MIS-205: E-Business Global E-business & Collaboration by Md. Mahbubul Alam, PhD

Define and describe business processes and their relationship to information systems. Evaluate the role played by systems serving the various levels of management in a business and their relationship to each other. Explain how enterprise applications improve organizational performance. Explain the importance of collaboration and teamwork in business and how they are supported by technology. Assess the role of the information systems function in a business. Learning Objectives 2

Business processes: – Workflows of material, information, knowledge – Sets of activities, steps – May be tied to functional area or be cross-functional Businesses: Can be seen as collection of business processes Business processes may be assets or liabilities Business Processes 3

Examples of functional business processes – Manufacturing and production Assembling the product Checking for quality – Sales and marketing Identifying customers Making customers aware about the product Selling the product – Finance and accounting Creating financial statements Managing cash accounts – Human resources Hiring employees Evaluating employees’ job performance Business Processes (Cont’d) 4

Fulfilling a customer order involves a complex set of steps that requires the close coordination of the sales, accounting, and manufacturing functions. The Order Fulfillment, a business process Functional areas Business processes

IS & Business Processes Information technology enhances business processes in two main ways: 1.Increasing efficiency of existing processes Automating steps that were manual 2.Enabling entirely new processes that are capable of transforming the businesses Change flow of information Replace sequential steps with parallel steps Eliminate delays in decision making 6

Types of Information Systems Operational level Support operational managers, track activities & transactions Management level Monitoring, controlling, decision-making, & administrative activities Strategic level help senior management tackle & address strategic issues

Transaction processing systems – Perform and record daily routine transactions necessary to conduct business Examples: sales order entry, payroll, shipping – Allow managers to monitor status of operations and relations with external environment – Serve operational levels – Serve predefined, structured goals and decision making 8

Payroll Process (TPS ) A TPS for payroll processing captures employee payment transaction data (such as a time card). System outputs include online and hard-copy reports for management and employee paychecks.

Management Information Systems Serve middle management Provide reports on firm’s current performance, based on data from TPS Provide answers to routine questions with predefined procedure for answering them e.g., summary or comparison of total sales figures for specific product Typically have little analytic capability MIS Vs. IS? 10

MIS & TPS

Sample MIS Report

Serve middle management Support non-routine decision making – Focus on problems that are unique & rapidly changing – Example: What is impact on production schedule if December sales doubled? – What would happen to our return on investment if a factory schedule were delayed for six months? Often use information from – External sources: e.g., stock prices, product prices of competitors – Internal sources: e.g., TPS, MIS Model driven DSS Voyage-estimating systems, calculates financial & technical voyage details Data driven DSS Intrawest’s marketing analysis systems, collects & stores large amounts of customer data Analyze data to determine value, revenue potential & customer loyalty Decision Support Systems 13

Decision Support Systems This DSS operates on a powerful PC. It is used daily by managers who must develop bids on shipping contracts.

Class of software applications Analyze current and historical data to find patterns and trends and aid decision-making Used in systems that support middle and senior management – Data-driven DSS – Executive support systems (ESS) e.g., What are the long-term industry cost trends, & where does our firm fit in? What new acquisitions would protect us from cyclical business swings? Business Intelligence (BI) 15

Support senior management Address non-routine decisions – requiring judgment, evaluation, and insight – presents graphs & data from many sources Incorporate data about external events (e.g. new tax laws or competitors) as well as summarized information from internal MIS and DSS – e.g., Digital dashboard presents real-time graphical overview (graphs & charts) of firm’s key performance indicators working capital, accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash flow, and inventory Executive Support Systems 16

Systems from a constituency perspective and interrelationships Transaction processing systems: supporting operational level employees Management information systems and decision-support systems: supporting managers Executive support systems: supporting executives Relationship of systems to one another TPS: Major source of data for other systems ESS: Recipient of data from lower-level systems Data may be exchanged between systems

Enterprise Applications Systems that – Span functional areas – Focus on executing business process including all levels of management across the business firm – Support organization-wide process of coordination and integration. 4 major enterprise applications – Enterprise systems (ERP) Linking the enterprise – Supply chain management systems Inter-organizational system – Customer relationship management systems – Knowledge management systems Capturing and applying knowledge and expertise.

Enterprise applications automate processes that span multiple business functions and organizational levels and may extend outside the organization. Enterprise Application Architecture

Enterprise Systems Also known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems Collects data from different systems and stores data in a single central data repository Resolves problem of fragmented, redundant data sets and systems Enable: – Coordination of daily activities – Efficient response to customer orders (production, inventory) – Provide valuable information for improving management decision making

Enterprise Systems

Supply Chain Management (SCM) Manage firm’s relationships with suppliers Share information about – Orders, production, inventory levels, delivery of products and services The close linkage and coordination of activities involved in buying, making, and moving a product SCM integrates business processes to speed information, product, and fund flows up and down a supply chain Goal: – Reduces time, redundant effort, and inventory costs One type of interorganizational system – Automate the flow of information across organizational boundaries

Supply Chain Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) ‏ Business and technology discipline for managing customer relationships to optimize revenue, profitability, customer satisfaction, and customer retention Applications of a CRM system – Capture and integrate customer data from all over the organization – Consolidate and analyze the data – Distribute results to various systems and customer touch points across the enterprise – Provide a single touch point for the customer

Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) Support processes for acquiring, creating, storing, distributing, applying, integrating knowledge – How to create, produce, distribute products and services Collect internal knowledge and experience within firm and make it available to employees – Link to external sources of knowledge 4 systems – Knowledge discovery systems – Knowledge capture systems – Knowledge sharing systems – Knowledge application systems 25

Systems for Collaboration and Teamwork Collaboration is working with others to achieve shared and explicit goals. Why collaborate? – Changing nature of work – Growth of professional work – Changing organization – Changing scope of the firm – Emphasis on innovation – Changing culture of work and business Advantages Productivity Quality Innovation Customer service Financial performance (profitability, sales, and sales growth)

Successful collaboration requires an appropriate organizational structure and culture, along with appropriate collaboration technology. Systems for Collaboration and Teamwork

Collaboration Tools – and instant messaging – Collaborative writing/editing – Event scheduling – File sharing – Screen sharing – Audio/Video conferencing – White boarding – Web presenting – Work scheduling – Document sharing (including wikis) – Mind mapping – Large audience Webinars – Co-browsing – Social Networking – Wikis – Virtual Worlds – Internet-Based Collaboration Environments Virtual meeting systems (telepresence) Google Apps/Google sites Microsoft SharePoint Lotus Notes

TIME/SPACE COLLABORATION TOOL MATRIX Collaboration technologies can be classified in terms of whether they support interactions at the same or different time or place whether these interactions are remote or co-located.