chapter 1 the importance of...

The Importance of MIS

Chapter 1

1-2

“But Today, They’re Not Enough.”

C o p y r i g h t © 2 0 1 7 P e a r s o n E d u c a t i o n , I n c .

Jennifer lacks skills Falcon Security needs:

1. Abstract reasoning skills.

2. Systems thinking skills.

3. Collaboration skills.

4. Experimentation skills.

1-3

What Do Employers Want?


• Self starter, don’t wait to be told what to do.

• Team worker

– Develops ideas with others.

– Ask questions.

– Pulls more than their own weight.

1-4

Study Questions


Q1: Why is Introduction to MIS the most important class in the

business school?

Q2: How will MIS affect me?

Q3: What is MIS?

Q4: How can you use the five-component model?

Q5: What is information?

Q6: What are necessary data characteristics?

Q7: 2026?

1-5

Q1: Why Is Introduction to MIS the Most Important

Class in the Business School?


• Technology fundamentally changing business.

• Information Age

– Production, distribution, control of information primary

economic drivers.

• Digital Revolution

– From mechanical/analog devices to digital devices.

1-6

Understanding the Forces Pushing the Evolution of

New Digital Devices


• Bell’s Law

– New class of computers establishes a new industry each

decade.

New platforms, programming environments, industries,

networks, and information systems.

• Understand how next digital evolution will affect businesses.

• Given: What an industry does and how does it will change.

1-7

Evolving Capabilities: Computer

Price/Performance Ratio Historical Trend


1-8

Metcalfe’s Law


• Network value equal to square

of number of users connected to

it. (V=U2)

– Google, Amazon, eBay exist

due to large numbers of

Internet users.

1-9

Fundamental Forces Changing Technology


Connection speed test.

http://www.geeksquad.com/do-it-yourself/tools/test-your-broadband-speed.aspx

1-10

This Is the Most Important Class in the School of

Business Because You Will Learn:


• How technology fundamentally changes businesses.

• Why executives try to find ways to use new technology to create

a sustainable competitive advantage.

• Assess, evaluate, apply emerging information technology to

business.

• Help you attain knowledge needed by future business

professionals.

1-11

Q2: How Will MIS Affect Me?


• Technological change is accelerating.

• Bell’s Law

– Today’s highly successful business could be bankrupt quickly

because technology changed and it didn’t.

– Ex: Blockbuster

1-12

How Can I Attain Job Security?


• Moore’s Law, Metcalfe’s Law, and Kryder’s Law

– Driving data processing, storage, communications costs to

essentially zero.

• Any routine skill can, and will, be outsourced to lowest bidder.

1-13

What Skills Will Be Marketable During Your Career?


• Rapid technological change and increased international

competition:

–Requires skills and ability to adapt.

–Favours people with strong non-routine cognitive skills.

–Message: Develop strong non-routine cognitive skills.

1-14

What Is a Marketable Skill?


1-15

How Can Intro to MIS Help You Learn Non-Routine

Skills?


• Abstract Reason

– Ability to make and manipulate

models.

– Learn to use and construct abstract

models. Ch. 1: Five components of an IS model.

Ch. 5: How to create data models.

Ch. 10: How to make process models.

1-16


Skills? (cont’d)


• Systems Thinking

– Ability to model system components, connect inputs and

outputs among components to reflect structure and

dynamics.

– Ability to discuss, illustrate, critique systems; compare

alternative systems; apply different systems to different

situations.

http://systems-thinking.org/stada/stada.htm

1-17


Skills? (cont’d)


• Collaboration

– People working together to achieve a common goal, result,

or work product.

– Ch. 2 discusses collaboration skills and illustrates several

collaboration information systems.

http://www.nsdc.org/standards/collaborationskills.cfm

1-18


Skills? (cont’d)


• Ability to Experiment

– Make reasoned analysis of an opportunity; develop and

evaluate possible solutions.

“I’ve never done this before.”

“I don’t know how to do it.”

“But will it work?”

“Is it too weird for the market?”.

• Fear of failure paralyzes many good people and ideas

1-19

Jobs


• 69% of college graduates need additional training or education.

• 46% working in jobs not requiring their degree, underemployed.

• Better success for students with courses related to information

systems.

• Tradable job

– Job not dependent on particular location, can be offshore

outsourced.

1-20

Job Growth By Sector Over the Past Twenty Years


1-21

BLS Job

Projections


1-22

Bottom Line of MIS Course


Most important course in business school because:

1. Gives background needed to assess, evaluate, and apply

emerging information systems technology to business.

2. Gives marketable skills by helping you learn abstraction,

systems thinking, collaboration, and experimentation.

3. Makes you aware of well-paying, high demand MIS-related

jobs.

1-23

Q3: What Is MIS?

C o p y r i g h t © 2 0 1 6 P e a r s o n E d u c a t i o n , I n c . P u b l i s h i n g a s P r e n t i c e H a l l

• Key elements

1. Management and use

2. Information systems

3. Strategies

• Goal of MIS

– Managing IS to achieve business strategies.

1-24

What Is MIS (cont’d)


Management and use to:

• Develop, maintain, adapt by:

– Creating an information system that meets your needs,

take an active role in system’s development. Why?

– Business professionals using cognitive skills to understand

business needs and requirements.

1-25

Components of an Information System?


Components interact to produce information

1-26

Difference Between IT and IS


• Information technology (IT)1. Products

2. Methods

3. Inventions

4. Standards

IT drives development of new IS.

IT components = Hardware + Software + Data

IS = IT + Procedures + People

IT

Procedures

People

IS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology

1-27

Development and Use of Information Systems


• Business professionals need to:

– Take active role to ensure systems meet their needs;

– Understand how IS constructed;

– Consider users’ needs during development;

– Learn how to use IS;

– Remember ancillary requirements (security, backups).

1-28

Achieving Strategies


• Information systems exist to help people achieve business strategies.

– “What is the purpose of our Facebook page?”

– “What is it going to do for us?”

– “What is our policy for employees’ contributions?”

– “What should we do about critical customer reviews?”

–“Are the costs of maintaining the page sufficiently offset by

the benefits?”

1-29

Q4: How Can You Use the Five-Component

Model?


1-30

Characteristics of the Five Components


• Most Important Component -- YOU!– Your cognitive skills determine quality of your thinking,

ability to conceive information from data.

– You add value to information and information systems.

• Only humans produce information.

• All components must work together.

1-31

Why Is the Difference Between Information Technology

and Information Systems Important to You?


• Avoid common mistake: Cannot buy an IS.

– Can buy, rent, lease hardware, software and databases, and

predesigned procedures.

• People execute procedures to employ new IT.

• New systems require training, overcoming employee

resistance, and managing employees as they use new system.

1-32

Why Is the Difference Between Information Technology

and Information Systems Important to You? (cont’d)


Consider amount of work being moved from people to computers• High-tech vs low-tech information systems.

– Consider amount of work being moved from people to

computers.

• Understanding scope of new information systems.

– Assess how big of an investment new technology represents.

• Components ordered by difficulty and disruption.

1-33

What Is Alibaba.com?


• Started as e-commerce portal for buying and selling goods.

• Now includes a variety of financial, auction, and commerce services.

• Mission: Connect suppliers and buyers on global scale.

– Millions of products, dozens of product categories, thousands of

messages exchanged daily between buyers and sellers.

• Growing Pains

– Rapidly evolved from a “new idea”.

– Mired with suppliers selling counterfeit products.

– Vetting global suppliers and responding to fraud claims.

1-34

What Can Alibaba.com Do for You?


• Example of how managing information as profitable as selling a

high-quality product.

• Demonstrates complexities associated with operating in global

economy.

• Illustrates what can be done in relatively short time with a

laptop, a good idea, a lot of hard work.

1-35

Q5: What Is Information?


Definitions vary:

1. Knowledge derived from data.

2. Meaningful context.

3. Processed data, or data processed by summing, ordering,

averaging, grouping, comparing, or similar operations.

4. “A difference that makes a difference.”

1-36

Amazon.com Stock Price and Net Income


1-37

Where Is Information?


• Graph is not information.

– It’s data people perceive and use to conceive information.

• Ability to conceive information determined by cognitive skills.

• People perceive different information from same data.

• You add value by conceiving information from data.

1-38

Q6: What Are Necessary Data Characteristics?


1-39

Ethics Guide: Ethics and Professional

Responsibility


Which graph do you present?

1-40

“What Is Right Behaviour?”


Immanuel Kant

• Categorical imperative

– One should behave only in a way that one would want the

behavior to be a universal law.

Are you willing to publish your behavior to the world?

1-41

Duty


• Necessity to act in accordance with categorical imperative.

–Perfect duty - behavior that must always be met.

–Imperfect duty - a praiseworthy action, but not required.

Giving to charity, developing your business skills and

abilities.

1-42

Imperfect Duty of Business Professionals


• Imperfect duties

–Cultivating your talent is a professional responsibility.

–Obtaining skills necessary to accomplish your job.

–Continuing to develop business skills and abilities throughout

your career.

1-43

Q7: 2026?


• Most computers won’t look like computers.

• Smartphones– 1Gbps network connection,

– 1 Exabyte storage,

– Teraflop+ processing power,

– Connect to any electrical device,

– Store/stream every song and movie ever made to any device,

– Battery life over a month on a single charge.

1-44

Q7: 2026? (cont’d)


• BYOD common.

• Comprehensive bio-monitoring devices at home, linked to health care

systems.

• Widespread use of Google Glass or Microsoft’s HoloLens.

• More people work at home or wherever.

• Cost differences between traditional courses and “course in a box”

increases.

• Knowledge and use of business information systems will be more

important, not less.

1-45

Security Guide: Passwords and Password

Etiquette


• 10+ characters.

• Does not contain your user name, real name, or company

name.

• Does not contain a complete dictionary word in any language.

• Different from previous passwords used.

• Contains both upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and

special characters (such as ˜ ! @; # $ % ^; &; * ( ) _ +; – =; { } |

[ ] \ : “ ; ’ <; >;? , . /)

1-46

Password Etiquette


• Never write down your password.

• Never ask someone for their password.

• Never give your password to someone.

• “do-si-do” move—move away so another person can enter

password privately

–Common professional practice.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/do-si-do

1-47

Guide: Five-Component Careers


1-48

Active Review


Q1: Why is Introduction to MIS the most important class in the

business school?

Q2: How will MIS affect me?

Q3: What is MIS?

Q4: How can you use the five-component model?

Q5: What is information?

Q6: What are necessary data characteristics?

Q7: 2026?

1-49

Case Study 1: zulily


• What is the business model?

– Flash sales to mothers:

Children’s clothes, toys, women’s clothes, accessories,

and décor items.

– IT provides entertaining shopping experience, name brand

goods, unique and difficult-to-find off-brands, at substantial

discounts.

– 45% of sales over mobile devices.

– Curated sales.

1-50

Merchandise Variety


1-51

Case Study 1: zulily (cont'd)


1-52

How They Do It


• Buyers identify goods to be sold, negotiate with vendors.

• Photographs sample items in-house, write ad copy.

• Group items for 3-day sales events.

• After event closes, zulily orders items from vendor, receives,

packages, and ships to customers. (maintains no inventory).

• Vulnerable to vendors errors and mistakes.

1-53

Use of Technology


• “Continual innovation through investment in technology is core

to our business.”

• Internet, mobile technology compatibility.

• Developed a proprietary technology platform to handle.

enormous spikes in web processing demand.

• Extensive data collection and analytics capabilities.

1-54

Growth-Management Problems


• Must effectively integrate, develop and motivate a large number

of new employees, while maintaining corporate culture.

Continue to make substantial investments to expand

merchandising and technology personnel.

• Need to hire mid-level managers.

• Finding and retaining merchandising and technology personnel

difficult.

1-55

Learning from zulily


• Technology zulily uses not ground breaking.

• Developed innovative application of information systems

technology.

• Applied it to a business opportunity.

• Managerial skill to develop that idea.

chapter 1 the importance of...

Documents