SCHOOL OF SCIENCE and ENGINEERING

Bachelor of Shipping and Maritime Science

Trimester Mid, Fall 2020

CSE 2281: Information System Management
CT: Md. Kaviul Islam
Date: 26/11/2020

STUDENT NAME: AHMED EMTIAZ CHOWDHURY

DEPARTMENT: ENGINEERING
ID: 20311028
 Ans to the ques no 1 (Creative assignment)

Four Areas of Technological Development

1. Software 2. Hardware 3. Data 4. Communications
These four areas of technological development that influences today’s business. If we talk about them, I would like
to separate them into two groups according to their inner bonding. Very first group will be Software and Hardware.
For a stable rising of any business, we need to think about innovation regarding that. And innovation doesn’t come
nowadays without the help of software and hardware. Nowadays, most of the greatest organizations are using the
computer technology and had implemented their own IT departments. They cannot neglect the powerful and
productive of its IT departments which brings their business towards success. Examples of organizations are Apple
Inc., FedEx, Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, and etc. Hence, IT is now critical to an organization’s success, so it is
important that an organization should uses the computer technology in its daily business routine and the computer
hardware and software meets the needs of the organization. The managers and IT employees must have the
understanding of the role of computer hardware and software in the decisions that promote organizational
performance and productivity.
The computer components, either hardware devices or software, are now updating and improving its technology
frequently and speedy, and hence affected its price are rising. The computer hardware and software cost a lot of
money in an organization. Therefore, it is very important that the IT department of an organization should choose
and buy the most appropriate and cost-effective computer hardware and software. The most important issues in
managing computer hardware and software technology assets are understanding the new technology requirements
for electronic commerce and digital firm, determining the total cost of technology assets, and determining whether
to own and maintain technology assets or use external technology service providers for an organization.
In addition, good decisions for selecting computer hardware and software make a business grow. Bad ones will burn
organization’s business money and investor’s money. When this money is gone, the business will fail.

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Another group of them will be sorted as DATA and COMMUNICATION.
Data helps you understand and improve business processes so you can reduce wasted money and time. Every
company feels the effects of waste. It depletes resources, squanders time, and ultimately impacts the bottom line. For
example, bad advertising decisions can be one of the greatest wastes of resources in a company.
Data communication allows businesses to reduce expenses and improve efficiency by sharing data and common
equipment among many different computers. At the same time, the network may be connected through cables,
telephone lines, infrared beams, which is cheaper and helps to reduce the expenses. Communication is a method of
sharing information between staff, customers, outside companies, and investors. In fact, effective business
communication is crucial for maintaining a successful business. There’s no way a business can function effectively
without it. Incorporating steady and reliable communication methods with workforce, suppliers, shareholders, and of
course, customers are essential.

Ans to the question no.2 (Solution of open question)

In business world there is no substitute for right information at right time. It is evident that in last couple of decades
attempts has been made to develop systems which make information more precise, readily available and easily
accessible throughout the organization.

1. The concept of information in Organization

In organizational context, information becomes more like a basic resource similar to men, material and
money. Information is the binding element that holds an organization together. On the contrary, since it is
intangible, information is quite different for physical resources and is often difficult to interpret and utilize
in efficiently in order to achieve desirable outcomes from the organization. Nevertheless, it is an integral
 part of organization and should be properly managed to achieve goals and objectives of the organization.
Hence, it is importance to acknowledge the importance of information in the organizational performance.

2. Information Management in Organizations

Many scholars have recognized the fact that right information and its flow within the organization can
drastically improve the performance and achieve stipulated objectives with ease. But at the same time, it
is important to note that there is no point of having information which is not relevant to the organization.
This is the point where information management comes in to play. The prime objective of information
management is to make relevant information readily available for the organization in precise and
comprehensible format.

Langemo, (1980) has defined Information management as the “organization-wide capability of creating,
maintaining, retrieving and making immediately available the right information, in the right place, at the
right time, in hands of the right people, at the lowest cost, in the best media, for use in decision making.”

3. Economic Importance:
Even though the cost of installation and maintenance of an information system quite high (depends upon
kind of system) in the beginning, but in due course the costs drop and appears fair deal when compared
to kinds of benefits enjoyed with the help of it. Also, with the passage of time cost of information
systems tends to decrease, whereas, costs of its substitutes (for instance labor) have been historically
tending to rise (Laudon, 1990). Furthermore, information systems use networks, which help an
organization to reduce the transaction costs, by making it worthwhile for organization to contract external
suppliers instead of using internal resources.
4. Information Systems Improve Performance:
Information Systems are designed to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of a process. The
information systems speed up the process and reduce the time by removing non-value adding steps in the
operation. For instance, Citibank developed the Automatic Teller Machines and Bank Debit Cards in
1977(Laudon and Laudon 9th Ed.). It made financial transactions easy and was a huge success. Further,
banks continued to innovate and these days with the help of reliable and secure information systems
from TEMENOS, Infosys, Oracle etc., most of the customer can do majority of transaction from their home
computer or even from mobile telephone. Moreover, information systems provide real time information
which reduces the scope of errors, hence, increases the quality of the output of the process.

5. Importance in Decision Making:

Information Systems provides the tools for managers enabling them to monitor, plan and forecast with
more precision and speed than ever before. They also enable managers to respond more rapidly and
adapt swiftly to the fast-changing business environment. The Decision Support Systems can significantly
improve results both on quantitative and qualitative fronts. For instance, there are around 142 million
employees working in United States generating $12.2 trillion of Gross Domestic Products. If the decision-
making quality of these employees could be improved by just 1% in a year the GDP might be expand
substantially. “This implies for any organization the ability of manager or employees to make right
decision at right time with the help of right information can have extraordinary business value” (Laudon
and Laudon 9th Ed.).

6. Organizational Behavior Change:

Behavioral researches illustrate that information systems facilitate flattening of hierarchies by broadening the
distribution of information to empower lower-level employees. It pushes the decision making rights to the lower
level in the organization as the lower level employees receives the information they need to make decisions
eliminating the need of middle managers (Laudon and Laudon 9th Ed.). This also leads to the reduction is the
administrative costs of the organization. For example, after installing ERP system Kunst-SBO Precision Machining1
of Texas, reduced the administrative staff by 50% and at the same time improved the accuracy of on -time
deliveries from56.5% to 95%.

7. Case Study Illustration

The efficient performance of an organization is dependent very much on the performance of the internal resources
of organization and their synchronization with external environment. To illustrate the use and importance of a
management information system in organizational performance the following example of Volvo from Managing
Knowledge in MNCs-The case of the knowledge management initiative in the Volvo Group by Sona Gevorgyan and
Boban Ivanovski (2009) will demonstrate that how Volvo achieved superior performances by deploying their
Knowledge management system.