Chapter 1: Information systems in global business today
1.1 How are information systems transforming business, and why are they so
essential for running and managing a business today?
Information systems and technologies are transforming the global business environment.
The figure shows that between 1999 and 2019, capital investment in information technology
consisting of IT equipment, software and R&D accounted for over 40% of US total capital
spending – a similar pattern has occurred globally.
What’s new in management information systems?
Continuous change in technology, management and business processes makes the MIS field
the most exciting area of study in schools of business – 5 important changes:
1. IT innovations: a continuing stream of information technology innovations is
transforming the traditional business world.
Emergence of cloud computing
The growth of a mobile digital business platform based on smartphones and
tablet computers
Big data
The Internet of Things
Business analytics
Machine learning systems
Use of social networks by managers to achieve business objectives
These innovations are enabling entrepreneurs and innovative traditional firms to create
new products and services, develop new business models and transform the day-to-day
conduct of business.
2. New business models: the emergence of online video services for streaming or
downloading, has changed how premium video is distributed and created (Netflix
etc.)
, 3. E-commerce expansion: e-commerce is changing how firms design, produce and
deliver their products and services. It has invented itself again, disrupting the
traditional marketing and advertising industry and putting major media and content
firms in danger. Social networking sites sell services. Growth in social commerce is
urged by powerful growth of the mobile platform.
Mobile retail e-commerce worldwide is growing at almost 20% a year
4. Management changes: management of business firms has changed. The growth of
enterprise-wide information systems with extraordinary rich data means that
managers no longer operate in a fog of confusion, but have online access to the
important information they need for accurate and timely decisions. Social networking
tools and blogs are becoming important corporate tools for communication,
collaboration and information sharing.
New mobile smartphones
High-speed wireless Wi-Fi networks
Tablets
Remote salespeople on the road are seconds away from their manager’s
questions and supervision
Management is going mobile
5. Changes in forms and organizations: new fast-growing 21st century business firms
put less emphasis on hierarchy and structure and more emphasis on employees
taking on multiple roles and tasks and collaborating with others on a team. They put
more emphasis on competency and skills, higher-speed and more-accurate decisions
making based on data and analysis. They are aware of changes in technology,
customer attitudes and culture. They use social media to enter into conversations
with consumers and demonstrate a greater willingness to listen to consumers. They
show better understanding of the importance of information technology in creating
and managing business firms and other organizations.
21st century digital firms
Globalization challenges and opportunities: a flattened world
The Industrial Revolution was a worldwide phenomenon energized by expansion of trade
among nations, making nations competitors and collaborators in business. The internet has
greatly heightened the competitive tensions among nations as global trade expands and
strengthened the benefits that flow from trade, and also created significant dislocations in
labor markets.
Flat world = internet and global communications greatly expand the opportunities for people
to communicatie with each other and reduced the economic and cultural advantages of
developed countries.
A growing percentage of the economy of the US and other advanced industrial countries in
Europe and Asia depends on imports and exports.
2019: 30% of the world economy resulted from foreign trade of goods and services – import
and exports.
,Goods and jobs move across borders. In a normal year, 300.000 service jobs move off-shore
to lower-wage countries, many of them in less-skilled information system occupations but
also in tradable service jobs in architecture, financial services, customer call centers,
consulting, engineering and radiology.
Employment in information systems and the other service occupations has rapidly expanded
in sheer number, wages, productivity and quality of work. Outsourcing has accelerated the
development of new systems in the US and worldwide by reducing the cost of building and
maintaining them. In 2019, job openings in information systems and technologies far
exceeded the supply of applicants.
The emergence of the internet into a full-blown international communications systems has
drastically reduced the costs of operating and transacting on a global scale.
Firms producing goods and services on a global scale, achieve extraordinary cost reductions
by finding low-cost suppliers and managing production facilities in other countries.
Internet service firms (eBay, Google) can replicate their business models and services in
multiple countries without having to redesign their expensive fixed-cost information systems
infrastructure.
Information systems enable globalization.
The emerging digital firm
A digital firm = firm in which nearly all of the organization’s significant business relationships
with customers, suppliers and employees are digitally enabled and mediated.
Core business processes are accomplished through digital networks spanning the entire
organization or linking multiple organizations.
Business processes refer to the set of logically related tasks and behaviors that organizations
develop over time to produce specific business results and the unique manner in which
these activities are organized and coordinated.
Developing a new product
Generating and fulfilling an order
Creating a marketing plan
Hiring an employee
The ways organizations accomplish their business processes can be a source of competitive
strength.
Key corporate assets = intellectual property, core competencies and financial and human
assets. They are managed through digital means.
In a digital firm, any piece of information required to supports key business decisions is
available at any time and anywhere in the firm.
, Digital firms sense and respond to their environments far more rapidly than traditional firms,
giving them more flexibility to survive in turbulent times. They offer extraordinary
opportunities for more-flexible global organization and management. In digital firms, time
shifting, and space shifting are the norm.
• Time shifting = business being conducted continuously – 24/7
• Space shifting = work takes place in a global workshop as well as within national
boundaries – work accomplished physically wherever in the world it’s best
accomplished
Strategic business objectives of information systems
Information systems are essential for conducting day-to-day business in most advanced
countries as well as achieving strategic business objectives. Today’s service industries
(finance, insurance, real estate, travel, etc.) could not operate without information systems.
Information technology is a foundation for business in the 21st century.
There’s a growing interdependence between a firm’s ability to use information technology
and its ability to implement corporate strategies and achieve corporate goals (figure).
Increasing market share, becoming the high-quality or low-cost producer, developing new
products and increasing employee productivity depend more and more on the kinds and
quality of information systems in the organization.
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