Managing Information Technology :Managing Information Resources and technologies-IS architecture and management - Centralized , Decentralized and Distributed

EDI-supply chain management-CRM-ERP.

UNIT IV
MANAGING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TRENDS Interactive Multimedia :

One trend highly touted by the experts is that of the "information appliance." Do we need to have a separate device for watching television, another one for listening to music, a different one called a telephone, and yet a whole separate device for computing?

Smart Cards and Microminiaturization :

Take a credit card out of your wallet and look at the magnetic strip on the back. The strip may seem too small to hold much data.

Social Interfaces : on PCs, handheld PCs, phones, or

smart TVs such as WebTV.

ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES ON THE EMERGENCE OF NEW ORGANISATIONAL FORMS In order to be competitive, companies are forced to adopt less hierarchical and more flexible structures, and to define strategies able to combine reduced costs, high quality, flexibility and a quick answer to customer requirements. some changes are taking place within individual companies and in their relations with other organizations, creating new structures in which relationships between customers and suppliers are suffering considerable changes. One of these changes is concerned with the formation of networks in which there is a division of labor that allows each company to exploit their distinctive advantages, and be more competitive globally.

 The Information Technology (IT) represents a supportive element that facilitates the transfer of information across organizational boundaries. In order to attain relatively low costs in the last two decades the enterprises followed strategies of backward-forward integration, based on the improvement of the effects of the experience curve and the scale economies . Nowadays, the enterprises have to compete in a more and more turbulent scene, which obliges them to adopt less hierarchical and more flexible structures. During the last years, a major transformation in the strategy of many enterprises has been observed with a tendency to disintegration.

 The Network Structure

a network is a specific kind of relationship joining a particular group of people, objects, or events. Two factors needed for constituting a network can be obtained from this definition; first, a network is formed by a group of elements; second, these elements establish specific relationships among them. Information Technology on the Emergence of Networks IT influences the nature, punctuality and detail level of the information shared by enterprises IT reduces the transaction costs, while it provides a better management of the risks IT reduces the co-ordination costs

 FOUR RS OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION Reframing is the shifting of a companys conception of what it is and what it can achieve with new visions and a new resolve Restructuring is a girding of corporate, getting it to achieve a competitive level of performance by dealing with the body of corporation and competitiveness. The need to be lean and fit is the primary consideration. Revitalization is about igniting growth by linking the corporate body to the environment. Renewal deals with the people side of transformation, and with the spirit of the company. It is about investing individuals with new skills and new purposes, thus allowing the company to regenerate itself.

 MANAGING THE NEW IT INFRASTRUCTURE Four levels of the organization should govern decisions about the IT infrastructure: CEO, CIO, and the strategic council Operational groups Business units and regional units Specific business functions ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS Experimentation with other designs is limited. Significant resource commitments are necessary. This approach is non-adaptive. Success depends on faithful execution of all its elements

 MANAGING IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND ARCHITECTURE: ENTERPRISE COMPUTING

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) Definition of ERP:

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems attempt to integrate several data sources and processes of an organization into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules.

Components of ERP:
The two key components of an ERP system are a common database and a modular software design. A common database is the system that allows every department of a company to store and retrieve information in real-time. Using a common database allows information to be more reliable, accessible, and easily shared. Furthermore, a modular software design is a variety of programs that can be added on an individual basis to improve the efficiency of the business. This improves the business by adding functionality, mixing and matching programs from different vendors, and allowing the company to choose which modules to implement. These modular software designs link into the common database, so that all of the information between the departments is accessible in real time.

 ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP)

It attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments' particular needs. Is a tall order, building a single software program that serves the needs of people in finance as well as it does the people in human resources and in the warehouse. ERP combines them all together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so that the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other. ERP vanquishes the old standalone computer systems in finance, HR, manufacturing and the warehouse, and replaces them with a single unified software program divided into software modules that roughly approximate the old standalone systems.

Benefits of ERP:
Help reduce operating costs Facilitate Day-to-Day Management Support Strategic Planning Improve alignment of strategies and operations Improve productivity and insight Reduce costs through increased flexibility Support changing industry requirements Reduce risk Improve financial management and corporate governance Optimize IT spending Gain higher ROI faster Retain top performers Provide immediate access to enterprise information.

ERP Improve a Company's Business Performance

ERP's best hope for demonstrating value is as a sort of battering ram for improving the way your company takes a customer order and processes it into an invoice and revenue otherwise known as the order fulfillment process. That is why ERP is often referred to as back-office software. It doesn't handle the up-front selling process (although most ERP vendors have recently developed CRM software to do this); rather, ERP takes a customer order and provides a software road map for automating the different steps along the path to fulfilling it.

 ERP Fix
There are five major reasons why companies undertake ERP.

Integrate customer order information Standardize and speed up manufacturing processes: Reduce inventory: Standardize HR information

 CRM Managing the full range of the customer relationship involves two related objectives, one to provide the organization and all of its customer facing employees with a single , complete view of every customer at every touch point and across all channels and two, to provide the customer with a single, complete view of the company and its extended channel.

 Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers. Supply Chain Management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-inprocess inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption