...MIS Mini-cases -- 1 of 30 Cases for Use in Management Information Systems MIS Mini-cases -- 2 of 30 MIS Mini-cases -- 3 of 30 Case 01 -- Freeway Ford You are a management consultant working for Franklin Absolom, the majority stockholder for a group of 10 automobile dealerships. He has asked you to spend several days at Freeway Ford, a dealership that is not performing up to its potential. You are not to go ―looking for trouble‖: instead, your assignment is to find ways to help management at the dealership take advantage of opportunities. One day while you are talking with James Kahler, the sales manager for Freeway Ford, you realize that the dealership only uses transaction processing systems—it is not realizing the full potential of the information it has gathered for managerial decision making. For example, Freeway Ford knows the purchase date and owner of every car it sells, but it never contacts owner about routine maintenance. Freeway Ford know that people who purchase a new car generally trade it in for another new car 3 to 4 years later, but the dealership does not contact these previous customers. Another opportunity comes from used car purchasing and sales. Every car has a vehicle identification number (VIN), and the dealership uses this number to check for known problems with a used car before it makes a purchase. A data bank of car insurance claims histories and major repairs is kept on a set of CDs that is sent to the dealership each month. At the...
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...method of information systems development. To survive in the market, Amazon Corporation have put major thrust on areas like research, development and building new information systems. SDLC process comes in different versions with varying number of steps. Some go for the eight step process while few prefer the seven step process. Another variation is the five step process which includes the following stages: System definition, Requirement analysis, Component design, Implementation and Maintenance. There is a subtle difference between a disaster and a threat. Heavy physical loss of computing machinery due to natural causes, assault or terrorist attacks come under the category of Disasters. Threats cover issues arising from human errors, malicious illegal acts and natural disasters. An instance of human error would be an unintentional or intentional shredding of data by employees. Events like a twister or flood beyond human control can disable all computing services indefinitely. With all these factors established, it is important to consider the steps to be taken in preparing for disasters ahead of development of plans (Kroenke, “Information Security Management,” 2012). The SDLC process which has been so strictly and exhaustively followed by Amazon can be used as a standard operating procedure for application development by other organizations. The first and foremost condition for being prepared in case of disasters is to locate facilities in geographical positions which...
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...Chapter 3 Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy 101 I N T E R A C T I V E S E S S I O N : T E C H N O LO GY 7-ELEVEN STORES ASK THE CUSTOMER BY ASKING THE DATA There is probably a 7-Eleven store in your neighborhood, and it’s a convenient place for picking up a can of Coke or a quick ham-and-cheese sandwich. It’s the largest convenience retailer in the world and the number one convenience store chain in the United States, with 5,300 stores. This company started out about 75 years ago as an ice-dock operator. When refrigerators started replacing iceboxes, the manager of each store asked customers one-by-one what items they’d like to stock in their new appliances. By asking customers directly and stocking only the items customers most wanted, the company grew and prospered. Over time, the company moved away from its roots, losing touch with customers along the way. It had no means of knowing what sold in each store and allowed vendors to decide what to stock on its shelves. Although large vendors, such as Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay, had powerful information systems for analyzing what they sold in individual stores, other vendors didn’t have such systems. Moreover, the vendors’ systems were designed to maximize opportunities for their businesses, not for 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven stores are not all alike. What their customers want depends a great deal on the neighborhood and region of the country where they are located. What sells well in Boston may not work in Texas. Without...
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...are difficult things that caused headaches for managers. As we known, order fulfillment is a main EC support service along with security, payments, infrastructure and technology. So, in this paper, we will see how the world’s largest e – tailer like Amazon resolve its problems related to enhancement productivity of order fulfillment. 2. Case summary The Problem With traditional retailing, the problem is not enough delivery destinations to ship large quantities of goods. With e – tailing, the maintaining an inventory of items is necessary to fill customer’s needs immediately, so this leads to the problem of maintaining and shipping products cost. When Amazon.com launched in 1995, it was a book online retailing with “virtual retailing” business model, it operated as an intermediary; it took order from customers and received payments, and then let others fill the orders. However, this model would not work for the large e – tailer. The Solution Firstly, Amazon changed their business model from no warehouse, no inventory, and no shipments to handling its own inventory and logistics. They spent $2 billion to build warehouse and outsourced the shipment to UPS and USPS. Secondly, to fulfill many millions of orders each month, Amazon implemented a process with seven steps: Step1: A computer program checks the location of the items ordered online, and then it transmits the order to the appropriate distribution center or vendor after it identified where will fulfill the order. Step...
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...|[pic] |Course Syllabus | | |Axia College/School of Business | | |XBIS/219 | | |Business Information Systems | Copyright © 2009, 2008 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved. Course Description This course provides an overview of Business Information Systems. This includes a broad foundation for both technical and nontechnical business professionals. Special emphasis is placed on how information is used by different types of businesses across different industries. Policies Faculty and students/learners will be held responsible for understanding and adhering to all policies contained within the following two documents: • University policies: You must be logged into the student website to view this document. • Instructor policies: This document is posted in the Course Materials forum. University policies are subject to change. Be sure to read the policies at the beginning of each class. Policies may be slightly different depending on the modality in which you attend...
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...percent annual growth in web usage. He could see that the Internet, which was in its infancy in 1994, would soon become ubiquitous. Features of the book industry made it ideal to focus on selling books, at least initially. The book industry was fragmented, both in terms of the large number of booksellers and publishers. In addition, there were millions of titles and potential customers. The typical bookstore could house a small fraction of all published books, so Amazon.com could market itself as the earth’s largest bookstore. Amazon is the leading online book selling retailer in the USA. Amazon expanded from just a bookstore into selling general electronics, music, videos, toys, apparel, food, and furniture. Amazon has also established separate websites all over the world. (Amazon, 2011) Amazon also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products. Amazon focuses on customer satisfaction, and the efficiency of their website. Amazon now provides almost anything you can think of. When Bezos founded Amazon.com, he focused on hiring talented and unconventional managers and employees. Amazon.com had rigorous requirements for new employees and an obsession for customer service. Amazon.com told temp agencies ‘‘send us your freaks’’ (Spector 2002, 113). The hiring of talented employees was coupled with an austere culture, exemplified by the use of desks made of doors and 2X4s. These desks were initially used because they were inexpensive and later because they...
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...Chapter 3 Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy 103 I N T E R A C T I V E S E S S I O N : T E C H N O LO GY IS THE IPAD A DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY? Tablet computers have come and gone several times before, but the iPad looks like it will be different. It has a gorgeous 10-inch color display, a persistent WiFi Internet connection, potential use of high-speed cellular networks, functionality from over 250,000 applications available on Apple’s App Store, and the ability to deliver video, music, text, social networking applications, and video games. Its entry-level price is just $499. The challenge for Apple is to convince potential users that they need a new, expensive gadget with the functionality that the iPad provides. This is the same challenge faced by the iPhone when it was first announced. As it turned out, the iPhone was a smashing success that decimated the sales of traditional cell phones throughout the world. Will the iPad do likewise as a disruptive technology for the media and content industries? It looks like it is on its way. The iPad has some appeal to mobile business users, but most experts believe it will not supplant laptops or netbooks. It is in the publishing and media industries where its disruptive impact will first be felt. The iPad and similar devices (including the Kindle Reader) will force many existing media businesses to change their business models significantly. These companies may need to stop investing in their ...
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...Running header: Club IT Part Three 1 Club IT Part Three Ron M. Davis March 20, 2011 Michael Diaz Running header: Club IT Part Three 2 Lisa and Ruben are the club owners. In our initial meeting we discussed what was expected of the job that was being undertaken. They explained to me a little about the club and an overview of their need to boost their information technology, data management, and decision-making capabilities. “To learn more about Club IT’s operations, we stayed until the 2:00 a.m. closing this morning to see how everything was tallied and accounted at the end of a business day. Although it was a late night and we had to wake up early this morning to report back to work, we now have a better understanding of the daily business cycle at Club IT. Lisa asked me for suggestions on how to use club and public resources to keep Club IT’s edge as the high-energy, high-impact club it strives to be”.(Wiley, 2009) “Lisa and Ruben have just completed extensive remodeling of the...
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...Question 1: The fundamental argument underlying Harrah’s strategy; is it better to catch many small fish or one big whale? The most rewards should be given to the group of customers with high customer worth, or customers who could potentially transition into that category (high predicted worth). Casinos typically target high rollers with a large bank roll who play high stake games. They court these types of players, offering complimentary rooms or services. Harrah’s on the other hand chooses to target low income working class individuals or retirees. They offer individualized incentives to those players based on the customer’s spending pattern. Each incentive is crafted to be profitable for that unique customer. Harrah’s is able to capture a large sum with their Total Rewards program and catering to people who choose to play games like slots. Although these games are not high stake with large sums of money riding per bet, the odds are greatly stacked in the houses favor. Another characteristic unique to Harrah’s is that they reward not just winners but losers as well. Other casinos offer deals to people who win large sums of money in order to get those winnings back. Harrah’s, on the contrary, give out nominal rewards like a free dinner to people who loose. Those individuals see it as customer services and feel more inclined to gamble at Harrah’s rather than a competitor. These unique practices along with a sophisticated IT database targeting customers who are likely to spend...
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... First incorporated in July of 1994 and selling its first book online a year later in July of 1995 Amazon.com, Inc., often called simply “Amazon”, was first started by its president and CEO, Jeff Bezos as an on-line bookseller (“Amazon” 2012). The mission of Amazon (2012) according to their Web site is “To be Earth's most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online” (Company Facts). Today Amazon sells much more than just books! The number one selling item for Amazon is their e-reader, the Amazon Kindle, along with, “digital products – Kindle, Kindle books and accessories” (secdatabase.com, 2012). First introduced in 2007 the Kindle now has many versions available in different sizes with many features. The Kindle has allowed Amazon to be technologically competitive by allowing the consumer to read multiple books on this small, sleek device. Now the Kindle Fire edition of the e-reader is even more advanced with games, social network access, data storage, and purchasing capabilities available. Amazon has numerous departments beyond physical books and electronic media. Amazon currently has several departments to include apps, clothing and accessories, computers, furniture, grocery and gourmet food, jewelry, music, sports and outdoors and toys and games to name only a fraction. Amazon...
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...itself by selling iPhone-like gear for almost a third of the price of Apple products. It may sound too good to be true, but the company is managing to sell millions of phones and is already kicking off a global expansion. So how does it pull it off? For one thing, Xiaomi claims to price its phones just above their costs. But company officials also point to its iconoclastic business model, which eschews the financial burden of using traditional marketing and distribution practices, and relies on the Internet to fuel sales. It's made Xiaomi into a company that doesn't operate like a typical smartphone vendor, but still successful enough to become one of China's hottest tech firms. Disrupting the market When Xiaomi unveiled its first flagship Mi 1 phone in August 2011, attention was fixated on the device's price. Consumers could buy what was then a cutting-edge smartphone for 1,999 yuan (US$324). This was a major bargain compared to other high-end phones including the iPhone 4, which started at 4,999 yuan. Xiaomi maintained the initial 1,999 yuan price for the flagship phone. But the company also released its Hongmi line of products, which are lower-spec phones, at even lower prices, starting at 699 yuan. The Hongmi phones are doing so well, they've helped Xiaomi become China's third largest smartphone vendor in this year's first quarter, according to research firm Canalys. What do they cost to make? Xiaomi's latest...
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...1/13/2015 Solution SCM Ch1 2 Documents Upload (/upload.html) Login (/login.html? back=http%3A%2F%2Fdocslide.net%2Fdocuments%2Fsolution-scm-ch12.html) / Docslide (/) / Documents (/category/documents.html) / Solution SCM Ch1 2 Assignment 1 Supply Chain Management Topic: Understanding the Supply Chain Submitted by: Submitted to: Md. Faisal Hossain Md. Md. Akram Hossain EMBA Spring Semester 2013 Assistant Professor ID: 61120-13-017 MIS, University of Dhaka Date: 23-01-2013 Department of Management Information Systems Gateway Why did Gateway have multiple production facilities in the US? What advantages or disadvantages does this strategy offer relative to Dell, which has one facility? US was main market of gateway No inventory stores direct supply no contract with any shipping company Advantages Low price raw material Cheaper logistics http://docslide.net/documents/solutionscmch12.html 1/8 1/13/2015 Solution SCM Ch1 2 Documents Fly UP Shipping Tax Incentives Disadvantages cost increases Difficult to manage quality Different polices for employees What factors did Gateway consider when deciding which plants to close? The markets which were saturated showing poor results, specially Malaysia plant were have high loses Why does Gateway not carry any finished goods inventory at its retail stores? Gateway was really clever in deciding whether to keep such items in inventory or not. As gateway knew that people don’t wait for FMCG product...
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...In many cases like this one, an organization should always have a backup strategy. Some of the actions that I would take would be performing a backup on a USB flash drive which will be kept in a safe place with the office. As for the profit and loss statements, cash flow statements and other pertinent files will be updated daily, backed up and performed daily. If files are needed to be shared, a cloud backup system can be implemented. A disaster recovery plan should be set forth with three different sites * Hot Site- “A separate and fully equipped facility where the company can move immediately after a disaster and resume business.” * Cold Site- “A separate facility that does not have any computer equipment, but is a place where employees can move after a disaster.” * Warm Site- “A separate facility with computer equipment that requires installation and configuration.” As our business grows so should the Agile MIS infrastructure. As more customers are coming to the coffee shop, additional infrastructure may be necessary. * Accessibility- Limitations will be set for the employees. They will access to their personal information, including their timecards and messages. Management will be the only ones who have full access to payroll and salary information. * Reliability- Since our system will be checked and updated daily there should not be any inaccuracy or mistakes. Work will be checked, if in any case there is an incorrect entry the system will find it...
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...BIG DATA - THE MANAGEMENT REVOLUTION Summary The general theme of the article is to proof how data-driven decisions are better for businesses as data enables the managers to base their decision on evidence rather than intuition. The idea behind big data is to collect all kinds of data from various sources and to effectively utilize this data to improve the financial and operational aspects of the business. Companies that operate on digital platforms like Amazon are already experts at big data and are using the predictions based on data in a deft manner. The practice of big data should not be confined to companies that operate digitally but should be implied by other businesses as well, as big data is a revolutionary practice that provides data in larger volumes with higher velocity with which data is complied and entailed and the variety in which data is available. Furthermore, modifying a company to be data-driven is not only technologically challenging but poses a copious amount of managerial challenges as well. The decision is usually based on the senior manager who has to know how to answer questions and how to embrace evidence based decision. For a company to re-organize itself to become data-driven, the manager should concentrate on improvising five areas that include, leadership, talent management, technology, decision making and company culture. The author cities instances of big data using examples of airports where PASSUR Aerospace provided a service called...
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...ISAS 640 9040 – Decision Support Systems and Expert Systems Dr. Ashraf Shirani Literature Review for Group 1 Group Members: Leslie Allen Joe Nimely Oluranti Odofin Gary Turner The topic for the research paper will be business intelligence, most specifically the impact on privacy. The data gathered through various business intelligence technologies, while it may not be personally identifiable information such as name and/or social security number, the data provided to businesses gives them a greater insight into consumer behavior. This provides the businesses with information to leverage additional sales and services. Businesses gather all kinds of data on consumers, often sharing with other related competitors, to obtain a better view of the consumer behavior, including trends and associations. The information obtained through business intelligence may or may not be personally identifiable, it may still be sensitive in nature. Does it cross the line ethically? Are there other techniques to gather this information while maintaining privacy for the consumer? In this paper, the ethical issues of privacy on business intelligence will be explored to determine if the business intelligence outweighs the intrusion on privacy. Key concepts in this review include privacy, big data analytics, business intelligence, ethical awareness framework, data mining, hackers, and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines. Data mining is discovering...
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