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Introduction

1. IS in the Information Age

The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century, characterized by a rapid epochal shift from traditional industry established by the Industrial Revolution to an economy primarily based upon information technology.

2. Introducing 67-250: Information Systems Milieux

  • 67-250: Information Systems Milieux
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Type of IS

1. What is an Information System

  • Information Systems denote the combination of computer and communication technologies (IT), people, data, and business processes to solve business problems and improve organizational performance![[Screen Shot 2024-01-28 at 03.08.10.png]]
  • Systemic Effects: IS components are interdependent and socio-technical!!! The people element cannot be ignored.

2. Facets of Technological Change

  1. Technology is a trade-off – has both benefits and harm
  2. There are winners and losers resulting from new technology, winners often influence the losers, some remain unaffected
  3. Technology is not neutral – result of powerful idea/ideas
  4. Technological change is ecological (potential to change everything)
  5. Technology is not mythic (or a natural part of our world)

3. Types of IS

Point of Sale (POS) Systems

  • Definitions
    • POS: is where a transaction is completed between an organization and a customer (typically a physical store).
    • POS system is a computerized network that consists of the main computer linked with several checkout terminals and supported by different hardware features starting from barcode scanners and ending with card payment terminals
  • Example of commercial product:
    • LightSpeed (good inventory mgmt)
    • Toast (Bars &restaurants)
    • Shopify (used by a variety of businesses)
  • Primary User & Context:
    • Worker entering data during checkout (we'll study about Zara)
  • Benefits:
    • Provides better control over business operations, making it easier to track inventory, and allows the organization to manage inventory better.
    • Automates data collection and creates efficiency compared to traditional methods.
  • Risks:
    • Security breaches can occur, as seen in Home Depot and Target cases.
    • Privacy risks, collecting potentially sensitive information from consumers (Gillette)
  • Relation to Postman:
    • Many smaller businesses use Square, yet they end up having to pay a fee in order to use the service. This connects to Postman’s second idea, which was about how technological advances only help the privileged.

Supply Chain Management (SCM) Systems

  • Definition:
    • The management of the flow of goods and services across multiple organizations or sources to optimize product delivery. Supply chain management systems help organizations manage the flow of goods and services through their value chain and includes all processes that transform raw materials into final products.
  • Example of commercial product:
    • Oracle SCM Cloud, SAP SCM, E2Open
  • Primary User and context:
    • Middle Management trying to work out supply chain issues related to sourcing parts for manufacturing or a grocery store trying to find alternate sources of meat supply to stock its shelves.
  • Benefits:
    • Increased efficiency rate, communication, logistics, and specialized partners for each part of the process to integrate all levels smoothly.
    • Eliminate waste; improve efficiency; manage inventory and quality; helps with communication
  • Risks:
    • Fragile, if business is too reliant on SCM system a small mistake can have bigger consequences. Integration; expensive; may interrupt existing business model; requires standardization
  • Relation to Postman:
    • Postman's second idea: Those that master SCM are winners (e.g. Walmart). Cost may be too high and outweighs the benefits; Overseas operations such as in the case of outsourcing are challenging (e.g. Zara as a winner).

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems

  • Enterprise Systems: Financial, Operations and Logistics, Human Resources, Sales and Marketing
  • Definition:
    • ERP systems tie together a multitude of business processes through a centralized database and enable the efficient flow of data between them. By collecting an organization’s shared transactional data from multiple sources, ERP systems eliminate data duplication and provide data integrity with a single source of truth.
  • Example of commercial product:
    • SAP S4/HANA, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle ERP Cloud
  • Primary User and context:
    • Senior/Middle Managers get a comprehensive, 360-degree view of the business (optimize across a business instead of functionally). They can pull data and reports from one source, resulting in making more informed and timely decisions helping improve business processes.
  • Benefits:
    • Makes data access and day-to-day business operations more efficient. An accounting program can read the results from the inventory management program if they are supplied from the same vendor, which makes the accounting process very efficient.
    • Through integration of data one can avoid duplication & related errors.
  • Risks:
    • The process of implementation is very costly, there is the cost of buying the modules, there is the training costs to train your employees, the system can be implemented incorrectly and in that case recovering is also very expensive.
  • Relation to Postman:
    • This relates to Postman’s first argument because ERP systems offer users tradeoffs, it creates greater efficiency and organization, however it can be both expensive to maintain and difficult to implement.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

  • Definitions:
    • A CRM system uses information about customers to gain insights into their needs and behaviors, and makes use of technologies to organize, automate, and synchronize the information and related business processes, such as sales, marketing, and customer service, with the objective of attracting and retaining customers.
  • Example of commercial product:
    • Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, freshsales Primary
  • User and context:
    • Middle & Senior Managers doing a sales analysis region-wise
  • Benefit:
    • Quick access to real-time sales data from any location.
    • Consistency with customer data.
    • Reduced costs of mis-marketing, reduced labor cost from customer relations employees.
  • Risks:
    • Data entry can be time-consuming and expensive, and any data-breach could release sensitive customer data.
    • People could be concerned about how their data is being used and distributed (especially that people are not as educated about the issue since they don’t read the terms of use!).
  • Relation to Postman:
    • CRM use increased from 12% to 87% since 2008. Links to Postman’s 4th Idea: “A new medium does not add something, it changes everything.” Also, the companies are winners with lots of access to customer data, but the customers could be considered losers because their privacy is compromised, and certain employees could lose their jobs as CRMs are implemented.