Week 12 Questions

Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management.

The triple constraint is three variables- cost, time and scope The variables are interdependent and all projects are limited in some way by these three constraints. Its importance in project management is that it helps to make intelligent trade offs between between time, cost and scope and helps to prevent failure in IT projects.

Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning

In project planning the two primary diagrams that are used are:

• PERT chart: which is a Program Evaluation and Review Technique chart and is a graphical network model that depicts a projects tasks and the relationships between those tasks
• Gantt Chart: a simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a calendar

Identify the three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success

The three primary areas that a project manager must focus on are:

• People: One of the hardest and most critical tasks a project manager undertakes. Resolving conflicts ithin the team and balancing the needs of the project with the personal and professional needs of the team are two of the challenges facing project managers
• Communications: While many companies develop unique project management frameworks based on familiar project management standards, or adopt specific methodologies al of them agree that communication is the key to excellent project management
• Change: successful organisations and successful people learn to anticipate and react appropriately to change.

Outline 2 reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed

Two reasons why projects fail include:

1. Unrealistic expectations
2. Lack of project management

Two reasons why projects succeed include:

1. Good project charter
2. Good decision making structure

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 10 Questions

What is your understanding of CRM?

I find that Customer Relationship Management is the focus on improving customer satisfaction and keeping existing clients, as well as getting new clients

Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management

Operational CRM supports traditional transactional processing for day to day front office operations or systems that deal directly with the customers Analytical CRM supports back office operations and strategic analysis and includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers

Describe and differentiate the CRM technologies used by marketing departments and sales departments

The CRM technologies used by marketing departments include:

• List generators: these compile customer information from a variety of sources and segment the information for different marketing campaigns
• Campaign Management systems: guide users through marketing campaigns performing such tasks as campaign definition, planning, scheduling, segmentation and success analysis
• Cross-selling: Selling additional products or services to a customer

The CRM technologies used by sales departments include:

• Sales management CRM systems: these automate each phase of the sales process, helping individual sales representatives co-ordinate and organise all of their accounts
• A contact Management CRM system: maintains customer contact information and identifies prospective customers for future sales
• Opportunity management CRM systems: target sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales

How could a sales department use operational CRM technologies?

Sales departments were the first to begin developing CRM systems. Sales departments had two primary reasons for to track customer sales information electronically These are:

• sales representatives were struggling with the overwhelming amount of customer account information they were required to maintain and track
• companies were struggling with the issue that much of their vital customer and sales information remained in th heads of their sales representatives

This is how sales departments can uses operational CRM systems

Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses

Business Intelligence refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to and analyse data and information to support decision making efforts. Its important to businesses because it aids them in making decisions for the business and gives them up to date information

Explain the problem associated with business intelligence. Describe the solution to this business problem

The problem associated with business intelligence is that they are sometimes data rich but information poor. Which means that they have a lot of data but it hasn't been transformed into information yet. The solution to this business problem us supplying the business with the proper tools such as banking, operations management and hardware and software so that they are able to make these decisions properly.

What are two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining?

Data mining is the the process of analysing data to extract information not offered by the raw data alone. Two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining are quantifiable benefits and up to the minute information for everyone

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 9 Questions

Define the term operations management

Operations management is the management of systems or processes that convert or transform resources into goods and services

Explain operations management’s role in business
Operations management's role in business is to:

• Forecasting
• Capacity planning
• Scheduling
• Managing inventory
• Assuring quality
• Motivating and training employees
• Locating facilities
  

Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology

Management can use IT to heavily influence OM decisions including productivity, costs, flexibility, quality and customer satisfaction. One of the benefits of IT on OM is making operation decisions because OM exerts considerable influence over the defree to which the goals and objectives of the organisation are realised.

Explain supply chain management and its role in a business
Supply chain management involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.

List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain

Five components of a typical supply chain are:

• Plan: the strategic portion of supply chain management. A company must have a plan for managing al the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for products or services
• Source: companies must carefully choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for making products
• Make: The step where compnaies manufacture thier products or services
• Deliver: THe step is commonly referred to as logistics. This is the set of processes that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation and storage of suppliees from suppliers to customers
• Return: The most problematic step. Companies must create a network for receiving defective and excess products and support customers who have problems with delivered products
  

Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain.

Information technology and the supply chain are related because enable and organistation to:

• decrease the power of its buyers
• increase its own supplier power
• increase switching costs to reduce the threat of subsitute products or services
• create entry barriers thereby reducing the threat of new entrants
• increase efficiencies while seeking a competitive advantage through cost leadership

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 8 Questions

Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology.
Business benefits of using wireless technology include:
it enables employees to move laptops from office to office
they can connect to the network in lunchroom areas
quick and easy access
low cost

Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP

VoIP uses TCP/IP technology to transmit voice calls over internet technology. Benefits of using this enables businesses to make voice calls over the internet. This is able to be of lower cost for companies or free. Businesses are able to use programs such as skype which gives businesses more opportunities to contact people overseas and interstate

Compare LANs and WANs
A LAN is a local area network it is designed to connect a group of computers in close proximity to each other such as in an office building, a school or home. It is useful for sharing resources such as files, printers or games. A LAN in turn often connects to other LAN's and to the internet or wide area networks
A WAN s a wide area network that spans a large geographic area such as a statem province or country. WAN's often connect multiple smaller networks, such as local area networks

Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective
RFID or Radio Frequency Indenfication technologies use active or passive tags in the form of chips or smart lables that can store unique identifiers and relay this information to electronic readers. RFID tags can cut costs by requiring fewer workers for scanning items, also provide more currency and accurate information to the supply chain

Identify the advantages and disadvantage of deploying mobile technology
By deploying mobile technology there are some advantages. These include technology being able to be taken anywhere, such as in the form of wireless internet, mobile phones, cordless computer peripherals, satellite television, WiMAX wireless broadband and security sensors
There are disadvantages as well as there are risks involved and data needs to be protected

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 7 Questions

List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information.

The five characteristics of high quality information are:

• Accuracy: Are all the values correct? For example, is the name spelled correctly? Is the dollar amount recorded properly?
• Completeness: Are any of the values missing? For example, is the address complete including street, city, state and postcode?
• Consistency: Is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed information? For example, do all total fields equal he true total of the individual fields?
• Uniqueness: Is each transaction, entity and event represented only only once in the information? for example, are there any duplicate customers?
• Timeliness: Is the information current with respect to the business requirements? For example, is information updated weekly, daily or hourly?

Define the relationship between a database and a database management system.

A database management system is the computer program used to manage and query a database. A data base maintains information about various types of objects, events, people and places. Typically a given database has a structural description of he type of facts held in that database, this description is known as a schema

Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.

The advantages an organisation can gain by using a database are:

• Increased flexibility: a good database can handle changes quickly and easily Databases provide flexibility in allowing each user to access the information in whatever way best sits his or her needs.
• Increased scalability and performance: Only a database could scale to handle the massive volumes of information and the large numbers of users required. It refers to how well a system can adapt to increased demands and measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transaction
• Reduced information redundancy: redundancy is the duplication of information, or storing the same information in multiple places. Redundant information occurs because organisations frequently capture an store the information in multiple locations
• Increased information integrity: Information integrity is a measure of the quality of information. Within a database environment, integrity constraints are rules that help ensure the quality of information
• Increased information security: The organisation must protect its information from unauthorised users or misuse

Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model.

A relational database is a collection of tables from which data can be accessed in many different ways without having to reorganise the database tables. Data is able to be linked so that information is more easily accessed such as finding out what doctor is seeing what patient and which students are in which classes

Describe the benefits of a data-driven website.

Advantages of a data driven website are:

• development: allows the website owner to make changes at any time
• content management: a static website requires a programmer to make updates
• future expandability: having a data driven website enables the site to grow daster than would be possible with a static site
• minimising human error: bugs and inconsistencies that can be time consuming and expensive to track down and fix
• cutting production and update costs: a data driven website can be updated and published by any competent data entry or administrative person
• more efficient: computers are excellent at keeping volumes of information in tact
• improved stability: any programmer who has o update a website from static templates must be very organised to keep track of all the source files

Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organisation

A data warehouse is a logical collection of information, gathered from many different operational databases, that supports business analysis activities and decision making tasks. A data warehouse holds information such as marketing, inventory, sales, billing, competitor, industry, mailing list and stock market analysis

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 6 Questions

What is information architecture and what is information infrastructure and how do they differ and how do they relate to each other?

Information architecture identifies where and how important information, such as customer records is maintained and secured and is very useful for planning. Information infrastructure is the actual implementation that will provide for effective information systems, including the hardware, software, services and people involved. These differ because one is a plan and the other is the implementation of the plan. They relate to each other because there can not be one without the other.

Describe how an organisation can implement a solid information architecture

For an organisation to have a solid information architecture they need to have:

• A backup and recovery system: A backup is an exact copy of a systems information and Recovery is the ability to get a system up and running in the event of a system crash or failure
• A disaster recovery plan: A detailed process for recovering information or an IT system in the event of a catastrophic disaster such as a fire or flood.
• Information security: Such as managing user accounts and keeping up to date antivirus software and patches.

List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture.

The five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture are:

1. Flexibility: The ability to meet all types of business changes
2. Scalability: How well a system can adapt to increased demands and meet growth requirements.
3. Reliability: Ensures all systems are functioning correctly and providing accurate information. High accuracy, low accuracy puts organisations at risk.
4. Availability: Addresses when systems can be accessed by users. This ensures business continuity
5. Performance: Measures how quickly a system performas a certain process or transaction.

Describe the business value in deploying a service oriented architecture

A service oriented architecture is a business driven IT architectural approach that supports integrating a business as linked, repeatable tasks or services. By using a service orientated architecture businesses are able to innovate by ensuring that IT systems can adapt quickly, easily and economically to support rapidly changing business needs.

What is an event?

An event is the eyes and ears of the business expressed in technology- they detect threats and opportunities and alert those who can act on the information.

What is a service?

A service must appeal to a broad audience and need to be reusable if they are going to have an impact on productivity.

What emerging technologies can companies use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?

The emerging technologies that companies can use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively are Virtualisation and Grid Computing. Virtualisation is a framework for dividing the resources of a computer into multiple execution environments. It is a way of increasing physical resources to maximise the investment in hardware. Grid Computing is an aggregation of geographically dispersed computing, storage and network resources, coordinated to deliver improved performance, higher quality of service, better utilisation and easier access to data

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 5 Questions

Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology.

Information ethics are concerned with the ethical and moral issues arising from the development and use of information technologies, as well as the creation, collection, duplication, distribution and processing of information itself. Ethical issues surrounding information technology include: Privacy- the interest of a person in protecting their life from unwanted intrusion and public scrutiny; and Confidentiality- the principle that certain information will remain outside the public domain.

Describe the relationship between an ‘email privacy policy’ and an ‘Internet use policy’.

An email privacy policy is where companies can mitigate many of the risks using by electronic messaging systems. Where an Internet use policy contains general principles to guide the proper use of the internet.

Summarise the five steps to creating an information security plan

The five steps of creating an internet security plan include:

1. Developing the information security policies- Identify who is responsible and accountable for designing and implementing the organisations information security policies

2. Communicating the information security policies- training all employees on the policies and establishing clear expectations for the following policies.

3. Identifying critical information assets and risks- requiring the use of user ID's passwords and antivirus software on all systems

4. Testing and re-evaluating risks- continually perform security reviews, audits, background checks and security assessments

5. Obtaining stakeholder support- gain the approval and support of the information security policies from the board of directors and all stakeholders

What do the terms; authentication and authorization mean, how do they differ, provide some examples of each term.

Authentication: a method for confirming user identities.

Authorisation: the process of giving someone permission to do or have something.

Authentication and authorisation differ as Authentication is for confirming an identity and Authorisation is giving permission to use details. Examples of these terms are use of names, credit card details, birth dates and addresses.

What are the Five main types of Security Risks, suggest one method to prevent the severity of risk?

The five main types of security risks are:

1. Identity Theft- the forging of someones identity for the purpose of fraud

2. Phishing- a technique used to gain personal information for the purpose of identity theft, usully by means of fraudulent email.

3. Tokens- small electronic devices that change user passwords automatically

4. Smart Card- a device that is around the same size as a credit card, contains embedded technologies that can store information and small amounts of software to perform some limited processing/

5. Biometrics- the identification of a user based on a physical characteristic, such as a fingerprint, iris, face, voice or handwriting.

To help prevent risk change passwords regularly and keep anti virus software up to date.

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 4 Questions

What is an IP Address? What is it’s main function?

An IP address is how information gets to computers. It is the basic communication language or protocol of the internet. It can also be used as a communications protocol in a private network.

What is Web 2.0, how does it differ from 1.0?

Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the internet. Web 2.0 differs from 1.0 because web 1.0 is one way published and we don't get involved. Web 2.0 is where we get involved in the internet.

What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is the term given to describe the evolution of web usage and interaction among several separate parts. Web 3.0 will transform the web into a database, search for information using different medias and will use the concept of tagging to build information about people.

Describe the different methods an organisation can use to access information

The different methods that an organisation can use to access information are the:

1. Intranet: an internalised portion of the internet protected from outside access, that allows an organisation to provide access to information and application software to only its employees

2. Extranet: an intranet that is available to strategic allies

3. Portal: a website that offers a broad array of resources and services

4: Kiosk: a publicly accessible computer system that has been set up to allow interactive information browsing

What is eBusiness, how does it differ from eCommerce?

eBusiness is the conducting of business on the internet, while eCommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet

List and describe the various eBusiness models? (Hint: B2B)

There are four eBusiness models:

1. Business to Business: applies to businesses buying from and selling to each other over the internet

2. Business to Consumer: applies to any business that sells its products or services to consumers over the internet

3. Consumer to Business: applies to any consumer that sells a product or ser ice to a business over the internet

4. Consumer to Consumer: applies to sites primarily offering goods and services to assist consumers interacting with each other over the internet

List 3 metrics would you use if you were hired to assess the effectiveness and the efficiency of an eBusiness web site?

If I was hired to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of an eBusiness web site I would use the following metrics:

1. Cookie: a small file deposited on a hard drive by a website containing information about customers and their web activities

2. Click through: to count the number of people who visit a site of the advertiser

3. Banner ad: advertises the products and services of another business, usually another dot-com business

Outline 2 opportunities and 2 challenges faced by companies doing business online?

Two opportunities of doing business online are: it is highly accessible as it operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and it has increased convenience because it automates and improves many of the activities that make up a buying experience.

Two challenges of doing business online are: increasing liability because internet commerce law us vaguely defined and varies country to country and consumer protection because consumers must be protected against unsolicited goods and communication, illegal and harmful goods, insufficient information, invasion of privacy and cyber fraud

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 3 Questions

Define TPS & DSS, and explain how an organisation can use these systems to make decisions and gain competitive advantages

A TPS is a Transaction Processing System. This records transactions within a business such as an EFTPOS machine. A DSS is a Decision Support System. This allows managers to make strategic decisions based on data. By doing this businesses can gain competitive advantages because they are able to see where their strengths and weaknesses lie.

Describe the three quantitative models typically used by decision support systems.

Sensitivity analysis: model that looks at what will happen to the overall result when a variable is changed

What if analysis: model that tests the impacts of an assumption on the proposed solution

Goal seeking analysis: model that helps determine how to make x profit- how many units need to be sold

Describe a business processes and their importance to an organisation.

A business process is a standardised set of activities that accomplish a specific task. A business process is important to an organisation because it helps the way that the business functions and gives the business purpose

Compare business process improvement and business process re-engineering.

Business process inprovement: Looks at current processes and and makes small improvements or changes. While business re-engineering assumes that all business processes are no longer needed

Describe the importance of business process modelling (or mapping) and business process models.

Business process modelling is the activity of creating a detailed flowchart or process map of a work process, showing its inputs, task and activities in structured sequence. A business process model is a graphic description of a process showing the sequence of process task. Business process modelling and business process models are important because they help to expose process detail in a controlled matter, encourage conciseness and accuracy, focus attention and provide an analysis.

All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)

Week 2 Questions

Explain information technology’s role in business and describe how you measure success?

The role of information technology in business is very important. IT is very important in business because IT is everywhere.

IT success is extremely hard to measure. So by determining the return on investment of the new computer is very difficult. When determining the success of IT systems, there are several questions that need to be asked. These are:

• Is the internal IT operation performing satisfactorily?
• Should I outsource some or all of the IT operations?
• How is my outsourcer performing?
• What are the risk factors to consider in an IT project?
• What questions should be asked to ensure an IT project proposal is realistic?
• What are the characteristics of a healthy project?
• Which factors are most critical to monitor to ensure the project remains on track?

By asking these questions, executives are able to determine how successful their IT business is.

List and describe each of the forces in Porter’s Five Forces Model?

Porters five forces model includes:

1. buyer power: high when buyers have many sellers to choose from and low when they don't
2. supplier power: high when one supplier has has concentrated power over an industry
3. threat of substitute products or services: high when there are many alternatives to a product or service and low when few market alternatives to choose from
4. threat of new entrants: high when it is easy for competition to enter a market and low when there are significant barriers
5. rivalry among existing competitors: high when competition is in a fierce market and low when competition is more complacent

Describe the relationship between business processes and value chains?

A business process is a standardised set of activities that accomplish a specific task, such as processing a customers order. A value chain approach views an organisation as a series of processes, each of which adds value to the product or service for each consumer. These two aspects work together in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the busienss processes and to create a competitive advantage.

Compare Porter’s three generic strategies?

Porter has three generic Strategies: Broad cost leadership, Broad Differentiation and a Focused strategy. Broad strategies reach a large market segment, while focused strategies have a much smaller market. A focused strategy focuses on either cost leadership or fiffferentiation





All answers came from Business Driven Information Systems (Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey)