1. Information Systems Management
Using MIS 4e Chapter 11
Information Systems Management

2. Study Questions
Q1 What are the functions and organization of the IS department?
Q2 How do organizations plan the use of IS?
Q3 What tasks are necessary for managing computing infrastructure?
Q4 What tasks are necessary for managing enterprise applications?
Q5 What are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing?
Q6 What are your IS rights and responsibilities?
Q ?
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

3. Prolog
You might someday be a manger of a business that is too small to hire a full-time IS manager.
To avoid problems like those that Jeff will find in Chapter 12.
You need to understand the responsibilities and duties of the IS department so you can be an effective consumer of the IS department’s resources.
To be a better informed and effective business planner or innovator.
IS a major element of nearly every organization. Understanding IS responsibilities and organization of IS department is key for every business professional.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

4. Q1: What Are the Functions and Organization of the IS Department?
Plan the use of IS to accomplish organizational goals and strategy.
Develop, operate, and maintain the organization’s computing infrastructure.
Develop, operate, and maintain enterprise applications.
Protect information assets.
• Manage outsourcing relationships.
Video
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

5. How Is the IS Department Organized?
Typical Senior-Level Reporting Relationships
(video)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

6. What IS-Related Job Positions Exist?
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

7. What IS-Related Job Positions Exist? (cont’d)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

8. What IS-Related Job Positions Exist? (cont’d)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

9. Q2: How Do Organizations Plan the Use of IS?
Align information systems with organization changes; maintain alignment as organization changes
Communicate IS/IT issues to executive group
Develop/enforce IS priorities within IS department
Sponsor steering committee
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

10. Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer
Suppose you are a manager at a company with a stated policy.
“Computers, , and the Internet are to be used primarily for official company business. Small amounts of personal can be exchanged with friends and family, and occasional usage of the Internet is permitted, but such usage should be limited and never interfere with your work.”
You learn one of your employees has been engaged in the activities listed on following slide.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

11. Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer (cont’d)
Playing computer games during work hours
Playing computer games before and after work hours
Responding to s from an ill parent
Watching DVDs during lunch and breaks
Sending s to plan a party that mostly involves people from work
Sending s to plan a party that mostly involves no one from work
Updating your Facebook page
Reading news on CNN.com
Checking stock market over Internet
Tweeting friends on your computer about your softball win last night
Selling personal items on eBay
Paying personal bills online
Paying personal bills online when traveling on company business
Buying an airplane ticket for an ill parent over the Internet
Changing content of a personal website
Changing content of a personal business website
Buying an airplane ticket for a personal vacation over Internet
1. Explain how you would respond to each situation.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

12. Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer (cont’d)
2. Suppose someone from the IS department notifies you that one of your employees is spending 3 hours a day surfing the web. How do you respond?
3. For question 2, suppose you ask how the IS department knows about your employee and you are told, “We secretly monitor computer usage.” Do you object to such monitoring? Why or why not?
4. Suppose someone from the IS department notifies you that one of your employees is sending many personal s. When you ask how they know the s are personal, you are told that they measure account activity and that when suspicious usage is suspected the IS department reads employees’ . Do you think such reading is legal? Is it ethical? How do you respond?
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

13. Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer (cont’d)
If so, does that justify the company reading your ? Does this situation differ from having someone read your personal postal mail that happens to be delivered to you at work? Why or why not?
5. As an employee, if you know your company occasionally reads s, does that change your behavior?
6. Write what you think is the best corporate policy for personal computer usage at work.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

14. Q3: What Tasks Are Necessary for Managing Computing Infrastructure?
Align Infrastructure Design with Organizational Structure
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

15. Align Infrastructure Design with Organizational Structure
Create and maintain infrastructure for end-user computing
Create, operate, and maintain networks
Create, operate, and maintain data centers, data warehouses, and data marts
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

16. Other Managing Tasks
Create, operate, and maintain computing infrastructure
Establish technology and product standards
Track problems and monitor resolutions
Manage computing infrastructure staff
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

17. Organization of a Typical IS Operations Group
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

18. Plan for Information Systems and IT Infrastructure
Develop and adapt information systems and IT infrastructure
IS department responsible for creating computer networks, servers, data centers, data warehouses, data marts, systems, VPNs, company blogs, SharePoint sites, and other IS-based infrastructure
Maintain information systems, operate and manage infrastructure
Managing IT operations
Manage development processes
Manage outsourcing relations Outsourcing (video)
Protect Infrastructure and data from threats
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

19. Q4: What Tasks Are Necessary for Managing Enterprise Applications?
Manage development of new applications
Maintain legacy systems
Adapt systems to changing requirements
Track user problems and monitor fixes
Integrate applications
Manage development staff
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

20. Organization of a Typical IS Development Group
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

21. Data Administration Responsibilities
Enterprise function to:
Define data standards
Maintain data dictionary
Define data policy
Establish disaster-recovery plan
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

22. Define Data Standards
Name, official definition, usage, relationship to other data items, processing restrictions, version, security restrictions, format, other features of data items shared across organization, and data owner
Lack of documented and known data standards causes considerable duplication of effort, data inconsistency, wasted labor, and processing errors
Without a standard definition, two different applications might refer to same item with different names
Example: Is “sku_description” same as “sku_item_desc”?
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

23. Maintain the Data Dictionary
A file or database that contains data definitions each standard data item
Data dictionary
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

24. Define Data Policies
“We will not share identifying customer data with another organization.”
“We will not share non-identifying customer data with another organization without approval of the legal department.”
Employee data are never to be released to anyone other than employee without approval of the human resources department.”
Data administrator works with senior executives, legal department, functional department managers, and others to determine policies
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

25. Plan for Disaster Recovery
Disaster-recovery planning for recovering data and systems in event of a catastrophe such as an earthquake, flood, terrorist event, or other significant processing disruption. We will address this function further in Chapter 12 when discussing computer security.
Managing information systems is a broad and complicated task. Some organizations choose to outsource one or more IS functions.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

26. Q5: What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing?
Any value chain business activity can be outsourced
To domestic or international vendor
Reasons to outsource overseas:
Cheaper labor
Taking advantage of time differences
Process of hiring another organization to perform services
“Your back room is someone else’s front room.” (Peter Drucker)
Employee cafeteria is a back room operation
Outsource it to a food services company. It’s their front room operation.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

27. Outsource Information Systems
Advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing (video)
More reasons for outsourcing here
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

28. Risk Reduction Cap financial risk
Reduce risk by ensuring a certain level of quality, or avoiding risk of having substandard quality
Reduce implementation risk of picking wrong hardware or wrong software, using wrong network protocol, or implementing tax law changes incorrectly
Once a company has chosen outsource vendor, further risk management is up to that vendor
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

29. International Outsourcing
India is a popular source because it has a large, well-educated, English-speaking population that will work for 70 to 80 % less labor cost than in United States. China and other countries are used as well.
Modern telephone technology and Internet-enabled service databases, a single service call can be initiated in United States, partially processed in India, then Singapore, and finalized by an employee in England.
Used for customer support and other functions that must be operational 24/7.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

30. What Are Outsourcing Alternatives?
Web storefront or Web Hosting
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

31. Risks of Outsourcing
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

32. Benefits Outweighed by Long-Term Costs
Removes benefits of economies of scale
Vendor may change pricing strategy after it becomes sole source
Organization may pay for vendor’s mismanagement
No easy exit
Vendor may be grossly inefficient and you may not know it
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

33. Q6: What Are Your IS Rights and Responsibilities? (video)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

34. Q6: What Are Your IS Rights and Responsibilities? (cont’d)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

35. Q7: 2021?
Most organizations will move their internal hardware infrastructure into the cloud.
Companies concerned about security will keep some data on their own, privately controlled servers.
Running a computer center for anyone other than a cloud vendor is not a promising career.
Licensed, off-the-shelf software will be more configurable, adaptable, and flexible.
Fewer applications developed in-house, and software customization will be easier.
Fewer and less-skilled employees needed to adapt software to increasingly unique organizational needs.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

36. Q7: 2021? (cont’d)
Small computing devices will be cheaper, more popular and more powerful than cheap cell phones today.
How will organizations maintain control of their employees’ use of IT?
Over the past 40 years, IS departments have waged a losing battle for control over corporate data. That will continue.
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

37. Guide: Is Outsourcing Fool’s Gold?
Outsourcing computer infrastructure is trading one set of problems for another
Outsourcing IT middle management
Outsource vendor hires your IT staff
No way to know if vendor’s middle managers are better than yours
Vendor’s bureaucratic problems—forms, procedures, committees, report, management tools, etc.
You become a clone of vendor’s other clients
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

38. Guide: Is Outsourcing Fool’s Gold? (cont’d)
Hard to bring outsourced operations back in-house
Can’t hire vendor’s employees
Your employees lack critical knowledge
Vendor’s are not committed to your bottom line
You can’t get away from IS problems by hiring someone else to manage your IS (procedures and people) for you
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

39. Guide: What If You Just Don’t Know?
Not all problems can be solved by quantitative analysis
Some problems have no agreed upon method for solving
Paper analysis often misses tangibles and intangibles
Hiring independent consultant avoids issue
No time find answers
No money to conduct in-depth study
Study may cloud issues more
Sometimes, it’s just not possible to find the answer
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

40. Active Review
Q1 What are the functions and organization of the IS department?
Q2 How do organizations plan the use of IS?
Q3 What tasks are necessary for managing computing infrastructure?
Q4 What tasks are necessary for managing enterprise applications?
Q5 What are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing?
Q6 What are your IS rights and responsibilities?
Q ?
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall