Chapter 7 Summary

A business process is a network of activities by putting inputs into outputs. There are two broad categories for process: structured process and dynamic process. Structured process is a standardized process that consist of everyday operations such as making an order, accepting returns, purchase materials, ect… Whereas dynamic processes are informal and adaptive processes that are often used in managerial decisions. Dynamic processes requires human judgement as they are strategic decisions. A workgroup process helps a department fulfills the charter and goals. An example would be the doctor’s office. Enterprise processes multiple departments such as hospitals. They often have 100-1000 users. Inter-enterprise span two or more independent organizations.

Process can be improved by 3 ways: change the process structure, change the process resources, change both process structure and resources. Changing the process might be efficient if the company just need to reorganize the process by switching the order of the steps. For example. Instead of checking inventory first, we can change to checking customer’s credit first so company doesn’t waste money on credit checking customer that got denied. If the process is not effective because it takes to long, then change the resources or add more resources. If there is a long wait at cash register, then we should add more cashier to make business more effective. Process efficiency is the ratio of output to inputs. Process effectiveness is how well a process achieve organizational strategy. Information system can improve process quality by performing an activity, augmenting a human who is performing an activity, and controlling data quality and process flow.

Business process re-engineering (BPR) is the activity of altering existing and designing new business processes to take advantage of new information system. Create more effective linkages in value chains. It is known for difficulty, slow and expensive. Inherent processes are predesigned procedures for using the software products, saved organizations from the expense, delays, and risks of business process reengineering. Customer life cycle inlcudes marketing (attract), customer acquisition(sell), relationship management(support and resell), and loss/churn (categorize). CRM database functions includes lead management apps, sales apps, relationship management apps, customer support apps. This design eliminates duplicated data and removes the possibility of inconsistent data.This database will allow the company to know not to provide $1000 labor support to a $300 customer. Enterprise resource planning is suite of apps called modules and a set of inherent processes for consolidating business operations into a single and consistent platform. It Includes functions of CRM system but also incorporate accounting, manuf, inventory, and HR apps.

ERP apps programs by ERP vendors design apps programs to be configurable so that development teams can alter them to meet an organization’s requirement without changing program code. ERP Databases develop ERP solution includes a database design as well as configuration data. Business Process Procedure is a set of inherent procedures that implement standard business processes. Training and consulting are necessary because of its complexity, ERP vendors have developed training curricula and classes.Enterprise apps integration are developed to solve those problems especially in manufacturing companies. Function of EAI includes connect system island via new layer of software/system, enable existing apps to communicate and share data, provides integrated info, leverage existing systems-leaving function apps as is but provide integration layer, enables a gradual move to ERP. When the CRM apps send data to the manufacturer app system, the CRM system sends its data to an EAI software program. EAI makes the conversion

Industry-specific solution allows ERP vendors to provide starter kits for specific industries. These solutions contain program and database configuration files as well as process blueprints that apply implementations in specific industries. Challenges of implementing enterprise information system includes collaborative management, requirement gaps, transition problems, employee resistance, new technology. Some of the problems of information Silos are data duplicated, inconsistency, isolated, disjointed processes. It is Inefficient as decisions are made in isolation. Also Increase cost. To fix the problem companies need to integrate into single database, revise apps, allow isolation manage.

Chapter 6 Summary

Before 2010, most organizations use their own computing infrastructure to support emails, web sites, e-commerce sites, applications, ect...Recently, they have been moving towards using the cloud. The cloud is almost like renting a house but you are renting space to store your datas. It can be defined as the elastic of pooled computer resources over the internet. The reason clouds are pooled because many organizations use the same physical hardware. They are being shared through virtualization. Cloud vendors provide servers according to the amount of demand during a specific time. A company may needs more servers during a popular time where they know there will be millions of site visits, so they need to pre-provision the servers ahead of time.

The cloud use resources “ over the internet”. This means that the cloud vendors can provide services solely over the internet by a set of standards ways of requesting and receiving.

Cloud servers are preferred over in-house hosting for many reasons. Cloud requires minimal capital costs with superior flexibility and is able to fluctuate to demands. There is no obsolescence and create speedy development. While an in-house benefit is simply having control of data location and possibly disaster preparedness. In-house have a long list of why it is negative such as having a high cost, significant development effort, annual maintenance costs, ongoing support costs, increased management requirements, difficult to accommodate fluctuating demand, and obsolescence.

The four basic types of network technology are personal area networks, local area networks, wide area networks and the internet. A PAN or personal area network is a device connected around a single person. PAN devices can connect within 10 meters. A LAN or a local area network connects computer in the same location. The unique characteristic of LAN is that it is a single location. A WAN or wide area network connects computers in different locations. If the company is located in different locations, then they must use a WAN to connect their computers. The internet is defined as a network of networks. The Internet is networks that is public where internet is where networks that is used privately within an organization.

So how does a cloud work? In order for the cloud to operate, we need the internet. For example, if you are making reservation on a website, you are using the cloud by hopping from network to network. Hop is a term used by cloud vendors to describe provisioning servers to minimize hops. Big internet carriers such as Sprint, AT&T, Verizon Business, and XO communication are able to exchange traffic freely without charging each other fees through “peering” agreement. One of the big problem of peering is that some companies use more bandwidth than others. Netflix, Ebay, Yahoo!, and Amazon argue for net neutrality principle, where all data are treated equally. IP address is a set of numbers that identifies a particular device in a location. A URL or uniform resource locator is an address for websites over the internet. A three-tier architecture is  a design in which users computer consist of 3 tiers: computers, phones, and mobile devices. SOA or service-oriented architecture is a design philosophy use for the cloud. This philosophy enables all the pieces of the cloud to connect together. SOA principles are very standardized and formal. Each department would send requests and receive requests as promise without personal contact. No departments need to know who will work in another department nor how they do their work. SOA is applied the same way to cloud. Each service request the data, the data will return. JAvascript is part of the web page an invokes the service. Cloud service divides into 3 categories: Software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as a service.

Content delivery network or CDN is a system of software and hardware that store data for users from different locations. These datas are readily available when users request them. An example for CDN usage would be a news organization using CDN to store copies of its news articles.

A virtual private network or VPN is private connection using the internet. VPN is made possible by connecting to public internet first, then create a tunnel as a private pathway over the shared network from the VPN client to the VPN server. Virtual private cloud is a public cloud that is restricted to the public. VPC is build on top of public cloud infrastructure in an organization to store sensitive datas.

Chapter 5 - Database Processing

We need to use either a database or spreadsheets to keep track our datas, depending whether you want a single theme or multiple. For example, if you only need to keep track of the students’ grades, then spreadsheet is good enough. But if you desired to add more information such as email addresses, phone numbers, office visits, then a database should be used.

A database is a self-describing collection of integrated records. Each character such as letter, number, or symbol is called a byte. Bytes in databases are often grouped in columns, such as student ID and student name. Columns are often called fields. Rows of fields are grouped and called records. And a group of similar rows or records are called a table or a file. Metadata are data that describes the structure of the database. Each student is identified by a student number. So when a certain student table is created, teachers can reference the students number and identify a particular student. A key is often referred to as a primary key, which means a column or group of columns that identifies a unique row in a table. Each table we created should have a key. For example, the key of email is emailnum. Student numbers in the email and office visit table are called foreign keys because it does not uniquely identify a row. Foreign keys are used when columns are keys, but they are keys of a different table. Relation databases are databases that carry their data in the form of the tables and that represent relationships using foreign key.

A database is a self-description collection of integrated records. This means that databases contains its description within itself.

A database management system (DBMS) is a program used to create, process, and administer a database. Companies often buy license DBMS products from vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and others.

Datas can be useful if property formatted. A database application can help organize forms, reports, queries, and application program for easier usage for users.

The DBMS is the database server that applications and web servers are connected to, and users are using to internet to connect to that web servers. Browser applications are thin-client applications that does not required pre-installation. Browser database application such as forms, reports, and queries are displayed and processed using html, css3, and Javascript.

Most web users encounter a common issue while using the traditional browser-based applications involved multiple users processing the same database. For example, 2 person are accessing a site that is selling an event ticket. The site only has 1 ticket left. Both person can see that the ticket is available and proceed to buy them. Whoever made the payment first will get the ticket. This problem is also known as the lost-update problem. In order to avoid this issue, we must develop some sort of locking system to correspond to the information available at a given time.  

Entities are things that users want to track. Entities have attributes and identifier that are used to describe the entity. These entities have relationship that connect them to each other. There are different types of relationships such as one to one, one-to-many, many to one, and many to many relationship.

Database design is the process of transforming a data model into tables, relationships and data constraints. There are 2 important concepts of database design concepts: normalization and the representation of two kinds of relationships. Normalization is where you take a poorly structured table and transform it into a better one. Data integrity is known as an big issue where data are repeated. By normalizing the tables, we can eliminate data duplication. The idea of normalizing tables is to create 1 common theme for each table. If the tables have two themes such as employees and departments, they need to be separated into 2 tables.

Once the tables are normalize, the next step is to represent relationship. To represent a relationship we must add foreign key to one of the 2 tables we want to have relationship.

MIS Chapter 4 Summary

Central processing unit, or CPU is a hardware that selects instructions, processes them, performs arithmetic and logical comparisons, and record the memory. It is often known as the brain of the computer. CPU comes in different speed, function, and cost. Depending on the work that you perform, you can choose a CPU that fits your need whether it is the greatest or latest. Computers often include storage hardware that can store programs or data. Magnetic disk and USB flash drive are other types of storage hardware.

Personal computer, tablet, smartphones, server, server farm are all hardware types. Personal computers are stationary device that are used by individuals. Whereas tablets are movable devices that has most of the functions that a PC does. A server is a main computer that is used to maintain and support processing requests from remote computers and users. Lastly, a server farm contains thousands of servers.

Computer data uses binary digits that are called bits. Open switch represents zero and closed switch represents one. Bytes are grouped into 8-bits and are used to describe data sizes. Size of main memory, disk, and other devices are also describe using bytes.

New hardware has the power to change competitive strategies. The first force that has this power is the internet of things. This force creates a bigger network of people by increasing the capability of sensing, processing, and transmitting data. Augmented reality is becoming big among business world, where we are able to bring virtual images and objects to life. Whereas, virtual reality is a computer generated world. Second force is self-driving cars, it will make things cheaper as it will create more opportunities for people to share cars and cut out big expenses. Not only that, self-driving cars will make the road safer as the car has sensor programs and will able to detect danger better than the human eyes that sometimes can be distracted such as drunk drivers. Lastly, 3D printing is the third force where printers are able to print real objects.

All computers have an operating system, which is a program that manages its own resources. Basic functions are read and write data, allocate main memory, perform memory swapping, start and stop programs, respond to error conditions, and facilitate backup and recovery. Native applications are programs that are written to use a particular operating system. A web application such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera, runs within the browser and can run on any type of computer.

Virtualization is the process where one computer will host many different virtual computers within it. There are three types of virtualization: PC, server, and desktop.

Application software are used to perform some sort of functions such as

Microsoft word. They can be called horizontal-market application as they provide businesses capabilities. Whereas, vertical-market application software serves the need of a specific industry.

Chapter 3 Summary

The porter’s five forces model was used to access the industry structure. The five competitive forces are bargaining power of customers, threat of substitutions, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrains, and rivalry. The level of the five forces depends on the characteristics of the company or business such as how profitable or how sustainable it is.

Bargaining power of customers describe how much power the customer has. For example, if a business that have only 1 customer, of course the bargaining power of customer would be extremely strong. Whereas, if a business with over hundreds thousands of customers, their customers would have weak power of bargaining.

Threat of substitution describes the alternative options that customers have rather than choosing one particular company. If a patient only uses one type of medicine from a single company, then their threat of substitution would be weak. On the other hand, if a customer were to be renting vehicles for travel purpose, then they have many options to go with.

Bargaining power of suppliers describe how much power suppliers have in putting the price on their products. For example, car dealers have strong force in bargaining power because they have control over what price they tell customers rather than having a fixed price. Whereas, grain farmers have weak force in bargaining power.

Threats of new entrants describe how easy a business can enter the industry. For example, a lemonade stand at the corner of the block has strong force of new entrant’s threats because the business is very simple to replicate. An example of weak force would be the professional football team as the number of teams is tightly control by the NFL.

The last force is rivalry, where other competitors in the industry play a big role.

Companies should analyze the structure of their industry, and use that to determine their competitive strategy, whether they want to be cost effective or differentiated or focus.  They need to pick a strategy and implement it, if more than one strategy is chosen; customers would be confused as of what they are selling to them. The question needs to be answer is what is the customer paying for, is it the product, service, or resource?

The ways that companies gain competitive advantage is by creating new products, enhance existing products or service, and by differentiating their products and services from those of their competitors.  

Although our technology world is changing rapidly, the models of business strategy, competitive advantages, and their connection to companies will likely to remain the same in the next 10 years.