K201-xP – Flashcards
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Briefly describe the following terms: system, information system, and management information system.
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system: a group of components that interact to achieve some purpose information system: group of components that interact to produce information management information system: the management and use of information systems that help organizations achieve their strategies
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List and briefly explain the five-component model of an information system with an example.
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hardware, software, data, procedures & people making quizlet notecards: hardware-computer software-internet data-words procedures-how you enter notecards people-me
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Why do businesses develop information systems? Also, point out some of the wrong reasons businesses sometimes cite for developing information systems.
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IS are developed to help organizations achieve their strategies. Some of the wrong reasons businesses create them is to be "modern" and in order to keep up with technology.
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What is the most important component of an information system? Why?
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The people. People provide the quality of thinking to decide and be able to know what to do with the data an information system produces.
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Explain how the five components of an information system are arranged in terms of ease of change and organizational disruption.
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Ordered left to right by ease of change and amount of organizational disruption. People are the hardest to change and hardware is the easiest to change. Changing personal responsibilities, hiring/terminating are the most disruptive to the organization and buying additional hardware is relatively easy.
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How is information technology different from information systems?
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Information technology is the hardware, software, and data components for an information system to produce information. IT drives the development of new IS. You cannot buy IS but you can buy IT.
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Recognize the common definitions of information.
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1. knowledge derived from data 2. data presented in a meaningful context 3. processed data
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What are the five characteristics of good information?
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Good information is accurate, timely, relevant to context and subject, just sufficient, and worth its cost.
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Describe the process by which organizations develop their information systems.
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An organization's goals and objectives are determined by its competitive strategy and the company's competitive strategy determines the structure, features, and functions of every information system.
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Briefly explain Porter's five forces model.
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Porter's five forces model is used to assess an industry structure. The five competitive forces that determine industry profitability are 1. bargaining power of customers 2. threat of substitutions 3. bargaining power of suppliers 4. threat of new entrants 5. rivalry among existing firms Intensity of each of these forces determines characteristics of industry, how profitable it is, & how sustainable that profitability will be.
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What are the four competitive strategies firms can choose from according to Porter's model?
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An organization can focus on being the cost leader or it can focus on differentiating its products or services either across an industry or focusing its strategy on a particular industry segment.
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Briefly describe the concepts of value, margin, and value chain.
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Value: amount of money a customer is willing to pay for a resource, product, or service margin: difference between the value an activity generates and the cost of the activity value chain: network of value-creating activities composed of primary & support activities
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List the primary activities in a generic value chain.
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Inbound logistics, operations/manufacturing, outbound logistics, sales & marketing, customer service
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Distinguish between the primary and support activities of a value chain.
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Primary activities directly contribute to the production, sale, and service of the product while support activities indirectly contribute.
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What are support activities in a value chain?
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procurement (managing supplier relationships), technology, human resources, and firm infrastructure
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What is the central idea of business process design?
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A business process is a network of activities that generate value by transforming inputs into outputs. Organizations want to design their business processes to increase margin by adding value, reducing costs, or both
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What is the purpose of a database?
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To keep track of things. Lists that involve data with multiple themes require a database.
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Describe a database and its various elements.
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A database is a self-describing collection of integrated records. Consists of: byte-character of data fields/columns records/rows a group of similar rows is a table or file A database is a collection of tables plus relationships among the rows in the tables, plus metadata that describes the structure of the database.
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Define Primary Key, foreign key, and metadata.
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primary key: a column or group of columns that identifies a unique row in a table foreign key: a column or group of columns used to represent relationships, the value of the foreign key matches the value of the primary key in a different table metadata: data that describes data
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Describe a DBMS and its functions. List some of the popular DBMS.
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A database management system is a program that is used to create, process, and administer a database. DBMS is used to create tables, relationships, and other structures in a database and to process the database by reading, inserting, modifying or deleting data. Some common DBMS are access, SQL Server and Oracle.
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What are application programs and what are their functions?
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Application programs process logic that is specific to a given business need. They also enable database processing over the internet by serving as an intermediary between the web server and the database.
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Explain the different types of DBMS products.
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Enterprise DBMS products process large organizational and workgroup databases. Personal DBMS products are designed for smaller, simpler database applications.
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Describe the elements of a data model. Provide examples.
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A data model is a logical representation of database data that describes the data and relationships that will be stored in the database.
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How does normalization resolve the data integrity problem?
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Normalization is the process of converting a poorly structured table into two or more well-structured tables. The data integrity problem is a situation that exists when data items disagree with one another and can occur only if data are duplicated. The goal of normalization is to construct tables such that every table has a single topic or theme to remove duplicated data.
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List the problems associated with information silos.
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An information silo is the condition that exists when data are isolated in separated information systems. Problems include data duplication & inconsistency, separated supporting applications, lack of integrated enterprise data as a consequence of disjointed systems, and inefficiency from making decisions in isolation
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What is the fundamental problem of information silos? How can this problem be remedied?
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The fundamental problem of information silos is having data in multiple places. This can be solved by either integrating the data into a single database and revise business applications to use that database or to carefully manage the data in isolation.
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What are the four phases of the customer life cycle? Briefly describe each phase.
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Marketing-sends messages to target market to attract customer prospects Customer acquisition-when prospects order they become customers to need to be supported relationship management-increase the value of existing customers by selling them more product loss/churn-processes to win back lost customers
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Define ERP. What is the primary purpose of an ERP system?
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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a suite of applications called modules, a database, and a set of inherent processes for consolidating business operations into a single, consistent, computing platform. The primary purpose of an ERP system is integration of information so that critical business decisions can be made on a timely basis using the latest data.
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List the functions of enterprise application integration (EAI).
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The functions of EAI are to -connect system "islands" via a new layer of software/system -enable existing applications to communicate and share data -provide integrated information -leverage existing systems -enable a gradual move to ERP
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Explain the nature of the database component of an ERP solution.
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Includes database design as well as the initial configuration data. During development of the database initial values must be entered for data as part of the development effort. trigger- computer program stored within the database that runs to keep the database consistent stored procedure- computer program stored within database used to enforce business rules
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What are the four challenges of implementing new enterprise systems?
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Collaborative management, requirements gaps, transition problems, and employee resistance
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How should organizations manage employee resistance to change, in the context of new enterprise systems?
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Senior level management must communicate & reiterate the need for the change, employees must be trained and coached to the successful use of the new system to enhance confidence, and employees may need to be given extra inducement to change to the new system
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Define business intelligence and BI systems.
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business intelligence-patterns, relationships, trends, and predictions produced by BI systems BI systems- information systems that process operational, social, and other data to identify business intelligence for use by business professionals and other knowledge workers
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Name and describe the three primary activities in the BI process.
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Data acquisition-process of obtaining, cleaning, organizing, relating, and cataloging source data BI analysis-process of creating business intelligence (reporting, data mining, BigData and knowledge management) publish results-process of delivering business intelligence to the knowledge workers who need it
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Describe the functions of data warehouses.
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A data warehouse is a facility for managing and organizing an organization's BI data. The functions of a data warehouse are to obtain, cleanse, organize & relate, and catalog data.
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What are the common problems with using operational data?
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Common problems with operational data include -dirty data -missing values -inconsistent data -data not being integrated -wrong granularity -too much data
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Describe the features of a data mart.
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A data mart is a data collection, smaller than a data warehouse, that addresses the needs of a particular department or functional area of the business. Similar to a retail store in a supply chain.
