Week Six Questions

1. What is information architecture and what is information infrastructure and how do they differ and how do they relate to each other?

Information architecture is a general plan explaining how IT will be put to use within a particular organisation to identify important information. This includes customer records

Information infrastructure is the implementation of an IT system which provides methods to store information. E.g.hardware, software and services.

Both of these concepts are related as they are based on the implementation of an IT system in an organisation. Information architecture is clearly theoretical whereas information infrastructure is practical as it is the implementation of the product.

2. Describe how an organisation can implement a solid information architecture

A solid information architecture can be implemented by focusing on the following:

• Backup and recovery
• Disaster recovery
• Information security systems

An organisation needs to be confident that their files would be able to be accessed after a security risk had been breached or had occurred. This can be attained through an available hot site and cold site and other hard drives/ systems which exist as a back up to the original data. Multiple  pre-tests should occur regularly to ensure that it works effectively. Antivirus softwares (example is Norton Antivirus) need to be installed with updates when needed.

3. List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture.

Flexibility: systems need to adapt to any changed which occurr in a business including a variety of languages and currencies.

Reliability: all systems are required to function correctly and provide accurate information so the right important business decisions can be made. 

Scalability: A system needs adaptability to respond to increasing demands.

Availability: This refers to how often employees, customers, and partners can access a system. High availability is a system that is operational for a long period of time.

Performance: measures how fast and accurate a system performs a process or transaction.

4. Describe the business value in deploying a service oriented architecture

Service oriented architecture refers to an IT architectural business-driven approach. It supports the unification of services and tasks so the business goals and objectives are obtained.

This is valuable for a business as it makes certain that the IT systems used can adjust to changing business needs. When an organisation experiences a dilemna  there should be other methods in place for the goal to be reached.

There are three concepts of service oriented architecture including services (a business task), interoperability (two or more computer systems sharing resources and data) and loose coupling (the simple paths built between applications which can be added or removed easily at any time).

5. What is an event?

An indication from an electrionic message detecting threats, opportunities and alerts

6. What is a service?

A collection of commands which can be re-used.

7. What emerging technologies can companies can use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?

 Virtualisation can be utilised by organisations as:

• It is a new process which divides the resources of a computer into multiple execution environments. 
• It can increase an organisations physical resources and inturn maximise their investment in the hardware
• The business’s IT costs will be reduced  by over 50%.
• It allows management to look at multiple physical storages in one system.

The main goal is to assemble administrative processes and also improve adaptability and work loads. It is thus beneficial for an organisation which requires two operating systems to run at the same time. 

Week Five Questions

Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology.

The first thing one must understand is what ethics relates to. It is the standards and principles which determine how one will behave.


In regards to ethical issues which are affected by the advance in information technology, there are many examples. These include:

• Intellectual property
• Fair use doctrine
• Pirated software
• Counterfeit software
• Copyright issues

In reference to property, the ethical issues relate to who owns that creative or intellectual property. Pirated software relates to software which is being copied and/or distributed to others. Counterfeit software relates to a 'fake' program which is made to exact to or similar to the original software.

An example would be a non-genuine program of Microsoft Word.

Other major issues includes privacy as many users do not know the privacy regulations of each organisation, and how much the organisation can use or distribute. This also includes how much surveilance can be used through content filtering, security auditing or cookies. An example here would include Facebook as most users do not know that the organisation owns all the photo's which are uploaded and can use these at their disposal, it also includes employers scanning potential employee's facebook profiles before hiring them for a position.

Describe a situation involving technology that is ethical but illegal.

This refers to when a person believes they are acting in an ethical manner but in turn are acting illegally. The person may feel they are sharing with others, allowing for easy access to music etc in a youtube to mp3 converter.Although this is illegal, in their eyes it may be ethical.

Describe and explain one of the computer use policies that a company might employee

The anti-spam policy is a policy which enforces an organisation not to send unsolicited emails to customers in their database. Any organisation which uses spam will be blacklisted as it costs the customer money when they open the spam mail.

What are the 5 main technology security risks?

1. Human error – inefficient employees who do not finish or effectively complete their duties and requirements.


2. Natural disasters – This can leads to a destruction of the physical data or the computer systems which hold that information. For example the Japan earthquakes.


3. Technical failures – When the technology has a problem and ceases to work. This can be caused by software bugs and hardware crashes


4. Deliberate acts –  ‘White Collar Crime’ such as fraud can affect this.


5. Management failure – lack of procedure, documentation and training in the management sector as it can not be conducted efficienctly (especially when training new employees)

Outline one way to reduce each risk.

Human error - proficient training to avoid employees losing data records etc

Natural distasters - the introduction of external back up of the files included in the system

Technical failures - Anti Virus programs such an Norton Anti-Virus which protects your computer from viruses and bugs. The following website is the Norton Anti-Virus website which includes many attributes of the product. http://antivirus.norton.com/norton/ps/3up_au_en_navnis360.html?om_sem_cid=hho_sem_ic:au:ggl:en:e|kw0000056684

Deliberate acts - Strong penalties need to be imbedded in an organisation to reduce the probability of these security risks

Management failure - Training programs need to be efficient and reviewing employees regularly is of upmost importance to ensure they are working correctly.

What is a disaster recovery plan, what strategies might a firm employee?

Once a disaster has occured, organisations will hopefully regain access to computer systems and data. This process is called the disaster recover plan. Thus it is important that all organisations have a disaster recovery plan available to them in order to help them recover the data lost in a disaster. The plan should include:

• Communications plan – The methods and guides which an organisation needs to follow needs to be communicated within the organisation and externally.

• Business continuity – outline what would or could happen in a disaster and include how to deal with this.

• Location of Backup data – recovery testing needs to occur regularly and well documented procedures need to be included.

Week Four Questions

1. Why has the web grown so dramatically?

The web has grown so dramatically as it is easy to use, non-technical, and a personalised web. There is also very easy access to the web as it runs on an open source.

2. What is Web 2.0, how does it differ from 1.0?

Web 2.0 is two way communication. Users are able to reply back to the composers of a blog etc where as on web 1.0 this was not the case. Web 1.0 was read only data where users were unable to contribute and thus was a one way push of information. An example of Web 2.0 is Facebook as you are able to post comments, blogs, pictures and tag people as well as private message people and ‘poke’ people.

3. How could a web 2.0 technology be used in business?

The most common ways to use Web 2.0 in business is through social media. This includes: Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube, Blogger and Linked In. One example is NAB’s ‘Break up’ Campaign as NAB tweeted that it was going through a very hard break up. On Valentines Day - it launched the break-up campaign, followed by a number of marketing, advertising and PR stunts. CD's full of break-up songs were handed out at railway stations, signs on footpaths, and actors performed mock break-ups around the country.NAB had started the campaign by tweeting and immediately reached the younger customers NAB wanted to attract. They used YouTube to send the campaign viral. Without the internet, this could not have happened and it could not have reached the target consumer and ultimately increased their profits.  

 

Appliances online is another company who had used social media to increase revenue. They had introduced a campaign on Facebook where you would receive “mates rates” if a certain amount of people joined their fan page. Everyone who had joined the page received this. This is important as more people would follow their page and each time Appliances online updated their page, all the fans would be updated on the news feed. This was in a sense free advertising for them.

 

 

Levis also used twitter to create awareness for their brand as an employee would walk around Sydney tweeting where they were and their followers would get a free pair of jeans if they found them. This has to do with online advertising.

Darrel lea is also in the process of creating a “check in for chocolates” campaign on Facebook where you would check in to their store and receive a free rocky road.

 

 

 Banner ads are generally ads which run horizontally on a page or vertically and also contain a link to the advertisers website. It also allows for statistics to be made as it can track the amount of users who click on the banner ad. Other online ads include the ads seen on Youtube before you watch a clip. Pop-up ads are the ads which are on a small webpage outside of the current loaded website.

Viral Marketing is a technique where website users pass on a marketing message to others. It can also be seen on youtube when an ad is posted and it spreads like wild fire. Associate programs refers to when organisation (a) allows organisation (b) to generate commissions from another company.  Eg. Amazon pays commissions to other organisations when they use banner ads or codes on another website to generate sales.

 

Mass Customisation is when a company tailors its products to their customers specifications. E.g. A customer can order a Louis Vuitton bag over the internet with their initials on the handles. Personalisation is when a website can detect what a person likes and dislikes and automatically offers products which the customer is likely to buy.

 

 

Social bookmarking allows for an increase in funds as consumers can find websites, put them on their profile and share that website. This can increase customer awareness and thus increase profits. One example of this is Digg and Reddit. 

 

 

RSS feeds allow you to add a number of websites into an RSS reader and get all the news from your favourite websites.

Podcasting is the distribution of subscribed audio or video files over the internet to be played on mobiles. Search engine optimisation is a method used to improve the ranking of a website in search engine listings. This will ultimately increase the amount of traffic flow to that website resulting in higher profit. Emailing target markets for upcoming events will also increase revenue. One example is the Myer VIP days.

 

 

There are different types of portals. These include corporate portals, government portals and also personalised portals. The types of corporate portals include:

• Supplier portals which helps with inventory control
• Customer portals which allows customers to view, manage and track purchases
• Employee portals allows employees to share files and information easily
• Mobile portals which is built for mobile technologies

4.  What is eBusiness, how does it differ from eCommerce?

E-Commerce refers to buying and selling online, where as eBusiness includes logistics, audit tracking, transportation and delivery of the product.

5. What is pure and partial eCommerce

Pure eCommerce is a business which in entirely online and is completely digital for example there is no physical product such as iTunes or an online accountant. Partial eCommerce on the other hand does have physical characteristic such as a physical product. One example is amazon.com or thebookdepository.com. Although the transaction is online there is still the physical element which exists.

 

 

6. List and describe the various eBusiness models?

Business to business

• This refers to businesses who buy from a different business over the internet.
• They are also able to access data such as online shipping dates, delivery dates and the status of the shipment
• E-marketplaces are thus formed where businesses can trade, sell and buy at a central market.
• Structures are made for commercial exchange, consolidating supply chains and creating new channels for selling.
• The goal is to increase market efficiency by improving the relationship between buyers and sellers.

 

 

Business to Consumer

• Refers to a business selling goods to a consumer over the internet.
• Thus e-shops are created where a consumer can shop any hour of the day without leaving the luxuries of their own home.
• E-malls are also created which consists of a collaboration of e-shops.
• Some examples include Amazon and Book Depository www.bookdepository.com
• Types of e-shops include:

Brick-and-mortar business: physical store without an internet

Pure-play (virtual) business: internet based business without a physical store

Click-and-mortar business: both on the internet and a physical store

 

 

Consumer to Business

This applies to any consumer selling goods to a business over the internet.

This will become more popular in the next few years as there is a demand for lower prices and greater convenience

One example is a photographer selling their photographs to businesses through istockphoto.com

 

 

Consumer to Consumer

This refers to consumers selling products to other consumers

Ebay is the most successful C2C online website and charges a small commission from each sale www.ebay.com.au

Types of online auctions

E-auctions: an online auction

Forward auction: a selling channel to many buyers and the highest bid wins

Reverse auction: buyers use this to purchase a product selecting the seller with the lowest bid.

 

 

Business to government

This is a derivative of B2B

Here, Businesses sell products or services to governments and are usually in the form of a reversed auction.

7. List and describe the major B2B models?

The 'sell-side' e-market place model is a major B2B model as it refers to one company who sells to many organisations and buyers over the internet.

The three basic pricing methods include electronic catalogs, auctions and one-to-one selling.

The 'buy-side' model refers to an organisation buying products from multiple organisations

8. Outline 2 opportunities and 2 challenges faced by companies doing business online?

Two opportunities would include the idea that the business is high accessible. Consumers are able to shop and buy at any time of the day and the online business will be able to process that payment without many delays. Another opportunity includes that the business can reach a broader market and can customise their products to the consumer as Amazon.com does with their suggestions.

Consumers may be wary in regards to using their credit cards online de to identity theft and cyberfraud. This would impact businesses online as it may stop many consumers buying products from the company. Thus protecting the customers can be a challenge. Another challenge for businesses online is increasing liabilities as suppliers are exposed to these as the internet commerce law is not clearly defined and changes depending on the country of origin. 

Week Three Questions

1.Define TPS & DSS, and explain how an organisation can use these systems to make decisions and gain competitive advantages

Tps is a transaction processing system. It is a system which records each transaction which is made by customers or by the organisation. It could include adding people in payroll, completing the payroll process (and doing the entire process) as well as recording transactions. One example of an industry that would use this would be the airline industry in order to prevent double bookings etc. This is obviously a competitive advantage or the airlines as it would save time as well as increase customer satisfaction.

Decision support system is analytical system which makes strategic business decisions based on the information provided. For example, It can pick up on any common problems which constantly repeat themselves. If a sales region is not performing as it should be, then the system will make this visible so management can make an informed decision about what to do next.

2 Describe the three quantitative models typically used by decision support systems.

• a)      Sensitivity analysis looks at the different inputs in a decision model and tries to work out what input is most sensitive to change.
• b)      What if analysis  looks at the result of changing an input and allows some qualitative data to be present.
• c)      Goal seeking analysis looks at what the organisation wishes to achieves and can work out what inputs are need to achieve this.

3. Describe a business processes and their importance to an organisation.

Business processes are the steps an organisation goes through to produce a product in order to provide a service. In other words it is a set of activities which set out to achieve a specific task. The more efficient these processes are the lower the COGS and higher the profits. One example of a business process is the management information systems business processes. This is important to an organisation as without these processes, if a disaster occurs, the organisation may not be able to recover the information stored on their databases or computers. This is an example of business-facing processes.

4. Compare business process improvement and business process re-engineering

 Business process improvement tried to understand and measure the current process which is currently in place. Improvements will then be made according to what needs fixing and what does not. An example might be that they need to upgrade a system or purchase a particular system to allow them to meet their goals. Re-engineering is when the process they have in place is not useable or dead and they need to replace it.  

5. Describe the importance of business process modelling (or mapping) and business process models.

Business process modelling is when a flow chart is created showing inputs, tasks and activities in a sequence. This is important as IT makes processing visible. For example it could be ordering supplies from a supplier and the supplier ordering their materials from a manufacturer.

On a computer, the process is invisible but a flow chart will show the results of each decision made and the other routes which can be taken. By making it visible you can analyse and redesign the process

Business process models are created for a specific purpose and are a graphic description of a process of tasks. Both these are important for an organisation as managers need to physically see what their options are, how things are done and the results of each decision. This can create a competitive advantage for the organisation also.  

Week two questions

Explain information technology’s role in business and describe how you measure success?

IT is very important in business nowadays as it impacts every part of a business. It allows businesses to access global markets, reduces costs, improves productivity (as systems work on real time and information can be sent between departments easily and quickly through portals, emails etc) and improved growth of the organisation. 

Each department of an organisation is interdependent and thus communication between these departments is vital. As you can see in the below diagram, each department needs a central point of communication as each department needs to communicate with one another. 

What is important to understand though, is that business IT is an enabler of business success and innovation. In 2007, nearly 50% of the cover stories in Business Week are technology related. This shows just how important IT is in business. 

Business IT is used for solving mathematical problems (for example on excel), transforming data into information and also business intelligence. It is important for each department to be able to make informed decisions in the business with specific information which can be attained through business intelligence.

Ways to measure success include asking the following questions:

• Is the internal IT operation performing well?
• How much of the IT operations need to be outsourced?
• How well is the outsoucer performing?
• What are the risks in an IT project?
• In order to make sure that the IT proposal is realistic, what needs to be asked?
• What makes a successful project?
• Which factors are important to keep an eye on to make sure that the project stays on track?

List and describe each of the forces in Porter’s Five Forces Model?

1. Buying power: Buyers are able to buy what they need from many different sellers if buying power is high. This increases the competition for the suppliers as this will impact pricing.
2. Supplier power: when one supplier is dominant in the industry then supplier power is high, they can then charge higher prices, limit quality or services and shift the costs to industry participants.
3. Threat of substitute products or services: Substitutes are alternative product types (not brands) that perform essentially the same function.
4. Threat of new entrants: New firms entering the market because it represents an attractive opportunity for them
5. Rivalry amongst existing competitors: Rivalry is high when there are many small firms in an industry or no dominant firms exist, there is little product differentiation and it is easy for customers to switch from one seller’s products to its competitors. This is when IT needs to operate at full capacity.

The following video is also useful to understand Porter's five forces model as is the following link. http://notesdesk.com/notes/strategy/porters-five-forces-model-porters-model/

Describe the relationship between business processes and value chains?

The above diagram is an in depth diagram of the value chain.

The value chain is important as it can create a competitive advantage for an organisation. The main aim though is to offer the customer a level of value which is more then the costs and thus provides a large profit margin. Value chains can affect business process as it can create a synergy between strategic business units and allow them to share resources which can lower costs. This again will result in a larger profit margin.

Compare Porter’s three generic strategies?

1.   1.   Broad cost leadership: the low cost producer in an industry, either at the average cost of the industry or below that cost to earn a higher profit than competitors. One example is Nokia and their smartphones as they charge between $350-$400 for a smart phone compared to its competitors which are near $800. In order to be successful here, an organisation needs to have efficient distribution channels, efficient in manufacturing and product engineering.

2. Broad differentiation: When a product is differentiated from their competitors in a market through product or brand image (marketed to be viewed by the consumer in a particular way). They are marketed by the unique attributes which are valued by the consumer. In order to be successful here, one needs to be prominent in research and development, the perceived strength needs to be communicated well to the consumers, and the organisation also needs to have a strong brand image for innovation and product quality. One example here is iPhone as they differentiate themselves from their competitors in the smart phone industry.

3. Focused strategy: target a niche market instead of a large segment but can differentiate itself through product quality (with a high price) or it can be marketed as a low-cost item. For example, a Hummer is targeted to a niche market, but also differentiates itself from the other 4WD in the industry.