Lecture 1 (Role of IS in E-Business & Online Commerce)

Question 1

What are Information Systems?

Answer 1

Information Systems are a combination of hardware, software and telecommunication networks that people build and use to collect, create and distribute data in an organisational setting.

Question 2

What is the “core objective” of Information Systems?

Answer 2

The core objective is to convert “Data” into “Useful information”.
-> Data in itself is unorganised symbols with no meaning.
-> Useful information is processed and organised data giving a contextual representation of reality.

Question 3

What are the three different phases of a customer journey? How does IS assist during those phases?

Answer 3

The three phases of customer journey are: Pre-purchase, Core-purchase, Post-purchase.

Information Systems help as follows:
Pre-purchase:
- Awareness: using social media
- Consideration: using recommender systems and sharing product information

Core-purchase:
- Acquisition: CRM, POS for payment
- Service: Chatbots for customer service

Post-purchase:
- Loyalty: CRM for feedback collection and email campaign
- Advocacy: CRM to improve referral program.

Question 4

Explain Back-end V/S Front-end with examples

Answer 4

Back-end: Corporate information systems for internal use that are crucial to the infrastructure and internal operations of the company. eg: Human Resource Management System, Databases.

Front-end: Corporate information systems that are used by external shareholders to interact/request access to back-end information and services.

Question 5

Explain the following terms briefly: Cross-functional, Decentralised, Legacy Systems wrt to Information Systems.

Answer 5

Cross-functional: Increase in information needs > Increase in complexity of business process > Increase in complexity of information systems.

Decentralised: No central oversight and increase in specialisation at different levels of the organisation.

Legacy Systems: Old systems are referred by that name.