Using MIS 4e Chapter 11 Information Systems Management

Using MIS 4e Chapter

11Information Systems

Management

Q1 What are the functions and organization of the IS department?

Q2 How do organizations plan the use of IS?

Q3 What tasks are necessary for managing computing infrastructure?

Q4 What tasks are necessary for managing enterprise applications?

Q5 What are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing?

Q6 What are your IS rights and responsibilities?

Q7 2021?

Study Questions

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 11-2

You might someday be a manger of a business that is too small to hire a full-time IS manager.

To avoid problems like those that Jeff will find in Chapter 12.

You need to understand the responsibilities and duties of the IS department so you can be an effective consumer of the IS department’s resources.

To be a better informed and effective business planner or innovator.

IS a major element of nearly every organization. Understanding IS responsibilities and organization of IS department is key for every business professional.

Prolog


Plan the use of IS to accomplish organizational goals and strategy.Develop, operate, and maintain the organization’s computing infrastructure.Develop, operate, and maintain enterprise applications.

Protect information assets.

• Manage outsourcing relationships.

Q1: What Are the Functions and Organization of the IS Department?

Video


How Is the IS Department Organized?

Typical Senior-Level Reporting Relationships

(video)


What IS-Related Job Positions Exist?


What IS-Related Job Positions Exist? (cont’d)


What IS-Related Job Positions Exist? (cont’d)


Align information systems with organization changes; maintain alignment as organization changes

Communicate IS/IT issues to executive group

Develop/enforce IS priorities within IS department

Sponsor steering committee

Q2: How Do Organizations Plan the Use of IS?


Suppose you are a manager at a company with a stated policy. “Computers, email, and the Internet are to be used primarily for official company business. Small amounts of personal email can be exchanged with friends and family, and occasional usage of the Internet is permitted, but such usage should be limited and never interfere with your work.”

You learn one of your employees has been engaged in the activities listed on following slide.

Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer


10.Tweeting friends on your computer about your softball win last night

11.Selling personal items on eBay

12.Paying personal bills online13.Paying personal bills online

when traveling on company business

14.Buying an airplane ticket for an ill parent over the Internet

15.Changing content of a personal website

16.Changing content of a personal business website

17.Buying an airplane ticket for a personal vacation over Internet

Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer (cont’d)1. Playing computer games

during work hours2. Playing computer games

before and after work hours3. Responding to emails from

an ill parent4. Watching DVDs during lunch

and breaks5. Sending emails to plan a

party that mostly involves people from work

6. Sending emails to plan a party that mostly involves no one from work

7. Updating your Facebook page

8. Reading news on CNN.com9. Checking stock market over

Internet

1. Explain how you would respond to each situation.


2. Suppose someone from the IS department notifies you that one of your employees is spending 3 hours a day surfing the web. How do you respond?

3. For question 2, suppose you ask how the IS department knows about your employee and you are told, “We secretly monitor computer usage.” Do you object to such monitoring? Why or why not?

4. Suppose someone from the IS department notifies you that one of your employees is sending many personal emails. When you ask how they know the emails are personal, you are told that they measure account activity and that when suspicious email usage is suspected the IS department reads employees’ email. Do you think such reading is legal? Is it ethical? How do you respond?

Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer (cont’d)


• If so, does that justify the company reading your email? Does this situation differ from having someone read your personal postal mail that happens to be delivered to you at work? Why or why not?

5. As an employee, if you know your company occasionally reads emails, does that change your behavior?

6. Write what you think is the best corporate policy for personal computer usage at work.

Ethics Guide: Using the Corporate Computer (cont’d)


Align Infrastructure Design with Organizational Structure

Q3: What Tasks Are Necessary for Managing Computing Infrastructure?


Align Infrastructure Design with Organizational Structure

Create and maintain infrastructure for end-user computing

Create, operate, and maintain networks

Create, operate, and maintain data centers, data warehouses, and data marts


Create, operate, and maintain computing infrastructure

Establish technology and product standards

Track problems and monitor resolutions

Manage computing infrastructure staff

Other Managing Tasks


Organization of a Typical IS Operations Group

Organization of a Typical IS Operations

Group


Develop and adapt information systems and IT infrastructureIS department responsible for creating computer networks, servers, data centers, data warehouses, data marts, email systems, VPNs, company blogs, SharePoint sites, and other IS-based infrastructure

Maintain information systems, operate and manage infrastructure

Managing IT operations

Manage development processes

Manage outsourcing relations Outsourcing (video)

Protect Infrastructure and data from threats

Plan for Information Systems and IT Infrastructure


• Manage development of new applications

• Maintain legacy systems• Adapt systems to changing

requirements• Track user problems and monitor fixes• Integrate applications• Manage development staff

Q4: What Tasks Are Necessary for Managing Enterprise Applications?


Organization of a Typical IS Development Group


Data Administration Responsibilities

Enterprise function to:•Define data standards•Maintain data dictionary•Define data policy•Establish disaster-recovery plan


Name, official definition, usage, relationship to other data items, processing restrictions, version, security restrictions, format, other features of data items shared across organization, and data owner

Lack of documented and known data standards causes considerable duplication of effort, data inconsistency, wasted labor, and processing errors

Without a standard definition, two different applications might refer to same item with different names

Example: Is “sku_description” same as “sku_item_desc”?

Define Data Standards


• A file or database that contains data definitions each standard data item

Data dictionary

Maintain the Data Dictionary


“We will not share identifying customer data with another organization.”

“We will not share non-identifying customer data with another organization without approval of the legal department.”Employee data are never to be released to anyone other than employee without approval of the human resources department.”

“We will not share identifying customer data with another organization.”

Data administrator works with senior executives, legal department, functional department managers, and others to determine policies

Define Data Policies


Disaster-recovery planning for recovering

data and systems in event of a catastrophe such as an earthquake, flood, terrorist event, or

other significant processing disruption. We will address this function further in Chapter 12 when

discussing computer security.

Managing information systems is a broad and

complicated task. Some organizations choose to outsource

one or more IS functions.

Plan for Disaster Recovery


•Any value chain business activity can be outsourced

•To domestic or international vendor•Reasons to outsource overseas: Cheaper labor Taking advantage of time differences

Process of hiring another organization to perform services

“Your back room is someone else’s front room.” (Peter Drucker)

•Outsource it to a food services company. It’s their front room operation.

Employee cafeteria is a back room operation

Q5:What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing?


Advantages and

disadvantages of

outsourcing (video)

More reasons for outsourcing here

Outsource Information Systems


Cap financial risk

Reduce risk by ensuring a certain level of quality, or avoiding risk of having substandard quality

Reduce implementation risk of picking wrong hardware or wrong software, using wrong network protocol, or implementing tax law changes incorrectly

Once a company has chosen outsource vendor, further risk management is up to that vendor

Risk Reduction


India is a popular source because it has a large, well-educated, English-speaking population that will work for 70 to 80 % less labor cost than in United States. China and other countries are used as well.

Modern telephone technology and Internet-enabled service databases, a single service call can be initiated in United States, partially processed in India, then Singapore, and finalized by an employee in England.

Used for customer support and other functions that must be operational 24/7.

International Outsourcing


Web storefront or Web Hosting

What Are Outsourcing Alternatives?


Risks of Outsourcing


Removes benefits of economies of scale

Vendor may change pricing strategy after it becomes sole sourceOrganization may pay for vendor’s mismanagement

No easy exit

Vendor may be grossly inefficient and you may not know it

Benefits Outweighed by Long-Term Costs


Q6: What Are Your IS Rights and Responsibilities? (video)


Q6: What Are Your IS Rights and Responsibilities? (cont’d)


Most organizations will move their internal hardware infrastructure into the cloud.

Companies concerned about security will keep some data on their own, privately controlled servers.

Running a computer center for anyone other than a cloud vendor is not a promising career.

Licensed, off-the-shelf software will be more configurable, adaptable, and flexible.

Fewer applications developed in-house, and software customization will be easier.

Fewer and less-skilled employees needed to adapt software to increasingly unique organizational needs.

Q7: 2021?


Small computing devices will be cheaper, more popular and more powerful than cheap cell phones today.

How will organizations maintain control of their employees’ use of IT?

Over the past 40 years, IS departments have waged a losing battle for control over corporate data. That will continue.

Q7: 2021? (cont’d)


Outsourcing computer infrastructure is trading one set of problems for another

•Outsource vendor hires your IT staff•No way to know if vendor’s middle

managers are better than yours

Outsourcing IT middle management

Vendor’s bureaucratic problems—forms, procedures, committees, report, management tools, etc.

You become a clone of vendor’s other clients

Guide: Is Outsourcing Fool’s Gold?


Hard to bring outsourced operations back in-house

Vendor’s are not committed to your bottom line

You can’t get away from IS problems by hiring someone else to manage your IS (procedures and people) for you

Guide: Is Outsourcing Fool’s Gold? (cont’d)


Not all problems can be solved by quantitative analysis

Some problems have no agreed upon method for solving

Paper analysis often misses tangibles and intangibles

Hiring independent consultant avoids issue

No time find answers

No money to conduct in-depth study

Study may cloud issues more

Sometimes, it’s just not possible to find the answer

Guide: What If You Just Don’t Know?


Active Review


Q1 What are the functions and organization of the IS department?

Q2 How do organizations plan the use of IS?

Q3 What tasks are necessary for managing computing infrastructure?

Q4 What tasks are necessary for managing enterprise applications?

Q5 What are the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing?

Q6 What are your IS rights and responsibilities?

Q7 2021?

Documents

Using MIS 4e Chapter 11 Information Systems Management