build-to-order model. Actual customer orders trigger events in the supply chain
Business value of SCM systems
match supply to demand
reduce inventory levels
improve delivery service
speed product time to market
use assets more effectively
reduced supply chain costs
increased sales
Touch point
A method of interaction with the customer
Operational CRM
Customer-facing applications such as a call centre and customer service support
Analytical CRM
Based on data warehouses that consolidate the data for analysis
Churn rate
Number of customers who stop using or purchasing products or services from a company
E-commerce revenue models
Advertising
sales
subscription
free/freemium
transaction fee
affiliate
Four main global strategies
domestic exporter
multinational
franchisers
transnational
Three main kinds of organizational structure
centralized in the home country
Decentralized/ dispersed to local foreign units
Coordinated- all units are equals
Four main types of systems configuration
Centralized
duplicated (development at home base, operations foreign)
decentralized (each foreign unit designs own systems)
Networked (development + operations occur in coordinated fashion across all units)
