Section II of MIS

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Student: NGUYEN THI BICH NGOAN

ID: 117795

Class: Hom#10B

Section Exam I

Question I: Describe a new business for which you think a “virtual organization”—which has no physical office or headquarters—could be an effective design, and some ways that the leaders of such an organization could use IT to help them effectively run their business.

Today when Internet is very popular everywhere, all transactions are taken more easily. The more IT develops, the more convenience we feel. We just stay at home but we can buy many things, we don’t need to waste time to go to the shop, find things that we like. We just search on Internet and with a click we can order products, and chosen products will be delivered soon. Not only online shopping is more popular to day but learning online as well.

Online school is one of “virtual organizations” that has no physical office or headquarters. Online school, in which all activities can be operated online. The leader of this school can use IT to help them effectively run their business. From designing school to inviting teachers and recruiting students. Firstly they design a website to introduce and market their school. The second, they can recruit teachers and students through the web. They can held online classes, discuss and grade online too. Students don’t need to go to their school to pay tuition fee but by bank account. School will give each student a personal account with their own password to study and submit their assignments. It’s the same CSU now; all information is confirmed or discussed through email. With online programs, learners have more opportunities to improve their knowledge, they can learn many things around the word, and they can obtain valuable degrees from foreign countries but don’t need go abroad.

Question II: Provide an example of how a business function with which you are familiar (e.g., marketing, finance, operations/production, accounting, human resources) can be highly dependent on IT.

Nowadays, all of businesses use IT to support them. Thank to IT they can operate their companies more effectively by marketing or advertising, selling online. For example in my school - Economic faculty, Vietnam national University. Computers with some soft wares are very important tools to manage students’ information, grades and many other things. After teachers finish grade reports, employees of training department will scan them and then convert them into Microsoft word program. It helps us save time and reduce mistakes by typing students‘grade. We can use FoxPro and Access to manage all students’ information, if we don’t use IT; it is so difficult to control information system. Students can register subject online and can search some information about our school, training program, teachers, time of taking exams, and can know their grades. And the way we are learning at Southern Columbia University is the good example for using IT, A lot of things depend on Internet, when Internet has a problem, we will have many troubles because we can not submit our assignments, can not contact with professor and exchange information each other. To professors, they can’t grade students without IT, especially turnitin.com; this is a very important tool to recognize students’ plagiarism. Student can not cheat in their exams or assignments by copying from other people or from books and other sources, they have to do their exams by theirs eves.

So, in education field, IT plays an important role to improve quality of teaching and learning. All of universities now can be highly depend on IT, especially online schools; they can not run without using Internet.

Question III: Has the popularity of the Internet and the related adoption of TCP/IP by many organizations and networks helped or hindered the movement towards a single standard protocol such as OSI? Why?

The popularity of the Internet and the related adoption of TCP/IP by many organizations and networks hindered the movement towards a single standard protocol such as OSI.

In the past, ...

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The popularity of the Internet and the related adoption of TCP/IP by many organizations and networks hindered the movement towards a single standard protocol such as OSI.

In the past, a set of protocols is made in standardization and acceptable, and the standard set of protocol is the Open systems Interconnection (OSI) reference Model was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). There are seven layers in this model. Each of layers there is its own protocol. All computer and telecommunication vendors support for OSI model and it was on its way.

In the 1990s, the movement toward the OSI model was stopped because of the explosion of the role of Internet and intranets in many organizations. Transmission control protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is protocols of the Internet and intranet. TCP/IP is a less comprehensive set of protocols than OSI. Both OSI model and TCP/IP are important, so we can explore both of them. If we want to have a very useful framework for computer network we can explore the OSI model. If we want to have the de facto standard set of protocols for networking in the early twenty-first century we can choose ICP/IP model.

The IP portion of the TCP/IP protocol corresponds to network seven layers, while the TCP portion corrects ponds to the transport layer. TCP/IP accepts very long messages by breaking them into smaller pieces, and it can send these pieces correctly and placed in sequence with the right order.

Reference

Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, Perkins; Managing Information Technology, 6th Edition, Pearson International Edition, Page 120

Question IV: Consider a large company with which you are somewhat familiar (because of your own work experience, a parent’s work experience, a friend’s work experience, or your study of the company). Use your imagination to suggest new ways in which the Internet could be used in this company.
Some information about price of rubber in the world, reading newspaper. We often s In Vietnam, using Internet is increasing rapidly now, however it mainly concentrates in big cities. Some state-own companies in rural areas are still unfamiliar with Internet. For example my previous company- Tayninh Rubber Company. This company is located in Tay Ninh province; it’s about 100 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City. My company has used Internet since 2000, but we have not taken advantage of it yet. We just use it to send email and contact with some customer abroad and sometimes to search old products to traditional customers and exported rubber indirectly through general company in Ho Chi Minh City. Now I suggest a new way in which the Internet can be used in this company. The company should set up a website with a business trading platform in both Vietnamese and English language. On this web page we will introduce and advertise our company with many kinds of products, we also update prices and inform some important information to customers. All transactions can take place on internet. Customer can order products online and they can send money into our company account when we deliver products. Thank to this web page we can have more customers from foreign countries and can develop our business to compete with our competitors. We can do custom procedures online; don’t need to go to the port in Ho Chi Minh City to do it. Our company and many other rubber companies belong to General Company in Ho Chi Minh City; the boards of managers of these companies often go to General Company to attend conferences. I think, to save time and money, general company should held online conferences, so that all members can attend easily but not move to Ho Chi Minh. The company operates more effectively if they know the good way to take advantage of Internet.

Question V: What is a vertically integrated information system? Give an example.
A vertically integrated information system is a system that operates more than one vertical level in an organization or an industry. It serves across borders of companies with different levels and in a hierarchy, such as: automobile manufacturers and their independent dealers.

For example: in the company, a vertically integrated information system can play many roles in controlling data, it acts as a transaction processing system such as producing invoices and summarize data weekly, besides that it can act as a decision support system for middle managers, and beyond these things it also acts as an executive information system, it means that they can use this system to analyze data in a long – term to support for top managers to determine company’s strategic in the future.

In my school, we can use this system to manage data of students, and can share information between departments in school. If students want to know information about their grades they just type their student’s codes, all information will be displayed. With this system we can analyze student’s data and compare students of this department with other departments and compare students this year with ones last year. From this we can have suitable decision for our developing strategic.

Question VI: What are the primary reasons for implementing an ERP system?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is one of transaction processing systems, but it is better than traditional one and it differs from earlier approaches to developing. It’s a set of integrated business applications, or modules, that carry out common business. There are some reasons for implementing an ERP: The first, the ERP modules are integrated, so when the transaction takes place in one area, it can impacts on other related areas for example accounting, production scheduling and purchasing. The second, the ERP modules can be designed to reflect a particular way of doing business. And they are based on a value-chain view of the business and all departments have to coordinate well. The third, many companies know that they need to change their internal business processes, so implementing an ERP system is the best and easiest way to force business process. And the last reason for implementing an ERP, the company can gain business benefits such as: improving access to data across business units, functions or reducing costs of doing business… and IT-related benefits such as : achieving time, cost, and reliability advantages.

However, it’s not easy to implement an ERP. It’s difficult because the cost of implementing this system is very expensive, and it takes one year or more to finish it, besides that the company has to change the way of doing business when carrying out an ERP.

Reference:

Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, Perkin; Managing Information Technology, 6th Edition, Pearson International Edition, Pages 211~ 212

Question VII: What are analysis and design patterns and why are they useful for information systems development?
System analysis and design is a process used to develop a new information system, this kind of process is very useful for information systems development because it’s applied to solve problems. These are some advantages of this pattern:

Offering a good choice for choosing appropriate system scope and selecting the boundary for the IS that can influence the success of an IS project. For example, to underbid competitors, a salesperson can sell his products with cheaper price but he just concentrates on the sale not on solving problems such as; handling customer complaint and installing upgrades… Choosing an appropriate boundary is very important because if the scope is too small, user will not have enough good solutions to solve problem, if the scope is too large, it’s very difficult too control.
The system is also based on the principle: logical before physical, it means a user must know what the system is before specifying how a system operates. If we don’t follow this rule, the cost will be increased by the penalty for violating the “function before form”. So the user have to get the logical or functional specifications after understand how to choose physical solutions.
This system is considered as good problem- solvers because it can break problems into smaller parts to solve more easily. Beside that it can offer more than one solution for user to have alternative solution to compare and select and in a process of solving problem, there are many stages, this system can separate each step to analyze and decide whether it continues or not.

Reference

Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, Perkin; Managing Information Technology, 6th Edition, Pearson International Edition, Pages 348~349

Question VIII: Describe two ways that a prototyping approach can be used within the Definition phase of a traditional SDLC methodology.

There are three phases in traditional Development life cycle model (SDLC): Definition, Construction, and Implementation. In the definition phases very important because in this phase the end users and specialists have to conduct a complex analysis for current business and IS in the area. There are two ways that a prototyping approach can be used within this phase, they are: process - oriented analysis and data - oriented analysis.

Process-oriented concentrates on the flow, use and transformation of data. This ways help the users to recognize and analyze data, they can transform the data from this department to other ones. They also find out how this system works and why they should use the system, what advantages and disadvantages they are. From these things they can start designing the system.

Data- oriented analysis focuses on the kinds of data needed in a system and business relationship between these data. I this step, the users must find out what are important data needed in the system and how relationship between them. Besides that the users should identify problems of current business operation and opportunities to achieve business value. The right solution is chose and detailed, the solution is also accepted by all parties as a best packaged system.

Definition phase need to have a corporation between business and IT specialists, doing this phase right it can bring many benefits for using IT.

Reference

DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, Perkin; Managing Information Technology, 6th Edition, Pearson International Edition, Pages 352 ~ 354).