IGNOU MBA MS-07 Solved Assignments July 2010

MS- 07: Information systems for Managers

ASSIGNMENT JULY 2010

Course Code : MS-07

Course Title : Information Systems for Managers
Assignment Code : 07/TMA/SEM-II/2010
Coverage : All Blocks

1. Define the Internet, Intranet and E-Commerce. Discuss the advantage of

E-commerce over conventional business. Briefly describe the different
generation of E-business.

SOLUTION: INTERNET
The Internet is a new world. The Internet is not only "The Big Picture," it also offers
a global perspective. By providing connectivity to anyone with a computer and a
telephone line, the Internet is the networking breakthrough of our lifetime. It includes
everything from universal e-mail to transactions between individuals and between
companies. Of course, this now includes commerce as well as information exchanges
and new directories (such as search engines) that provide phone book-style
accessibility for digital communications.Some of the most important results of
this networkingrevolution are new forms of marketing and outreach, new connections
between customers and collaborators, new sources for news and research, and
opportunities for new kinds of distribution of products (as well as of information).
But because the Internet is the broadest information super-highway, it lacks some of
the security and privacy that's needed for the internal workings of business
organizations. Advanced features like multimedia are also more likely to be limited
because most individuals are still using dial-up connections and, as a result, have very
limited data bandwidth.

INTRANETS
Intranets are new kinds of internal networks. Think of "Intra" as it is used in
Intramural sports. Intranets tend to resemble the architecture of a closed-circuit video
network as opposed to the Internet which is more like broadcasting in terms of its
reach. Intranets are used for more private communications, connectivity among work
groups and larger organizations. For example, some companies use Intranets to offer
corporate services such as benefits programs and other kinds of corporate
communications. Also, Intranets enable information sharing that empowers
employees who might otherwise be left "out of the loop." (See "Groupware" below.)
Because of their limited geographic range, Intranets offer more bandwidth, frequently
Ethernet's 10Kbps or better. As a result of this bandwidth and the "closed loop"
structure, more advanced networking features such as video and multimedia, as well
as more technological control, are possible. For example, a company can specify that
a specific web browser and even a specific version of that browser (licensed by the
company) be used on its network. This enables a consistent and more dependable user
experience than is possible on the Internet. Even Internet related services such as
Pointcast can be customized for a particular company and its Intranet.

E-COMMERCE:
Conducting business online. Selling goods, in the traditional sense, is possible to do
electronically because of certain software programs that run the main functions of an
e-commerce Web site, including product display, online ordering, and inventory
management. The software resides on a commerce server and works in conjunction
with online payment systems to process payments. Since these servers and data lines
make up the backbone of the Internet, in a broad sense, e-commerce means doing
business over interconnected networks.

The definition of e-commerce includes business activities that are business-to-

business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), extended enterprise computing (also
known as "newly emerging value chains"), d-commerce, and m-commerce. E-
commerce is a major factor in the U.S. economy because it assists companies with
many levels of current business transactions, as well as creating new online business
opportunities that are global in nature.
Here are a few examples of e-commerce
* accepting credit cards for commercial online sales
* generating online advertising revenue
* trading stock in an online brokerage account
* driving information through a company via its intranet
* driving manufacturing and distribution through a value chain with partners on an
extranet
* selling to consumers on a pay-per-download basis, through a Web site

Advantages of Electronic Commerce over conventional Business:

The greatest and the most important advantage of e-commerce, is that it enables a
business concern or individual to reach the global market. It caters to the demands of
both the national and the international market, as your business activities are no
longer restricted by geographical boundaries compare to convention business. With
the help of electronic commerce, even small enterprises can access the global market
for selling and purchasing products and services. Even time restrictions are
nonexistent while conducting businesses, as e-commerce empowers one to execute
business transactions 24 hours a day and even on holidays and weekends
in convention business this is not possible. This in turn significantly increases sales
and profit. Electronic commerce gives the customers the opportunity to look for
cheaper and quality products. With the help of e-commerce, consumers can easily
research on a specific product and sometimes even find out the original manufacturer
to purchase a product at a much cheaper price than that charged by the wholesaler.
Shopping online is usually more convenient and time saving than conventional
shopping. Besides these, people also come across reviews posted by other customers,
about the products purchased from a particular e-commerce site, which can help make
purchasing decisions. For business concerns, e-commerce significantly cuts down the
cost associated with marketing, customer care, processing, information storage and
inventory management. It reduces the time period involved with business process re-
engineering, customization of products to meet the demand of particular customers,
increasing productivity and customer care services. Electronic commerce reduces the
burden of infrastructure to conduct businesses and thereby raises the amount of funds
available for profitable investment. It also enables efficientcustomer care services. On
the other hand, It collects and manages information related to customer behavior,
which in turn helps develop and adopt an efficient marketing and promotional
strategy.

Different generation of E-business.

1.B2B commerce – it is that business activity in which 2 firm or business units make
electronic transaction in which 1 can be a producer firm and other are raw material
supplier firm.

2. B2C commerce – in B2C commerce, 1 party is the firm and other party is a
customer. on the one hand, customer can seek info. , can place an order, get some
items on the Internet and can also make the payment. on the other hand, a firm can
make a survey to know, who buying what and can also know satisfaction level of
customer. a firm can also make delivery of goods like air and train tickets etc.

3. Intra B commerce – under this, the parties involved are 2 persons or departments of
some business unit. use of computer network makes it possible for the marketing
department to interact constantly with the production. a firms transactions or
interactions with its employees are some time refer to as B to E commerce.
employees can use electronic catalogue and ordering forms.

4. C to C commerce- under C to C commerce, both the parties involved are

customers. it is required for buying and selling of those goods for which there is no
established markets are available.

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2. What is computerized maintenance management? Explain the
conceptual model through which the maintenance function can s
achieve its objectives on a sustained basis

SOLUTION: Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) enable

the facility manager, subordinates and customers to track the status of maintenance
work on their assets and the associated costs of that work. CMMS are utilized by
facilities maintenance organizations to record, manage and communicate their day-to-
day operations. The system can provide reports to use in managing the organization's
resources, preparing facilities key performance indicators (KPIs)/metrics to use in
evaluating the effectiveness of the current operations and for making organizational
and personnel decisions. In today's maintenance world the CMMS is an essential tool
for the modern facilities maintenance organization.

Prior to the computer age paper records were maintained to track the work. Reports
were simple but costly to prepare. With the dawn of the computer age it was
recognized computer software could be used to record work requirements, track the
status of the work and analyze the recorded data for managing the work, produce
reports and help control costs. With time computers have become more powerful, less
costly, and easier to use and now provide tools to support improved maintenance
practices. Facility professionals now have the tools to manage the planning and day-
to-day operations and maintenance activities required for a single facility or a large
complex, providing all of the information required to manage the work, the work
force and the costs and provide management reports and historical data.

The conceptual model through which the maintenance function can s achieve its
objectives on a sustained basis :
A. Operating Locations
The CMMS may include an application that allows an operator to enter and track
locations of equipment (locations in which equipment operates) and organize these
locations into logical hierarchies or network systems. Work orders can then be written
either against the location itself or against the equipment in the operating location.
Using operating locations allows for the tracking of the equipment's lifecycles
(history) and provides the capability to track equipments' performance at specific
sites.

B. Equipment
The CMMS may include a module that allows an operator to keep accurate and
detailed records of each piece of equipment. This module would include equipment
related data, such as bill of material, Preventive Maintenance (PM) schedule, service
contracts, safety procedures, measurement points, multiple meters, inspection routes,
specification data (name plate), equipment downtime, and related documentation.
This equipment data is used for managing day-to-day operations and historical data
that can be used to help make cost effective replace or repair decisions. The data can
also be used to develop additional management information, such as building
equipment downtime failure code hierarchies for use in maintenance management
metrics.

C. Resources
The CMMS may include a separate module to track labor resources. This module
typically includes records for all maintenance personnel, including their craft or trade
categories, such as mechanic, electrician, or plumber. Additionally, this module may
include labor rates in order to capture and track true labor costs against any asset or
piece of equipment. Some CMMS will allow maintenance managers to also track skill
levels and qualifications for each resources to help in planning and scheduling of
work. Grouping labor categories into common associations can help a manager assign
work to particular shop rather than an individual.

D. Safety Plans
With the emphasis placed on safety throughout Government and industry a capability
for safety plans/planning may be included in a CMMS. The following capabilities
should be provided:
* Manual or automatic safety plan numbering.
* Building safety plans for special work.
* Tracking hazards for multiple equipment and locations.
* Associating multiple precautions to a hazard.
* Tracking hazardous materials for multiple equipment and locations.
* Once hazards and precautions are entered they should be available for reference
and data entry.
* Tracking ratings for health, flammability, reactively, contact, and Material Safety
Data Sheets for hazardous materials.
* Defining lock-out/tag-out procedures.
* Define tag identifications for specific equipment and locations.
* Defining safety plans for multiple equipment or locations.
* Viewing and linking documents.
* Associating safety plans to job plans, to preventative maintenance masters and to
work orders.
* Printing safety plans automatically on work orders.
* Allowing tag-out procedures to be associated to hazards or directly to locations,
equipment, and safety plans or work orders.

E. Inventory Control
An inventory control module may be included to allow an operator to track inventory
movement such as items being moved in or out of inventory, or from one location to
another. Stocked, non-stocked, and special order items could be tracked. The module
should also allow the tracking of item vendors, location of items, item cost
information, and the substitute or alternate items that can be used if necessary. Some
CMMS recommend and provide the ability to track tools and provide basic tool-room
management features as part of the inventory module. This feature will allow work
planners the ability to see what tools are in stock and assign tools to various work
categories to reduce research effort on the part of mechanics and technicians working
in the field.

F. Work Request
A work request module should be an integral part of a CMMS. The module could
provide the capability for a requestor to input a request, such as a trouble call, or it
could be entered by the maintenance organization's work control. The data entry
screen should be designed for minimal data entry. The work order number could be
assigned manually or automatically. A requester could enter minimal data and work
 control could enter additional information as required. Data should be entered once,
and pop-up tables in the system should eliminate the need to memorize codes.

G. Work Order Tracking

A CMMS must include work order tracking because it is the heart of a work order
system. The data should be entered once, and pop-up tables should eliminate the need
to memorize codes. The tracking system should provide instant access to all of the
information needed for detailed planning and scheduling, including work plan
operations, labor, materials, tools, costs, equipment, blueprints, related documents,
and failure analysis. Of course, this is dependent on how many modules are installed
and how much information has been entered in the system. The manager must
evaluate data requirements and the practicality of adding modules.

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3. Describe the functions that MIS supports in an organization. What are the
various ways of assessing the value of information? Explain each method briefly.

SOLUTION: Management Information Systems (MIS) is the term given to the

discipline focused on the integration of computer systems with the aims and
objectives on an organization. The development and management of information
technology tools assists executives and the general workforce in performing any tasks
related to the processing of information. MIS and business systems are especially
useful in the collation of business data and the production of reports to be used as
tools for decision making.

Applications of MIS
With computers being as ubiquitous as they are today, there's hardly any large
business that does not rely extensively on their IT systems.
However, there are several specific fields in which MIS has become invaluable.

* Strategy Support
While computers cannot create business strategies by themselves they can assist
management in understanding the effects of their strategies, and help enable effective
decision-making.MIS systems can be used to transform data into information useful
for decision making. Computers can provide financial statements and performance
reports to assist in the planning, monitoring and implementation of strategy.MIS
systems provide a valuable function in that they can collate into coherent reports
unmanageable volumes of data that would otherwise be broadly useless to decision
makers. By studying these reports decision-makers can identify patterns and trends
that would have remained unseen if the raw data were consulted manually.MIS
systems can also use these raw data to run simulations – hypothetical scenarios that
answer a range of ‘what if’ questions regarding alterations in strategy. For instance,
MIS systems can provide predictions about the effect on sales that an alteration in
price would have on a product. These Decision Support Systems (DSS) enable more
informed decision making within an enterprise than would be possible without MIS
systems.

* Data Processing
MISNot only do MIS systems allow for the collation of vast amounts of business
data, but they also provide a valuable time saving benefit to the workforce. Where in
the past business information had to be manually processed for filing and analysis it
can now be entered quickly and easily onto a computer by a data processor, allowing
for faster decision making and quicker reflexes for the enterprise as a whole.

Management by Objectives
While MIS systems are extremely useful in generating statistical reports and data
analysis they can also be of use as a Management by Objectives (MBO) tool.MBO is
a management process by which managers and subordinates agree upon a series of
objectives for the subordinate to attempt to achieve within a set time frame.
Objectives are set using the SMART ratio: that is, objectives should be Specific,
Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time-Specific.The aim of these objectives is to
provide a set of key performance indicators by which an enterprise can judge the
performance of an employee or project. The success of any MBO objective depends
upon the continuous tracking of progress. In tracking this performance it can be
extremely useful to make use of an MIS system. Since all SMART objectives are by
definition measurable they can be tracked through the generation of management
reports to be analysed by decision-makers.

Benefits of MIS
The field of MIS can deliver a great many benefits to enterprises in every industry.
Expert organisations such as the Institute of MIS along with peer reviewed journals
such as MIS Quarterly continue to find and report new ways to use MIS to achieve
business objectives.

Core Competencies
Every market leading enterprise will have at least one core competency – that is, a
function they perform better than their competition. By building an exceptional
management information system into the enterprise it is possible to push out ahead of
the competition. MIS systems provide the tools necessary to gain a better
understanding of the market as well as a better understanding of the enterprise itself.

Enhance Supply Chain Management

Improved reporting of business processes leads inevitably to a more streamlined
production process. With better information on the production process comes the
ability to improve the management of the supply chain, including everything from the
sourcing of materials to the manufacturing and distribution of the finished product.

Quick Reflexes
As a corollary to improved supply chain management comes an improved ability to
react to changes in the market. Better MIS systems enable an enterprise to react more
quickly to their environment, enabling them to push out ahead of the competition and
produce a better service and a larger piece of the pie. Further information about MIS
can be found at the Bentley College Journal of MIS and the US Treasury’s MIS
handbook, and an example of an organisational MIS division can be found at the
Department of Social Services for the state of Connecticut.

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3. What are integrated software applications? Discuss about their

advantages & business application. What is the most common form of IT-
enabled organizational change?

SOLUTION: Integrated software is software for personal computers that combines

the most commonly used functions of many productivity software programs into one
application. The integrated software genre has been largely overshadowed by fully
functional office suites, most notably Microsoft Office, but at one time was
considered the "killer application" type responsible for the rise and dominance of the
IBM PC in the desktop business computing world.In the early days of the PC before
GUIs became common, user interfaces were text-only and were operated mostly by
function key and modifier key sequences. Every program used a different set of
keystrokes, making it difficult for a user to master more than one or two programs.
Programs were loaded from floppy disk, making it very slow and inconvenient to
switch between programs and difficult or impossible to exchange data between them
(to transfer the results from a spreadsheet to a word processor document for example).
In response to these limitations, vendors created multifunction "integrated" packages,
eliminating the need to switch between programs and presenting the user with a more
consistent interface.

The potential for greater ease-of-use made integrated software attractive to home
markets as well as business, and packages such as the original AppleWorks for the
Apple II and Jane for the Commodore 128 were developed in the 1980s to run on
most popular home computers of the day. Context MBA was an early example of the
genre, and featured spreadsheet, database, chart-making, word processing and
terminal emulation functions. However, because it was written in Pascal for
portability, it ran slowly on the relatively underpowered systems of the day. Lotus 1-
2-3, which followed it, had fewer functions but was written in assembler, providing it
with a speed advantage that allowed it to become the predominant business
application for personal computers. The integrated software market of today is
exemplified by entry-level programs such as Microsoft Works which are often
bundled with personal computers as "starter" productivity suites Doing business in a
global economy means that more and more businesses are adopting integrated, end-
to-end processes. This includes technology.

Integrated Software advantages & business application.

I. Cuts Business Costs: How? One reason is that it allows firms to purchase
packaged software. Because integrated software combines the most commonly used
functions of many productivity software programs into one application, it is very
practical for every size company – from micro businesses to Fortune 500
corporations. For literally a few hundred dollars, a company has access to a whole
suite of programs for its employees.

II. Ease of Installation: In IT, the costs of operations – which include installing
software – can cut deep into a budget
Using integrated software can help lower IT operations costs because there’s only one
piece of software to install. Furthermore, an IT consultant can quickly identify and
work through any bugs in a program. This means less down time, which of course,
means increased worker productivity.

III. Information Sharing: Integrated software allows the different modules to share
information seamlessly. For example, let’s say a team of three is working on a
proposal.
One member of the team may be doing the writing of the proposal in a word
processing document. The second team member may be using a graphics program to
pull together the illustrations, while the third member of the team may be creating a
spreadsheet of the statistical data for the proposal. Three different users; three
different modules used; one proposal – and one integrated software package.This is
all made possible because the various functions and commands of integrated software
packages are in the same location, ensuring that all applications share information and
work flawlessly together.

IV. Troubleshooting Made Easy: As alluded to in advantage number two listed

here, troubleshooting integrated software packages is easy because there’s only one
user manual. Hence, solutions to problems can be located easily. And, if there are
problems beyond what’s outlined in the user manual, it’s easy to contact the
manufacturer.In short, integrated software allows businesses to respond quickly to
client demand. And, this is what IT for business is all about.

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5. Differentiate between DSS, MIS & EIS with the help of suitable
example. Discuss the various phases of System Development life cycle.

SOLUTION: The terms MIS and DSS stand for Management Information Systems
and Decision Support Systems respectively. There has been a lot of talk regarding
these two, whether they are actually the same thing or if there are any significant
differences between the two.

MIS is basically a kind of link to facilitate communication between managers across

different areas in a business organization MIS plays a pivotal role in enabling
communications across the floor of an organization, between various entities therein.
DSS, many consider, is an advancement from the original MIS. However, this is not
the sole difference between the two. While there may not be too much separating the
two, the difference is still there,as is apparent when we say DSS is an advancement
over MIS.

The essential difference between the two is in focus. DSS, as the term indicates, is
about leadership and senior management in an organization providing good, reliable
judgment as well as vision. MIS, on the other hand, is about focusing on the actual
flow of information itself. An example of the differences between an MIS, DSS, and
EIS using sales trends:
MIS: All reports are pre-programmed. For example, the MIS might be able to provide
reports showing sales by month. The user is required only to select a report.

EIS: Formatting is pre-programmed, but the data is not. For example, the EIS could
provide sales by day, week, month, quarter or the entire year. The user has to select a
report as well as parameters, such as the time period.

DSS: Rather than providing "reports," a DSS allows interactive analysis of data, more
like a spreadsheet. This allows you to do what-if analysis, for example, change certain
information and see what happens, such as "if sales are X in March, what will happen
to Net Income?" The user can change the data to do forecasting or more detailed
analysis.

Saying a DSS is passive means that the DSS does not help the user in their analysis,
instead the user provides the information. Saying an EIS is active means that the EIS
does more for the user, without requiring them to enter a lot of information.
EIS: The EIS is active because is gives the user all of the information when the user
requests the information, such as sales for the month.

DSS: The DSS is passive because it gives the user more freedom to enter their own
information and explore more "what if" scenarios. For example, the DSS could show
profit for March, but the user could also explore what profit would have been if sales
of widget X increased by 20%. The DSS does not suggest these scenarios to the user
(i.e. it is passive), and the EIS could not perform this type of analysis because the
reports in an EIS are pre-programmed