H18 BUSINESS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Students should have a working knowledge of the IMIS Code of Professional Conduct and be able to understand and apply the ethical and legal concepts contained therein.

By a single 3 hour externally set examination paper.

1. To demonstrate the role of IT in enabling business innovation.
2. To present the case for a clear technology strategy capable of describing how new technologies will be adopted and managed.
3. To assess the possible impact of new technologies on business.

1. Describe how businesses can use IT for innovation.
2. Review current and emerging technologies.
3. Identify need for strategies for staying abreast of new technologies.
4. Identify approaches to assimilation and management of new technologies.
5. Describe the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to business.
6. Describe opportunities offered by internet technology.
7. Describe opportunities offered by multi-media technology.
8. Describe personal productivity software and its use in business.
9. Examine the use of office information systems to support office tasks with IT and the impact on organisations and work.

• Need for firms to be capable of rapidly adapting to change, and of continuing innovation.
• Need for organizational change to reap the real benefits of IT. How IT can transform organizations:
• Global networks - operations of a firm are no longer determined by location
• Enterprise networks - organization of work across divisional boundaries
• Distributed Computing - empowerment of individuals and work groups
• Portable computing - work no longer tied to geographical location
• GUIs - Improved accessibility of information across the organization

• Organizational change through,

1. Automation - focus on efficiency and effectiveness of tasks

2. Rationalization - streamlining of procedures e.g. to eliminate potential bottlenecks in processing

3. Reengineering - analyzing and redesigning business processes

4. Paradigm shift - rethinking the nature of the business and the nature of the organization itself.

(Note: the Internet provides a good example of using new technology to achieve each of these).

Give examples such as using work-flow and document management software to streamline business procedures, electronic data interchange to redesign business processes employing just-in-time delivery and so on. Inter-organizational systems, multi-national company structures and globalization.

Indicative Content by Learning Outcomes

Computer system resources are dealt with in the Diploma i.e. organization of a computer, categories of a computer, secondary storage, input and output devices, operating systems, programming languages and related system software utilities. This section should review current developments and trends in relevant technologies e.g. Windows NT, RAID storage devices, Network Computers (NCs), and comment on their economic, social and technical impact for organizations. Discussion of the relevance to the decisions that IT managers have to make should follow e.g. migrating a large UNIX-based system to Windows NT.

An overview of the following should be included:

• telecommunications and computer networks
• internet technology
• multi-media technologies
• artificial intelligence
• office information systems
• personal productivity software

The competitive necessity for firms to adopt and apply new and rapidly changing technologies to business processes.

Assignment of responsibility for tracking new computer and communications technologies and investigating their benefits for the firm.

Look at what vendors are doing, what technology is in use in the industry and so on.

Relative importance of establishing some element of research and development (R&D) approach to the assessment and evaluation of emerging and available technologies e.g. an Emerging (or Advanced) Technologies group. Members should have both technical expertise and understanding of the business. Link company’s emphasis on R&D to whether it wants to be leading edge, state of the art, the first to follow, or a follower.

Emphasize that heavy investment in technology is often made on the basis of maximizing return on investment.

Technology strategy is needed to ensure that technology is managed in line with information and information systems and the overall company strategic plan.

Encourage relationships with key IT suppliers but beware vendor’s ready-made ‘business solutions’.

The introduction of a new technology represents a process of organizational innovation that is repeated for each new technology. This innovation must be managed.

A stage theory for managing computing (and hence technology innovation) was developed by Richard Nolan and Cyrus Gibson.

The S-curve of organizational learning are repeated for new technologies e.g. office automation, telecommunications.

The stage model has been adapted by McFarlan & McKenney, to create a generic technology management stage model:

1. Technology identification;

2. Technology learning and adaptation;

3. Rationalization/Management control; Maturity/Widespread technology transfer

Discuss different management approaches for each stage of technology adoption. Stress different experiences across the organization - some areas will be using mature technology, others will be involved in new learning on new technologies.

• Why business is interested in using artificial techniques.
• Expert systems: give brief outline to show how expert systems work - knowledge-base, rules, etc;
• requirements for building expert systems, limitations of expert systems.
• Application of case-based reasoning for building and storing an organization’s intelligence (idea of intellectual capital).
• Application of AI techniques to providing solutions to problems too large or complex to be solved effectively or efficiently by other methods: neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms.

Business uses of the internet include: advertising, electronic commerce, sharing information, coordinating global operations. Stress importance of the World Wide Web (WWW) and its technology in providing common interface.

Highlight use of internet and Web browser technology on internal company networks - internets. Large growth of Web-based intranet applications . Web browsers used as standard means of access to corporate, departmental, individual and cross-organizational applications and data.

Improved customer service and speed of business processing achieved by opening up selected internal information (databases) external organizations e.g. customers and suppliers.

Discuss multi-media as the foundation of new consumer products and services such as electronic books and newspapers, full-motion video (e.g. conferencing), imaging, graphics design tools, and video and voice mail for example.

Examples of multi-media applications e.g. computer based training, multi-media kiosks.

Use of multi-media to make more intuitive and natural user interfaces.

Use of authoring tools to create multi-media products.

• Functions of personal productivity software
• Spreadsheet software
• Database management software
• Personal information management
• Word processing
• Desktop publishing
• Presentation software
• Multi-media authoring systems
• Integrated packages

Supporting knowledge work in the office

The functions of an office information system

Graphics media

Electronic document management

Hypertext

Electronic mail, voice mail and facsimile

Electronic bulletin boards

Audio and video conferencing

Computer conferencing

Organisational role of workgroups

Functions of groupware