Chapter 4: Hardware, Software, and Mobile Systems

Summary: For someone to understand MIS it’s important to understand the basics of hardware and software concepts. Two major software concepts to understand are open source and closed source. Knowing the difference between native and web applications is also an essential to understand why mobile devices and systems are so vital to today’s market and business practices. Many companies are beginning to switch from providing devices to their employees to do work on to requiring employees to bring their own devices to work.
Q4-1 What Do Business Professionals Need to Know About Computer Hardware? Computing Hardware: a device that consists of electronic components that can input, process, output, and store data.
Hardware Components: Central Processing Unit (CPU): Brain of computer. Dual-processor: computer with 2 CPU’s. Main Memory/RAM (random access memory): CPU reads data and instructions and then stores results of computations in main memory. Storage Hardware: used to save data and programs.
Types of Hardware: In today’s age, there are many types of hardware such as: desktop computers, personal computers (PC’s), tablets, smart phones, servers, and server farms.
Computer Data: Computer data is inputted as binary digits (bits) which are 1’s and 0’s. These binary digits take up memory space known as computer data sizes such as: kilobyte/KB (collection of 1,024 bytes), megabyte/MB, Gigabyte/GB, Terabyte/TB, petabyte/PB, exabyte/EB, and zettabyte/ZB. CPU speed is expressed in cycles called hertz. Cache and main memory are volatile, magnetic and optical disks are nonvolatile.
Q4-2 How Can New Hardware Affect Competitive Strategies?
Internet of Things (IoT): The internet of things in the connection of devices to the internet to interact with one another. Smartphones and smart devices have revolutionized IoT.
Self-Driving Cars: Self-driving cars make things easier because the driver no longer has to be concerned with the actual driving. This means less time prepping for long trips. They would also eliminate the need to own multiple cars because no one “needs” the car to get to and from places, you can have it pick you up/drop you off and then the next person can use it. Self-driving cars can disrupts businesses in transportation, finance, insurance, manufacturing, real estate.
3D Printing
Q4-3 What Do Business Professionals Need to Know About Software?
Operating system(OS): program that controls the computer’s resources such as: read/write data, allocate main memory, perform memory swapping, start/stop programs, respond to error conditions, facilitate backup/recovery. Two types of applications, narrative (thick client) and web (thin client).
What Are the Major Operating Systems?
Desktop/PC: Windows, Mac OS, Unix, Linux. Mobile: Symbian, Blackberry OS, iOS, Android, Windows 10. Servers: Window Server, Unix, Linux.
Virtualization: There are 3 types of virtualization. PC: hosts several different operating systems. Server: server computer costs one or more other server computers (key role in cloud vendors). Desktop: servers hosts many versions of desktop operating systems.
What Types of Applications Exist, and How Do Organizations Obtain Them?
Horizontal-market applications provides capabilities common across all organizations and industries such as word processors and spreadsheets. Vertical Market Applications serve the needs of a specific industry such as scheduling appointments or tracking inventory. One-of-a-kind software is developed for a specific and unique need such as for the U.S. department of defense.
Q4-4 Is Open Source Software a Viable Alternative?
Internet became great asset to open source projects such as: LibreOffice, Firefox, Apache, Android, and Hadoop.
Why Do Programmers Volunteer Their Service?
This allows for programmers to collaborate on open source codes helping fix problems, create a better code, or just do small alterations to improve existing codes. One of the reasons why technology continuously evolves.
Q4-5 What Are the Differences between Native and Web Applications?
Developing Native Applications: Specific computer applications use a programming language that allows the application to perform fast and use memory efficiency; downside is native applications only run operating system they are programmed for. Example Mac OS/iOS applications constructed using Java. Cost of Native Applications is high.
Developing Web Applications: Web applications run on any operating system and device with possible slight differences depending on the web browser and/or device. Web applications are a lot cheaper than native applications.
Q4-6 Why Are Mobile Systems Increasingly Important?
Mobile systems are important because of the size of their market. Mobile devices have revolutionized the market thus increasing the need for mobile systems. People use their mobile devices to pretty much do everything.
Hardware: Many companies are learning that PC’s are becoming less relevant and mobile devices are an essential to stay in the market and keep the business alive.
Software: Because software is constantly changing there are new opportunities to revolutionize the tech industry.
Q4-7 What Are the Challenges of Personal Mobile Devices at Work?
Organizations are happy employees buy their own devices instead of having to produce them but hate that they have no control over employees when it comes to using their mobile devices at work.
Advantage and Disadvantages of Employee Use of Mobile Systems at Work: Advantages include: cost savings, greater employee satisfaction, reduced need for training, higher productivity, and reduced support costs. Disadvantages include: data loss or damage, loss of control, compatibility problems, risk of infection, and greater support costs.
Survey of Organizational BYOD Policy: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Policy: they don’t exist, we’ll be a coffee shop, we’ll offer limited systems you can access from any device, you’re responsible for damage, we’ll check it out reload software then manage remotely, if you connect it we own it. Companies install mobile device management (MDM) software to maintain some form of control over the company’s data and information on the employees personal device.
3 Things I Took Away From This Chapter
1.       The difference between Native and Web applications. Developing Native Applications are specific computer applications use a programming language that allows it to perform fast and use memory efficiency. While Developing Web Applications run on any operating system and device with possible slight differences depending on the web browser and/or device. Web applications are also a lot cheaper than native applications. 

      2.    The importance mobile systems and mobile devices play in our market and business practices. For example, cell phone are no longer just used to make calls or send text messages, but are now used for everyday uses such as banking, shopping, and as a personal computer.
3.    Employers are switching from providing to employees at the office to employees having to bring their own devices and the software businesses use to maintain some type of control over the business data employees have access to on their devices.

Chapter 3: Strategy and Information Systems

Chapter 3

Summary

Organizational strategy determines Information System structure with the help of Porter’s Five Forces model. Following, organizations use Porter’s Four Competitive Strategies to then determine the Value Chain structure. Business processes are throughout the value chain; it’s key to competitive advantage to streamline business processes to increase margin. In response to competitive forces, organizations use competitive techniques created via product and services and via business process development, which are categorized into 8 principles.

Topics and Details

Q3-1 How Does Organizational Strategy Determine Information Systems Structure?

Competitive strategy determines an org.’s goals and objectives and an IS structure, features, and functions. Michael Porter developed 3 models that show how org. strategy determines IS.

Q3-2 What Five Forces Determine Industry Structure?

Porter’s Five Forces model: used to asses industry structure, profitability, and sustainability. Competitive forces: bargaining power of customers, threat of substitutions, bargaining power of suppliers, and rivalry.

Q3-3 How Does Analysis of industry Structure Determine Competitive Strategy?

Porter’s Four Competitive Strategies: an org. can focus on being a cost leader or focus on differentiating its products/services from competitors. After choosing one of these strategies, the org. can choose to employ it across an industry or a specific industry segment.

Q3-4 How Does Competitive Strategy Determine Value Chain Structure?

Cost strategy: the org. activities would provide essential functions at the lowest cost possible. A Differentiation strategy: an org. may use costly processes but only if the benefits outweigh the costs. Value: “amount of money a customer is willing to pay for a resource, product, or service” Margin: “the difference between the value…activity generates and the cost of the activity” Value Chain: “a network of value-creating activities” – generic chain: 5 primary activities and 4 support activities (indirectly involved in the production, sale, and service of a product). Linkages: “interactions across value activities”

Q3-5 How Do Business Processes Generate Value?

Business Process: “a network of activities that generate value by transforming inputs into outputs” Cost: “cost of the inputs plus the cost of the activities” Activity: “a business function that receives inputs and produces outputs” Repository: “a collection of something”- ex. database is a collection of data. Business processes span throughout the value chain activities, but vary in cost and effectiveness. Key to competitive advantage is streamlining business processes to increase margin. Change in business processes is difficult; one reason is that employees will need to work in new ways and follow new procedures.

Q3-6 How Does Competitive Strategy Determine Business Processes and the Structure of Information Systems?

The cost strategy implanted business processes that minimize costs for itself and customers while the differentiation strategy focuses on providing a high-end service. The IS needed for each strategy is different; for example, the cost strategy uses a shoebox for its data facility and the differentiation strategy uses extensive IS like sales tracking and inventory databases. Customer interaction can also be different.

Q3-7 How Do Information Systems Provide Competitive Advantages?

Org. respond to the competitive forces and distill them into 8 principles. Competitive techniques are created via product and services or via business process development. The first 3 principles concern products or services. Orgs. gain competitive advantage by: “creating new products or services, by enhancing existing products or services, and by differentiating their products and services from those of their competitors”. The other 5 principles concern the process. Orgs. gain competitive advantages by locking in customers and buyers, locking in suppliers, raising barriers to market entry, establish alliances, and reduce costs.

Q3-8 2026?

It’s unlikely that business strategy and competitive advantages models, and their relationship to processes and IS will change in 10 years. It’s more likely that new models will arise but they will probably be extensions of the old ones. The pace of business will accelerate due to technological advantages. Self-driving cars will be a factor in competitive advantage since transportation is a major cost for many products.

Three things I learned

Competitive advantage plays a big role ensuring a business’ effectiveness and efficiency in the market. For businesses, it starts with the organizational strategy. The organization strategy determines the industry structure, where there are five forces of influence. Next, an industry structure analysis will determine the best competitive strategy for a business to use. There are two strategies, cost and differentiation, which can be used across an industry or in a specific industry segment. Then, the competitive strategy determines the value chain structure. It affects the 5 primary activities and the 4 support activities. Business processes span throughout the value chain so it is also determined by the competitive strategy and can be done by either a person or a computer. Competitive advantage also determines the best information systems a business should use to fulfill its business procedures.

There are five primary activities in the value chain. Inbound Logistics refers to receiving, storing, and disseminating inputs to the products. Operations/Manufacturing refers to transforming inputs into the final products. Outbound Logistics refers to collecting, storing, and physically distributing the product to buyers Sales and Marketing refers to inducing buyers to purchase the products and providing a means for them to do so. Customer Service refers to assisting customer’ use of the products and maintaining and enhancing the products’ value. They are the standard stages of manufacturing a product.

I know self-driving cars are becoming a big thing. They will reduce transportation costs dramatically for businesses but it also comes with major consequences. Many transport people like truckers will be out of jobs. Also, how will the businesses compensate for the lack of human presence? For example, truckers need to stop at weigh stations throughout their travels. Also, if the road is under construction or there’s a bridge that is too low to pass under, how will the A.I. deal with the need to change routes. I think a good option would be to have a person as an “operator” to keep an eye on the system and the road conditions and could take control of the situation if it runs into a problem.

Chapter 2: Collaboration Information System

Chapter 2

Summary: Collaboration has a major role in business, especially among team members. It is important to give effective critical feedback to teammates and team leaders. One must be well informed before making any decisions. Collaboration tools can be used to improve team communication, to manage shared content and to manage tasks.

Topics and details

Q2-1: What Are Two Key Characteristics of Collaboration?

Cooperation: “a group of people working together, all doing essentially the same type of work, to accomplish a job.” Collaboration: “a group of people working together to achieve a common goal via a process of feedback and iteration.” Two Key Characteristics of Collaboration are feedback and iterations. Importance of Effective Critical Feedback: teammates learn from each other through collaboration. It’s difficult to learn if there are no different ideas expressed.Guidelines of Giving and Receiving Critical feedback: The most important collaboration skill is giving and receiving critical feedback. Students should set feedback guidelines when they first meet. Warning: Many people do not understand the importance of collaboration and prefer to do the work alone, but should remember that everyone has different backgrounds and experiences.                         

Q2-2: What are Three Criteria for Successful Collaboration?

Hackman’s three criteria for successful team collaboration are successful outcome, growth in team capability, and meaningful and satisfying experience.                                                            

Successful Outcome: The team needs to accomplish their goal whether making a decision, solving a problem, and creating a work product within the time limit and budget. Growth in Team Capacity: Teams often last months to years in business. Over time, the team becomes more efficient, develops better work processes and inter-group communication. Meaningful and Satisfying Experience: If a task is perceived as important to the group, then it will become meaningful.

Q2-3: What are the Four Primary Purposes of Collaboration?

The four primary purposes of collaboration are becoming informed, making decisions, solving problems, and managing projects.                                                                                                 Becoming Informed: “The goal of the informing is to ensure, as much as possible, that team members are conceiving information in the same way.”                                                                   Making Decisions: Operational decisions: “are those that support operational, day-to-day activities.” Managerial decisions: “are decisions about the allocation and utilization of resources.” Strategic decisions: “are those that support broad-scope, organizational issues.” Structured decision: “there is an understood and accepted method for making a decision. Unstructured decision: “there is no agreed-on decision-making method.” Decision processes and their decision types are loosely related. Collaboration is less needed in structured decisions, but is crucial in unstructured decisions. Solving Problems: Problem: “a perceived difference between what is and what ought to be.” The most important task for a problem-solving collaboration group is defining the problem. Managing Projects: There are four stages to managing projects: starting, planning, doing, and finalizing.

Q2-4: What are the Requirements for a Collaboration Information System?

Collaboration information system: “an information system that supports collaboration.”                      The Five Components of an IS of Collaboration: Project Data: “data that is part of the collaboration’s work product.” Project metadata: “data used to manage the project.”                     Primary Functions: Communication and Content Sharing- “there are numerous alternatives to constructing an IS” to meet the requirements of Hackman’s three criteria.

Q2-5: How Can You Use Collaboration Tools to Improve Team Communication?

Team communications are important to collaborative projects since there is a need to provide feedback. Synchronous communication: “when all team members meet at the same time” i.e. conference call or meeting. Asynchronous communication: “when teams do not meet at the same time” i.e. different time zones. Virtual meetings: communication technology where people do not meet up at the same place and possibly not the same time. Screen-sharing applications: “enables user to view the same whiteboard, application, or other display.” Webinar: “virtual meeting in which attendees view one of the attendees’ computer screens for a more formal and organized presentation.” Videoconferencing: using webcams on computers to have “face-to-face” without the physical attendance i.e. Google Hangouts, WebEx, and Skype for Business. Email: usually used by teams who need asynchronous meetings. Discussing forums: an alternative to emails. Team surveys: members create a list of questions and other members answer them.

Q2-6: How Can You Use Collaboration Tools to Manage Shared Content?

For sharing office documents, many use Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, or Apache OpenOffice. It is important to content share, enable iteration, and provide feedback. Team members need to share both project data, work-product data, and project metadata.                                                       Shared Content with No Control: “email is simple, easy, and readily available” but it is not good for collaboration. File Server: “simply a computer that stores files.” Servers are better than email because there is only one storage location, but if two people are making changes at the same time, one’s changes will be lost. Shared Content with Version Management on Google Drive: Version management: “track changes to documents and provide features and functions to accommodate concurrent work.” Google Drive: “a free service that provides a virtual drive in the cloud into which you can create folders and store files. Shared Content with Version Control: Version control: “the process that occurs when the collaboration tool limits, and sometimes even directs, user activity. It involves the following capabilities: user activity limited by permissions, document checkout, version histories, and workflow control. Libraries: “shared directories that shared documents are placed into.” Document directories can be set up to require users to check out documents before they can be modified. “Collaboration tools that provide version controls have the data to readily provide histories on behalf of the users.” Workflow control: “manage activities in a predefined process.”

Q2-7: How Can You Use Collaboration Tools to Manage Tasks?

Keeping a current task list is key to team progress. When teams create and manage task lists, they reduce the risk of non-action. Sharing a Task List on Google Drive: It is simple. Every team member needs a Google account, then one member can create a team folder and share it with the others with permission to edit all documents inside. Then a member would create a spreadsheet on that folder. Sharing a Task List Using Microsoft SharePoint: “SharePoint includes a built-in content type for managing task lists that provides robust and powerful features.” The standard task list: readily modifiable for user-customized columns.

Q2-8: Which Collaboration IS is Right for Your Team?

Three Sets of Collaboration Tools: The Minimal Collaboration tool set: you will be able to collaborate with your team, but with little help from the software. “You will need to manage the concurrent access by setting up procedures and agreements to ensure that one user’s work doesn’t conflict with another’s. The Good Collaboration tool set: is a more sophisticated set of collaboration tools such as the ability to conduct multiparty audio and video virtual meetings. There is also “concurrent access to documents, spreadsheet, and presentation files. The Comprehensive Collaboration tool set: This is the best of the three sets. It has content management and control, workflow control, and online meetings with sharing. Choosing the Set for Your Team: Power Curve: “a graph that shows the relationships of the power as a function of the time using that product.” Over time, the project will become complex and the problems of controlling concurrent access will cause power to decrease. Don’t Forget Procedures and People: You don’t have to worry about hardware with Good or Comprehensive sets. Your team needs to have agreement on tools usage and what will happen when a members don’t use them.

Q2-9: 2026?

“Free data communications and data storage will make collaboration systems cheaper and easier to use.” Employees who isn’t required to provide services in person will work from home, while nearly all corporate training will be done online.

Three things that I learned

1)      Cost is something to think about when choosing a Collaboration tool set, but it’s not everything since all team member would have to be willing to contribute to the payment of said set. I never thought about the cost of collaboration tool sets. I never used them until I started college, but even then I used Google Drive, which is essentially free. Google Drive is categorized as a Good Collaboration tool since it includes forms of communication, content sharing, task management, and nice-to-have features. It’s free and easy to use, but it has a limited value to future business professional and other limitations such as tools not being integrated so you have to learn to use several products.

2)      I have realized that when doing group projects, most groups follow the same pattern or stages, with some changes here and there. The first stage is the Starting Phase where team members share some personal information and get to know each other. The team is usually pretty decisive when it comes to deciding on a leader and other initial roles, rules, and responsibilities. The project scope is also touched upon lightly. The next stage is the Planning Phase.  This is where we determine what the tasks will be then dish out the tasks and dependencies out to the members. We will also devise a schedule as to when we’ll meet up or when to have certain task done by. The third step is the Doing Phase, where the work is in progress. We begin doing our tasks and solving problems with deadlines or group meeting times by rescheduling. We will also keep tabs and check in on each other for a status update or any inquiries. Finally, the Finalizing Phase, where we determine that the project is complete. We turn in our documents, present our data and results, then we disband the team.

3)      When participating in group projects, professors usually have us evaluate our team members and give critical feedback. I think a lot of students dislike this process, but it is quite helpful if one is receiving constructive criticism. Here are some helpful guidelines to improve your feedback giving skill. You should be specific; for example, if you do not understand then state exactly what you do not understand about it. You should offer suggestions, but avoid personal comments. Always question your emotions, especially if you feel upset or angry with another’s comment or work. It’s better to understand why you are feeling a certain way than lashing out. Do not dominate the project. It’s not your project, it’s your team’s project. Finally, you should demonstrate a commitment to the group. If you say that you’re going to get a task done or going to meet the group at a certain time, then do it.