Midterm

Question 1

What are the four main components of IT?

Answer 1

Hardware + Software + Databases + Networks (+ procedures and people as a bonus)

Question 2

What does FAIS stand for?

Answer 2

Functional area information system (aka a departmental information system)

Question 3

What does ERP stand for?

Answer 3

Enterprise resource planning

Question 4

What is enterprise resource planning?

Answer 4

Integrated technology across AOE, helping to manage comms and data sharing, while improving overall productivity and efficiency

Question 5

What does TPS stand for?

Answer 5

Transaction processing system (processes transactions)

Question 6

What does IOS stand for?

Answer 6

Interorganizational information systems

Question 7

What is IT?

Answer 7

Information technology - the use of computer-based tools that helps us work with information and support information-processing needs

Question 8

What is an IS?

Answer 8

Information system - collects, processes, stores, analyzes, and disseminates information for practical use

Question 9

What is the difference between data, information, and knowledge?

Answer 9

Data are {things, events, activities, transactions} that have been recorded, classified and stored

Information is data that has been organized to convey meaning

Knowledge is the use of information to solve a specific problem

Question 10

In a modern organization, how are information resources managed?

Answer 10

End-user computing - responsibility falls on both the end-user alongside the MIS

Question 11

What is a business process?

Answer 11

Inputs > Resources > Outputs

Any related activities that create a products or service of value to an org

Question 12

How can IT helps with business processes?

Answer 12

Execution of the process, capturing and processing data, and monitoring process performance

Question 13

What is BPI vs. BPR vs. BPM?

Answer 13

BPI (business process improvement): incremental approach to improving operations

BPR (business process re-engineering): radical redesign of processes [“clean slate”]

BPM (business process management): managing the systems that support continuous BPI

Question 14

What are the three business pressures present today?

Answer 14

Market pressures (globalization, changing nature of the workforce, powerful consumers)

Technology pressures (innovation, rate of obsolescence, information overload, Big Data)

Other pressures (societal, ethical, ESG)

Question 15

What are the general components of Porter’s Competitive Five Forces Model?

Answer 15

Direct industry rivals

Bargaining power of suppliers

Bargaining power of buyers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitute products/services

Question 16

What is a value chain?

Answer 16

A sequence of activities through which inputs are transformed into more valuable outputs

Question 17

What are five strategies to improve competitive advantage?

Answer 17

Cost leadership (make it cheaper)
Differentiation (make it different)
Innovation (make it new)
Operational effectiveness (improve internal processes)
Customer orientation (“the customer is always right”)

Question 18

What are the six characteristics of “excellent” IT alignment

Answer 18

1. Viewing IT as the engine of innovation
2. Customer service is extremely important
3. Rotating professionals across departments and functions
4. Providing clear, overarching goals to employees
5. IT employees understand how the company functions
6. Vibrant and inclusive company culture

Question 19

Rank the following in terms of least difficult > most difficult to change or replace: software, data, hardware

Answer 19

Hardware > software > data

Question 20

What are the features of high quality data?

Answer 20

Accuracy
Completeness
Timely
Consistent
Accessible
Relevant
Concise

Question 21

Why is data so hard to manage?

Answer 21

1. It increases exponentially over time
2. Collection occurs across a variety of devices, methods, servers, locations, systems, formats, languages, etc.
3. New types of data are being created all the time
4. Data is subject to obsolescence and can have data rot (physical mediums)
5. Changing legal requirements

Question 22

What are the core concepts of master data management?

Answer 22

One source of truth, core data that spans enterprise systems, can be applied to multiple transactions

Question 23

What is data archiving primarily driven by?

Answer 23

Legislation, ie. PIPEDA in Canada

Question 24

What do databases minimize?

Answer 24

Redundancy, isolation, and inconsistency

Question 25

What do databases maximize?

Answer 25

Security, integrity, independence

Question 26

What is Big Data?

Answer 26

Structured + semi-structured + unstructured data that is: high velocity, high variety, and high volume

Question 27

What are the problems with Big Data?

Answer 27

Sometimes comes from untrusted sources, is dirty, and it can change

Question 28

Data Warehouse vs. Data Mart

Answer 28

Warehouses are more expensive, but both are read-only which reduces time to query; it is often organized by subject and uses OLAP (online analytical processing); it ONLY reflects history (cannot be changed)

Question 29

What is explicit vs. tacit knowledge?

Answer 29

Explicit: can be documented and is easy to transfer and record

Tacit: is experiential, “secretive”, difficult to write down or transfer

Question 30

What is the data heirarchy?

Answer 30

1. A bit (0’s and 1’s)
2. A byte (8 bits, a single character)
3. A field (word, groups of words, images - logical groupings)
4. A record (logical grouping of related fields)
5. A table (data file, logical grouping of related records)
6. A database (logical grouping of related files)