2 basic ways to develop competitive advantage through systems
- enhance product or service through information systems - enable organizations to differentiate themselves
- through business processes - organizations look to technology to help retain customers, reduce costs, and create entry barriers for competitors in the market
5 functional systems
accounting systems, HR systems, procurement & technology, operations systems & manufacturing systems, sales systems
3 problems of isolated functional systems
data duplication/inconsistency, disjointed processes, limited info, increased expense
3 ways to improve business processes without technology change
- adding resources (employees)
- adding increased specialization (more skilled workers)
- changing/eliminating unproductive activities
difference between EAI and ERP
EAI:
- uses layers of software as bridge to connect diff functional systems
- leaves functional systems basically intact through customized EAI interface for each functional system
ERP:
- uses prebuilt software so an org must remove existing functional systems before aeopting
- business processes must be changed to fit structure of ERP system
3 challenges of implementing business process changes
- departmental managers often focus on their aspects of value chain (changes may not integrate across entire organization)
- convincing organization that changes are worth it
- many people like change but do not want to change
3 examples of ERP vendors
- SAP
- Oracle
- Infor
benefits of industry standard processes
- saves time
- expense and agony of process design
- org can benefit immediately from cross-departmental processes
disadvantage of industry standard processes
may be very diff from existing processes and require substantial change (disruptive to ongoing operations)
characteristics of ERP systems
- cross-functional with process view of entire organization
- has formal approach based on formal business models
- single central database for collecting enterprise info
disadvantages of ERP systems
- difficult, fraught with challenges
- can be slow to implement
- often very expensive
benefits of ERP systems
- efficient business processes
- inventory reduction
- lead-time reduction
- improved customer service
- real-time insight into org
- higher profitability
what is CRM
idk
four phases of customer life cycle
- marketing
- customer acquisition
- relationship management
- loss/churn
2 types of relationship management applications
- sales management applications - features priority customer according to purchase history (goal: ensure sales management has sufficient info to prioritize and allocate sales time and effort)
- customer support applications - manage orders, track customer problems + resolutions, prioritize responses according to customer value
general supply chain order
customer <– retailers <– distributors <– manufacturers <– suppliers
four major factors/drivers in supply chain
- facilities
- inventory
- transportation
- information
what are the 3 ways information affects organization (supply chain)
- purpose - transactional (orders/returns) or informational (sharing of inventory or customer order data)
- availability - ways in which info is shared (which orgs have access to what and when)
- means - methods by which info is transmitted
3 fundamental information systems involved in SCM
- (SRM) supplier relationship management
- inventory)
- (CRM) customer relationship management
3 basic processes supported by SRM applications
- source - find vendors & negotiate contract
- purchase - request info, quote, proposal & create order
- settle - receive goods & pay
benefits of IS on supply chain performance
- reduce costs of buying/selling
- increase supply chain speed
- reduce size and costs of inventories
- improve delivery scheduling
