Business Processes

Business processes, which we introduced in Chapter 1, refer to the manner in which work is organized, coordinated, and focused to produce a valuable product or service. Business processes are the collection of activities required to produce a product or service. These activities are supported by flows of mate­rial, information, and knowledge among the

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How Information Technology Improves Business Processes

Exactly how do information systems improve business processes? Information systems automate many steps in business processes that were formerly per­formed manually, such as checking a client’s credit or generating an invoice and shipping order. But today, information technology can do much more. New technology can actually change the flow of information, making it possible

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Information Systems for Different Management Groups

A business firm has systems to support different groups or levels of manage­ment. These systems include transaction processing systems and systems for business intelligence. 1. Transaction Processing Systems Operational managers need systems that keep track of the elementary activi­ties and transactions of the organization, such as sales, receipts, cash deposits, payroll, credit decisions, and

Information Systems for Linking the Enterprise

Reviewing all the different types of systems we have just described, you might wonder how a business can manage all the information in these different sys­tems. You might also wonder how costly it is to maintain so many different systems. And you might wonder how all these different systems can share in­formation and how

Information Systems for E-business, E-commerce, and E-government

The systems and technologies we have just described are transforming firms’ relationships with customers, employees, suppliers, and logistic partners into digital relationships using networks and the Internet. So much business is now enabled by or based upon digital networks that we use the terms electronic busi­ness and electronic commerce frequently throughout this text. Electronic

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Information systems for collaboration and social business

With all these systems and information, you might wonder how it is possible to make sense of them. How do people working in firms pull it all together, work toward common goals, and coordinate plans and actions? In addition to the types of systems we have just described, businesses need special systems to support

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Role of the information systems function in a business

We’ve seen that businesses need information systems to operate today and that they use many different kinds of systems. But who is responsible for running these systems? Who is responsible for making sure the hardware, software, and other technologies used by these systems are running properly and are up to date? End users manage

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Technology Helps Starbucks Find Better Ways to Compete

Starbucks is the world’s largest specialty coffee retailer, with over 24,000 shops in 75 markets. Starbucks’s reputation rests on its high-end specialty coffees and beverages, friendly and knowledgeable servers, and customer- friendly coffee shops. This was a winning formula for many years and has en­abled Starbucks to charge premium prices for many of its

What Is an Organization?

An organization is a stable, formal social structure that takes resources from the environment and processes them to produce outputs. This technical defini­tion focuses on three elements of an organization. Capital and labor are primary production factors provided by the environment. The organization (the firm) transforms these inputs into products and services in a

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Features of Organizations for a successful information systems

All modern organizations share certain characteristics. They are bureaucracies with clear-cut divisions of labor and specialization. Organizations arrange spe­cialists in a hierarchy of authority in which everyone is accountable to someone and authority is limited to specific actions governed by abstract rules or proce­dures. These rules create a system of impartial and universal decision

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What is the impact of information systems on organizations

Information systems have become integral, online, interactive tools deeply i nvolved in the minute-to-minute operations and decision making of large or­ganizations. Over the past decade, information systems have fundamentally altered the economics of organizations and greatly increased the possibilities for organizing work. Theories and concepts from economics and sociology help us understand the changes

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Porter’s Competitive Forces Model

Arguably, the most widely used model for understanding competitive advan­tage is Michael Porter’s competitive forces model (see Figure 3.8). This model provides a general view of the firm, its competitors, and the firm’s environ­ment. Earlier in this chapter, we described the importance of a firm’s environ­ment and the dependence of firms on environments. Porter’s

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Information System Strategies for Dealing with Competitive Forces

What is a firm to do when it is faced with all these competitive forces? And how can the firm use information systems to counteract some of these forces? How do you prevent substitutes and inhibit new market entrants? There are four generic strategies, each of which often is enabled by using information technol­ogy

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The Internet’s Impact on Competitive Advantage

Because of the Internet, the traditional competitive forces are still at work, but competitive rivalry has become much more intense (Porter, 2001). Internet technology is based on universal standards that any company can use, making it easy for rivals to compete on price alone and for new competitors to enter the market. Because information

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The Business Value Chain Model

Although the Porter model is very helpful for identifying competitive forces and suggesting generic strategies, it is not very specific about what exactly to do, and it does not provide a methodology to follow for achieving competi­tive advantages. If your goal is to achieve operational excellence, where do you start? Here’s where the business

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Smart Products—Coming Your Way

If you don’t use a smart product yet, you soon will. Your shoes, your clothing, your watch, your water bottle, and even your toothbrush are being rede­signed to incorporate sensors and metering devices connected to the Internet so that their performance can be monitored and analyzed. Your home will in­creasingly use smart devices such

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Synergies, Core Competencies, and Network-Based Strategies

A large corporation is typically a collection of businesses. Often, the firm is or­ganized financially as a collection of strategic business units and the returns to the firm are directly tied to the performance of all the strategic business units. Information systems can improve the overall performance of these business units by promoting synergies

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What are the challenges posed by strategic information systems, and how should they be addressed?

Strategic information systems often change the organization as well as its products, services, and operating procedures, driving the organization into new behavioral patterns. Successfully using information systems to achieve a competitive advantage is challenging and requires precise coordination of tech­nology, organizations, and management. 1. Sustaining Competitive Advantage The competitive advantages that strategic systems confer

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Grocery Wars

On June 16, 2017 Amazon announced that it was purchasing the upscale food market chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. The acquisition, completed in August of that year, was Amazon’s largest, and sent shock waves throughout the grocery industry. The purchase has profound im­plications for the future of groceries, the entire food industry, and

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A Model for Thinking about Ethical, Social, and Political Issues

Ethical, social, and political issues are closely linked. The ethical dilemma you may face as a manager of information systems typically is reflected in social and political debate. One way to think about these relationships is shown in Figure 4.1. Imagine society as a more or less calm pond on a sum­mer day, a

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