Raise Barriers To Market Entry

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

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REFERENCES

An Information System or a IS, is when a group of components work together to achieve a goal, such as when the hardware, software, data, procedures and people work together to produce information

A business process is when your resources, activities, facilities and information are allocated in such a way to help the business function. The business process can be represented in many different ways. These resources, facilities and information flows from one point to another and interact to perform a certain function. Add

Information is knowledge derived from data, where the data is stated facts or statistics. I would say information is the understanding of data. The two should not be confused because with data you cannot make decisions you can only use the facts to help you put it in valuable information, you need the facts to be organised and processed in such a way as to you give you valuable information to help you as a manager or as a person to come to decisions.

Management Information System (MIS) is when you construct and utilize the information systems that help businesses achieve there long or short term goal and objectives The MIS consists of three elements which are development and use, information systems and business goals and objectives. One needs to manage and play an active role regarding the specifics in the information system you need to know how to use the system to accomplish your desired goals. Another important aspect regarding the MIS is to be responsible when using it, such as protecting the security of the system and its data. MIS is created to help the business achieve its goals, you need to ask yourself what will this information system do for my business and how will it help us accomplish our goals.

1.5 a value chains a network of value- creating activities the chain consists of five primary activities and four support activities.

The primary activities are business functions that are linked directly to the production of the organizations products or services. The support activities are also business functions but they involve the backing and aiding of the primary activities.

If you break them apart, we can define value as the amount the customer is willing to pay for a certain product or the maximum amount they are willing to pay and the difference between that amount and the amount to make the product is known as a margin. A chain is a sequence of objects that connect one after the other

There are two types of value chains, the physical or traditional chain is the physical thins we do to make our products and services better. The second value chain is the virtual value chain this is when we involve the use of computers to help aid our systems

Making of the product goes through different stages and each stage adds value to your product or service. Every piece of material in every stage costs money or is valuable that’s why it adds value to the end product. Making of the product we can say involve all primary activities. Supporting activities is self-explanatory, they support the primary functions, and this includes things like contractual arrangements and negotiating prices

Value chains should help reduce costs without reducing the value of the product or service generated and value chains help to market valuable products and services. To maintain a competitive advantage an organisation must have a good understanding of every part of its value system

1.6 work group information systems are when individuals work together in groups to accomplish certain goals and task as defined by management. They can have meetings, talk on the phone, send faxes and distribute memos. This can be a costly way of doing things because people will have to fly across the world to meet face to face, paper that needs to be printed for the distribution of memos, and this will increase the expenses of the company.

companies use workgroup information systems to help them work in groups .workgroup information system can also be called a group support system because it supports the work of the people in the group. Group work information systems increases information sharing, reducing communications overhead and provide coordination. All individuals need to have computers and be connected to the network; they can send emails, share data, schedule meetings. Examples of workgroup information systems are electronic messages, audio conferencing, document conferencing, social networks, online spreads and online calendars.

1.7 A database management System (DBMS) is a program that is used to generate develop and manage a database. The DBMS takes forms, reports, queries and application programs and process them into database tables or into information you can actually use because data on its own is like a bunch of numbers that don’t tell you anything until you take those numbers or data and use it in a formula to get information.

1.8 business processes is a collection of related, structured activities that produce a specific service. Management processes, operational process and supporting processes are examples of business processes

A business model is a model on one or more than one business processes and describes the ways operations are carried out in an organisation to accomplish the intended purpose of an organisation

Business process model is also known as process modelling it is an important element in any successful businesses. It is used to define the processes

Organizations use business models to help create a baseline for improvements and to design future processes with those improvements. Process modelling often uses business process modelling notation (BPMN)

Business process model is performed by business analysts and managers to improve the efficiency and quality of a business. Business models define the core aspects of a business that includes the objectives, strategies and infrastructure, etc.

A standard method of illustrating processes or the techniques to model business process is with a flow chart or a functional flow block diagram etc.

1.9 Business intelligence system is an information system that provides information for improving decision making; it contains patterns, trends and relationships. It takes these raw data and transforms it no meaningful and useful information.

Businesses use these systems t process a lot of data, it takes that large amount of information to help identify and develop new opportunities. These new opportunities after being implemented can provide a competitive market advantage and provide long term stability

BIS systems reduce labour cost, reduce information bottlenecks, make data actionable, better and faster decision.

You get four types of business intelligence systems. Reporting systems, data mining systems, knowledge management systems, expert systems

1.10 Enterprise Information Systems is a computing system; it offers a high quality of service and deals with large volumes of data and its supports some large organizations. It enables organisations integrate and coordinate their business processes. They provide a single system that is central to the organization and that ensures information can be shared across all functional levels. Enterprise information systems are housed in data centres and they run the enterprise software.

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QUESTION 2

2.1 A business process is a network of activities, decisions, roles resources, repositories and data flows that interact to accomplish a business function

Activities are when tasks are poised together to receive inputs and process them to produce outputs.

Decisions are made when one is sure of ones answer. They provide branching points within the flow of a business process. After a decision is made the process can then continue.

Roles are sets of procedures, procedures for executing the activities in the process. Also know that there is a difference in roles and people occupy the roles.

Resources improve the performance of a business. Resources are computer programmes, people or facilities are allocated to certain roles

Repository is a place where things like paper with data on are deposited. It can also be a collection of business records. Repositories are very important because the hold all the personal and important information of the business or the organisation. Repositories can be paper with data in a box or information on an excel programme.

Data flow is when the process moves from the data to one activity or to another activity or to a repository

2.2 An information system is when different components work together to perform a specific function. It saves labour savings because all the data and other repositories can be easily processed to produce information. By doing it this way more information can be processed for more information and at a faster rate, instead of searching through boxes….add

They help businesses achieve their goals and objectives. Information system when developed accordingly to your companies needs and experties can help you reduce costs and make your business more efficient.

2.3 When assessing information there are a few things to look at such as if the information is accurate, timely, relevant, and sufficient and if it’s worth the cost.

When information is accurate it means it’s correct and complete and everything concerning the information was done to the point. Accuracy is one of the most important and crucial aspects of good information, because business decisions and plans are directed from the results of that accurate information. When you start using a IS be sure to test and double check all the information it gives you because being sceptical can save your IS system from having a bad reputation.

Managers are very busy and even though lots of information is good it’s not in their best interest to have an overflow of information. Information should be just relevant and enough for the topic your dealing with.

The fact that the information should be sufficient also follows that it should be timely. Information should be available and ready when you need it, timeliness can be measured against a calendar or against an event. You need to give appropriate and realistic timeliness needs, and then you are sure to have it on time and when you need it. If the information you need is not that important or it can wait then let it wait because the means to get it you faster will only cost you or the business more money, meaning you will be increasing business cost and not reducing cost

Relevance to me is also part of it being accurate because when something is accurate, you took our all the relevant points, that are true facts. Yes with accuracy you do a bit more research but you only research on relevant topics. To topic or context should be to the point.

Cutting cost is also very important because you saving the business some money. Information is not free, and if you want it faster it will cost you.so firstly you need to assess if the information is needed as soon as possible, if not let it wait. For example if you need to mail information and it’s not important send it via the post office, instead of sending it with DHL which will cost you more. In order to make this decision as I said, assess when you need the information, see how much it will cost you and then make your decision

2.4 The product of implementation of competitive advantage involves different things as long as the main goal is to stay a step in front of your competitors that your customers choose your products as there number one choice and that you still make a profit

By doing all this you need to create new services or products, you need to enhance existing products or services and make a clear difference between your products and services from your competitors

Process implementation to me is more difficult than the product implantation but they also depend on the product management, because this needs to be stable and more on a long term basis the five principles to process implementation are

Lock in customers and buyers

Lock in suppliers

Raise barriers to market entry

Establish alliances

Reduce costs

You lock in customers by making sure your product or service is the best and the quality is very good, therefore customers will always come back to buy your product. You can also establish the high switching cost technique that makes it too expensive or difficult for your client to switch to a different organisation. You need to establish a good relationship with your suppliers, make it worth their while to work with you, be nice and friendly but crude , they need to produce quality things, they need to charge you a good enough amount that you can still make a profit and there delivery time should be exquisite. Time is crucial in business, because if a client wants something they don’t always have the patience to wait and will go to your competition if they can offer it immediately. They could also just make it difficult or expensive for the supplier to switch to another organisation. It’s always good to establish alliances because you might need help be it advice or a helping hand, and if certain businesses which have similarities create a bond or a relationship they can be seen as a team and drive out the other completion because they are seen as a force to reckon with. Alliances, also help establishing standards, promote product awareness and needs, develop market size, reduce purchasing costs and provide other benefits Reducing costs is also not a temporarily thing you need to provide excellent service and provide good quality products but a cost that will diminish your expenses and not increase them. If costs or expenses are low you can either lower your costs or bring in more customers or you can use the extra profit to expand. Reducing costs can be established by creating better business processes.

Question 3

3.1 a key is a column or group of columns that identifies a unique row on a table.

A foreign key is when the column occupies roles in two or more tables. They are known as foreign keys because such columns are keys, but they are keys of a different or foreign table than the one in which they reside. A table may have numerous foreign keys, and each foreign key can have a different parent table. The columns in the child table must be the same as the columns of the primary key in the parent table. The values in one row of columns must occur in a single row in the parent table, meaning a row in the child table cannot have values that don’t occur in the parent table but it can contain a zero

For it to be a key it must:

Contain unique values

No zero values

Has the minimum number of fields to ensure uniqueness

It must identify each record in the table

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Databases contains within itself a description of its contents and it’s a collection of integrated record. Primary keys are essential for each table of. A foreign key is a primary key from one table that appears as a field in another, the first table has a relationship to the second.

Example

Foreign key

STUDENT NR

NAME

SURNAME

COURSE CODE

200715003

MELSSA

SAUNDERS

PIR2100

200615871

BELINDA

SHININGE

RAD6582

200718002

ELSABE

TSAUSES

ECO1520

RELATIONSHIP

PRIMARY KEYS

COURSE CODE

COURSE NAME

PIR2100

IMAGE RECORDING

RAD6582

RADIATION TECHNIQUE

ECO1520

ETHICS

Now with metadata its data but it describes data, the format of metadata depends on the software product that is processing the database. With metadata you don’t need to remember or record what is in the database, to find out what a database contains we just look at the metadata inside the database. Metadata provided information about one or more aspects of data such as, the measn of creation of data, purpose of the data, date and time of creation, maker of the data.

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3.2 information systems vary in scope depending on the type of business and the struggles it faces in the short term and the long term. There are three different scopes, the functional scope, cross-functional scope and the interorganizational scope. Non-profit and government torganisations have all three types of processes.

Function scope is when the business process resides within a single business function for example accounts payable and authority belongs to a single departmental manager who has authority to resolve BPM problems. Problems are therefore localised by just that one manager. Is is a more secluded way of doing things, and because they are so remote they cannot produce the productivity efficiency needed for the organisation to work well.

Cross-functional scope is when the business process crosses into multiple departments within a single company in other words it involves activities amongst many business departments, and example s customer relationship management. This process diminishes the problems that such as an isolated processes has and the authority is shared across several or many departments so that not one person has authority but more than one to help make company more productive and take load off the big bosses such as the MD and CEO.s.

Interorganisational scope is when the business processes across into different companies and departments, for example a supply chain management and authority is shared by those different owners and managers. Problem resolution takes place via negotiation and contract for example.

3.3 Non-routine skills is what keeps you from not being fired. Management information systems can help you attain job security, marketable skills and confidence to promote or at least to try promote.

You need to be updated about new technology, not only technology in itself but the technology your firm can use to make it better and help reduce costs. For example, by getting an information system that best suits the business needs. You need to be aware of your competition locally and internationally so that you know how to raise your firms standard for example, if you have a rising new business that you are working for in a third world, then look at the international market in a first world country and see how they do things, try to adjust your companies policies in such a way that it suits your company but has qualities of a first world county. Know how every department in the firm operates this gives you a greater advantage because you can fill in when someone is sick.

Strong non routine skills can be named as;

Abstract reasoning

Systems reasoning

This is where you learn how to make and manipultate models , meaning you need to know how to use , asses the models, compare alternative systems, and judge the systems accordingly. You need to know what to put in to get why you want as an end result

Collaboration

Is when people work together to achieve a common goal. Reaching that goal or result should be you main aim but because people are different, they come up with different ideas and they sometimes believe that they know they are right and that they have the ideal solution so arguements could arise, or peoples feelings could be hurt but what you need to remember is to remain calm give and receive critical information without taking it personal

Ability to experiment

Don’t fear failure and dont limit yourself because of failure if you don’t try you will never know if your ideas could have worked. You need to experiment, you don’t need to physically try everything but work out models that will help you assess risks and the money involved

Question 4

4.1 Model Processes

This is the start of the cycle. Business users who have the experience create the model, adjust and evaluate it. They start by creating a model that displays the companies current position, then they make the adjustments needed to solve the process model

Create components

This consists out of the five sections of all information systems. Some involve no people or procedures and others no hardware or software

Implement processes

Once the model has been created it then needs to be implemented so that you changes you made to the model can be put into effect so that you can physically see what happens. Organised firms continue this process until the final stage, here they create policy procedures and committies to asses the results which is the final stage.

Assess results

After the model has been implemented, it has to be assessed. You need to see if the old model was better than the new one, if the new model really brought about the changes you wanted to see or were only certain aspects changed. This is the final stage but also the stage that restarts the cycle. If you assessed your results you would have come up with the model that best suits the needs of the company, and that’s the model that would be the winning model at this stage.

4.2 the five component model consists of the hardware, software, data, procedures and people

5 componetnt model

info systems used in busin

airline reservation system

building information sytem

computer bases information system pg 28

Question 5

5.1 business intelligence systems is an information system that provides information for improving decision making. You get four types of business intelligence systems

Reporting systems

Data mining systems

Knowledge Management Systems

Expert Systems

Reporting systems incorporate data from multiple sources, once they done with that they process the data by sorting, grouping, summing, averaging and comparing. They format the results not reports and deliver those reports to the users. This system is crucial because they improve decision making by providing the right information to the right user at the right time. Some of their qualities are to intergrateand process data by sorting, grouping, summing, and formatting. Produce, administer, and deliver reports.

Data mining systems process the data in a more sophisticated statistical technique such as regression analysis and decision tree analysis. These systems find patterns and relationships that cannot be found by simpler reporting operations, such as sorting, grouping and averaging. They improve decision making by using the discovered patterns and relationships to anticipate events or to predict future outcomes. Some of their qualities is to use sophisticated statistical techniques to find patterns and relationships.

Knowledge management systems create value from intellectual capital by collecting and sharing human knowledge of products, product uses, best practices and other critical knowledge with employees, managers, suppliers and others who need. Some of their qualities is to share knowledge of products, product uses, best practices, etc. among employees, managers, customers and others

Expert systems encapsulate the knowledge of human experts in the form f If/ then rules. Operational expert systems can have hundreds or even thousands of such rules. Some are good enough to considerably improve the diagnosis and decision making of non-experts. Some of their qualities is to encode human knowledge in the form of if/then rules and process those rules to make a diagnosis or recommendation

5.2 Business Intelligence is an information system that gives out information that will help improve decision making.

Data from transaction processing other operational systems can be processed to create basic reports without problem, however operational data is seldom suitable for more sophisticated reporting therefore the BI systems face major problems from the operational data such as

Problematic data that is also known as dirty data is when you there is a h for gender instead of F for female and M for male or it throws out 187 for a client’s ages.

Missing values is also a problem because those missing values can either be money values or information values. A loss of either is crucial because you need to know what is happening to your money because it sustains the business and information that is loss can lead to information that cannot be analysed.

Inconsistent data is common for data that has been collected over time because they must be recoded or there is no consistency over the period of the study. Time zone vary so information can be recorded on different dates.

Non-integrated data, means that the analysis you need cannot be formed.

Data can be too fine or too coarse, data granularity refers to the degree of summarization or detail. Coarse data are highly summarized, fine data express precise details. Its however better to have a too fine a granularity than too coarse.

Too much data is like too much information that makes most of conversation irrelevant due to facts or information that is overflowing, only take what you need and work with that. You can have either too many attributes or to many data points (too many columns (attributes) or too many rows (columns) and in both cases having them is problem because with too many attributes you need to consider each attribute which takes time and it will be worthless in the end and too much data points is also time consuming.

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