Name Registration Number

Mupfurutsa Clarence T. H1310020K

Zenda Nigel W. H1312089Z

Kuveya Kelvin T. H131K

Information Technology Department

IIT424 - Management Information Systems

Assignment 1
1. What exactly is an information system? How does it work? What are its
management, organization, and technology components?
Answer
An information system is a set of interrelated components that work together to collect,
process, store, and disseminate information to support decision making, coordination,
control, analysis, and visualization in an organization. In addition to supporting decision
making, information systems may also help managers and workers analyse problems,
visualize complex subjects, and create new products.

List and describe the organizational, management, and technology dimensions of

information systems.
Organization: The organization dimension of information systems involves issues
such as the organizations hierarchy, functional specialties, business processes,
culture, and political interest groups.
Management: The management dimension of information systems involves setting
organizational strategies, allocating human and financial resources, creating new
products and services and re-creating the organization if necessary.
Technology: The technology dimension consists of computer hardware, software,
data management technology, and networking/telecommunications technology.

2. Explain how the Internet and the World Wide Web are related to the other
technology components of information systems.
Answer
The Internet and World Wide Web have had a tremendous impact on the role information
systems play in organizations. These two tools are responsible for the increased
connectivity and collaboration within and outside the organization. The Internet, World
Wide Web, and other technologies have led to the redesign and reshaping of
organizations. They have helped transform the organizations structure, scope of
operations, reporting and control mechanisms, work practices, work flows, and products
and services.

3. How do systems serve the different management groups in a business?

Answer
Transaction processing systems (TPS) and the roles they play in a business.
Transaction processing systems (TPS) are computerized systems that perform and record
daily routine transactions necessary in conducting business; they serve the organizations
operational level. The principal purpose of systems at this level is to answer routine
questions and to track the flow of transactions through the organization.
At the operational level, tasks, resources, and goals are predefined and highly
structured.
Managers need TPS to monitor the status of internal operations and the firms
relationship with its external environment.
TPS are major producers of information for other types of systems.
Transaction processing systems are often so central to a business that TPS failure for a
few hours can lead to a firms demise and perhaps that of other firms linked to it.

Management information systems (MIS).

Middle management needs systems to help with monitoring, controlling, decision-
making, and administrative activities.
 MIS provide middle managers with reports on the organizations current performance.
This information is used to monitor and control the business and predict future
performance.
MIS summarize and report the companys basic operations using data supplied by
TPSs. The basic transaction data from TPS are compressed and usually presented in
reports that are produced on a regular schedule.
MIS serve managers primarily interested in weekly, monthly, and yearly results,
although some MIS enable managers to drill down to see daily or hourly data if
required.
MIS generally provide answers to routine questions that have been specified in
advance and have a predefined procedure for answering them.
MIS systems generally are not flexible and have little analytical capability.
Most MIS use simple routines, such as summaries and comparisons, as opposed to
sophisticated mathematical models or statistical techniques.
How MIS differ from TPS and from DSS
MIS differs from TPS in that MIS deals with summarized and compressed data from
the TPS. While MIS have an internal orientation, DSS will often use data from
external sources, as well as data from TPS and MIS.
DSS supports what-if analyses rather than a long-term structured analysis inherent
in MIS systems.
MIS are generally not flexible and provide little analytical capabilities. In contrast,
DSS are designed for analytical purposes and are flexible.

Decision support systems (DSS) and how they benefit businesses.

Decision-support systems (DSS) support non-routine decision-making for middle
managers.
DSS provide sophisticated analytical models and data analysis tools to support semi-
structured and unstructured decision-making activities.
DSS use data from TPS, MIS, and external sources, in condensed form, allowing
decision makers to perform what-if analysis.
DSS focus on problems that are unique and rapidly changing; procedures for arriving
at a solution may not be fully predefined.
DSS are designed so that users can work with them directly; these systems include
interactive, user-friendly software.

Executive support systems (ESS) and explain how these systems differ from DSS.
Executive support systems help senior managers address strategic issues and long-term
trends, both in the firm and in the external environment.
ESS address non-routine decisions requiring judgment, evaluation, and insight
because there is no agreed-on procedure for arriving at a solution.
ESS provide a generalized computing and communications capacity that can be
applied to a changing array of problems.
ESS are designed to incorporate data about external events, such as new tax laws or
competitors, but they also draw summarized information from internal MIS and DSS.
ESS are designed for ease-of-use and rely heavily on graphical presentations of data.

4. Define collaboration and social business, and explain why they have become so
important in business today.
Answer
 Collaboration is working with others to achieve shared and explicit goals. It focuses on
task or mission accomplishment and usually takes place in a business, or other
organizations, and between businesses. Collaboration can be short-lived or longer term,
depending on the nature of the task and the relationship among participants. It can be one-
to-one or many-to-many.
Social business is part of an organizations business structure for getting things done in a
new collaborative way. It uses social networking platforms to connect employees,
customers, and suppliers. The goal of social business is to deepen interactions with
groups inside and outside a company to expedite and enhance information sharing,
innovation, and decision- making.
Collaboration and social business are important because:
Changing nature of work - More jobs are becoming interaction jobs. These kinds of
jobs require face-to-face interaction with other employees, managers, vendors, and
customers. They require systems that allow the interaction workers to communicate,
collaborate and share ideas.
Growth of professional work - Professional jobs in the service sector require close
coordination and collaboration.
Changing organization of the firm - Work is no longer organized in a hierarchical
fashion as much as it is now organized into groups and teams who are expected to
develop their own methods for accomplishing tasks.
Changing scope of the firm - Work is more geographically separated than before.
Emphasis on innovation. Innovation stems more from groups and teams than it does
from a single individual.
Changing culture of work and business - Diverse teams produce better outputs, faster,
than individuals working on their own.

Business benefits of collaboration and social business.

The general belief is that the more a business firm is collaborative in nature, the more
successful it will be and that collaboration within and among firms is more essential than
in the past. The overall economic benefits of collaboration and social business are
significant.
The business benefits of collaboration and social business are listed below:
Productivity: people working together accomplish tasks faster, with fewer errors, than
those working alone.
Quality: people can communicate errors and correct them faster when working
together versus working alone.
Innovation: people working in groups can generate more innovative ideas than if they
were working alone.
Customer service: people working in teams can solve customer complaints and issues
faster and more effectively versus working in isolation.
Financial performance: collaborative firms have superior sales, sales growth, and
financial performance.

5. How does Porters competitive forces model help companies develop competitive
strategies using information systems?
Answer
Porters competitive forces model provides a general view of the firm, its competitors,
and the firms environment. Porters model is all about the firms general business
environment. In this model, five competitive forces shape the fate of the firm:
 traditional competitors
new market entrants
substitute products and services
customers
suppliers

The competitive forces model on the competitive advantage.

Some firms do better than others because they either have access to special resources that
others do not, or they are able to use commonly available resources more efficiently.
It could be because of superior knowledge and information assets.
Regardless, they excel in revenue growth, profitability, or productivity growth, ultimately
increasing their stock market valuations compared to their competitors.

Four competitive strategies enabled by information systems that firms can pursue.
The four generic strategies, each of which is often enabled by using information
technology and systems include:
Low-cost leadership: Lowest operational costs and the lowest prices.
Product differentiation: Enable new products and services, or greatly change the
customer convenience in using existing products and services.
Focus on market niche: Enable a specific market focus and serve this narrow target
market better than competitors.
Strengthen customer and suppliers: Tighten linkages with suppliers and develop
intimacy with customers.

How information systems can support each of these competitive strategies and give
examples.
Low-cost leadership - Use information systems to improve inventory management,
supply management, and create efficient customer response systems such as Wal-
Mart.
Product differentiation - Use information systems to create products and services
that are customized and personalized to fit the precise specifications of individual
customers e.g. Google, eBay, Apple, Lands End.
Focus on market niche - Use information systems to produce and analyse data for
finely tuned sales and marketing techniques. Analyse customer buying patterns, tastes,
and preferences closely in order to efficiently pitch advertising and marketing
campaigns to smaller target markets such as Hilton Hotels, Harrahs.
Strengthen customer and supplier intimacies - Use information systems to
facilitate direct access from suppliers to information within the company. Increase
switching costs and loyalty to the company for instance IBM, Amazon.com.

Reasons why aligning IT with business objectives is essential for strategic use of
systems.
The basic principle of IT strategy for a business is to ensure the technology serves the
business and not the other way around.
The more successfully a firm can align its IT with its business goals, the more
profitable it will be.
Business people must take an active role in shaping IT to the enterprise. They cannot
ignore IT issues.
They cannot tolerate failure in the IT area as just a nuisance to work around.
 They must understand what IT can do, how it works, and measure its impact on
revenues and profits.

6. State and justify four reasons why a company may favour an in-house applications
development over the purchase of an off-the shelf packaged solution to support an
identified corporate requirement.
Answer
a. Having a system that exactly matches the needs of the organisation - off-the-shelf
packages are written for the public at large and therefore are unlikely to support all
the personal requirements of the organisation. Developed by people that know the
organisation and existing infrastructure - therefore suitable interfaces between the new
system and legacy systems may be easier to create. Initial implementation costs less
packages solutions can be very costly, which can, in some situations, exceed the cost
of developing the software in-house. Sometimes, packages come with far greater
functionality to that which is required, and customers have to pay for all the
functionality within the package, not just the subset the company particularly wants.
Excessive additional functionality can slow down the performance of the package
this would not be the case with an in-house targeted development.
b. For the following IS development concepts provide an explanation and assess its
useful for MIS design:
i. ER modelling - a way of designing relational databases, which involves the
development of an entity-relationship diagram, together with a set of associated
relational tables (translated from the diagram) and associated assumptions. The ER
diagram comprises entities and relationships using appropriate diagrammatic
notation (e.g., Chen or UML or crows foot), possibly also with attributes (properties
of either entities or relationships). Candidates may provide an example of these. Use
within MIS; ER Modelling is a very significant MIS design tool. It is used to design
the relational databases that underpin MRS and DSS. A variant of ER modelling
(known as star or snowflake schema design) can be used to design data warehouses,
which underpin many MIS, and multi-dimensional OLAP databases.
ii. Use cases - A technique used with systems design to define the functionality of a
system that the user will interface with, and how this is achieved. Shared functions
as well as those that extend existing functions are explicitly identified within use
case definitions. Use cases are usually defined diagrammatically, and candidates
may show an example use case for a given system. Use within MIS; use cases can
be used to model the interface to a given MIS in terms of the functionality it
provides. However, given that many MIS are flexible in the ways in which a user
can interact with the application (e.g, via the application of an OLAP tool), the
definition of use cases may be very limited or just not applicable.
TBC

7. Identify and describe five ethical principles.

Answer
a. Immanuel Kants Categorical Imperative - If an action is not right for everyone to
take, it is not right for anyone
b. Descartes Rule of Change. If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to
take at all
c. Utilitarian Principle. Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value
d. Risk Aversion Principle. Take the action that produces the least harm or the least
potential cost
 e. No Free Lunch Rule. Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are
owned by someone else unless there is a specific declaration otherwise.
These principles should be used in conjunction with an ethical analysis to guide decision
making. The ethical analysis involves identifying the facts, values, stakeholders, options,
and consequences of actions. Once completed, you can consider which ethical principle to
apply to a situation to arrive at a judgment.

8. List and define the three different regimes that protect intellectual property rights.
Answer
The three different regimes that protect intellectual property rights are:
Patent law - protect the rights of a group or individual over their own original
inventions.
Copyright a legal concept that gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights
to it for a limited time.
Trade secrets any confidential business information that gives a firm a competitive
edge over others in the industry.

9. What issues must be addressed when building an e-commerce presence?

Answer
a. Remain aware of the main areas that require decisions.
b. Form a team of individuals who possess the skill sets needed to make key decisions
about technology, site design, and the social and information policies that will be
applied at the site.
c. Managers must make decisions about hardware, software, and telecommunications
infrastructure.
d. Customer demands should drive technology choices.
e. The technology should enable customers to find what they want easily, view the
product, purchase it, and then receive it quickly from warehouses.
f. The site design must be carefully considered.
g. A project plan should then be developed.

10. Define a neural network, and describe how it works and how it benefits businesses.
Answer
Neural networks are usually physical devices (although they can be simulated with
software) that emulate the physiology of animal brains. Neural networks are used for
solving complex, poorly understood problems for which large amounts of data have been
collected. They find patterns and relationships in massive amounts of data that would be
too complicated and difficult for a human being to analyse. Neural networks learn
patterns from large quantities of data by sifting through data, searching for relationships,
building models, and correcting over and over again the models own mistakes. In a
neural network, the resistors in the circuits are variable, and can be used to teach the
network. When the network makes a mistake, i.e., chooses the wrong pathway through
the network and arrives at a false conclusion, resistance can be raised on some circuits,
forcing other neurons to fire. Used after a false conclusion, intervention teaches the
machine the correct response. If this learning process continues for thousands of cycles,
the machine learns the correct response. The simple neurons or switches are highly
interconnected and operate in parallel so they can all work simultaneously on parts of a
problem. Neural networks are very different from expert systems where human expertise
has to be modelled with rules and frames. In neural networks, the physical machine
emulates a human brain and can be taught from experience.