What are business processes
- Flows of material, information, knowledge
- Sets of activities, steps
- May be tied to functional area or be cross-functional
Businesses can be seen as ___________
collection of business processes
Business processes may be _________
assets or liabilities
Functional business processes:
- Manufacturing and production (Assembling the product)
- Sales and marketing (Identifying customers)
- Finance and accounting (Creating financial statements, paying suppliers)
- Human resources (Hiring employees, paying employees)
Information systems:
- TPS
- BI Systems
MIS/DSS/ESS - Enterprise Systems:
ERP
SCM
CRM
KMS/LMS
Transaction processing systems
- Serves operational managers and staff
- Perform and record daily routine transactions necessary to conduct
business (E.g., sales order entry, payroll, shipping, online purchases) - Allow managers to monitor status of operations and relations with
external environment - Serve predefined, structured goals and decision making
Business Intelligence
- A technology-driven process for analyzing data and presenting
actionable information to help executives to make informed decisions
Examples:
Management information systems
Decision support systems
Executive support systems
Management Information Systems (MIS)
- Serve middle management
- Provide reports on firm’s current performance, based on data from TPS
- Provide answers to routine questions with predefined procedure for
answering them - Typically have little analytic capability
Decision Support Systems (DSS)
- Improved decision making
- Serve middle management
- Support non-routine decision making
- May use external information as well TPS / MIS data
Types:
- Model driven DSS; e.g., Voyage-estimating systems
- Data driven DSS; e.g., Target marketing
Executive Support Systems (ESS)
- Support senior management
- Address non-routine decisions (Requiring judgment, evaluation, and insight)
- Incorporate data about external events (e.g., new tax laws or
competitors) as well as summarized information from internal MIS and
DSS
Example: Digital dashboard with real-time view of firm’s financial
performance
Enterprise Applications
- Systems for linking the enterprise
- Span functional areas
- Execute business processes across the firm
- Include all levels of management
Four major enterprise applications:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Supply Chain Management (SCM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Knowledge Management System (KMS)
Enterprise Systems
- Also known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems
- Collect data from different firm functions and store data in single central
data repository - Resolve problems of fragmented data
Enable:
- Coordination of daily activities
- Efficient response to customer orders (production, inventory)
- Decision making by managers about daily operations and longer-term
planning
Supply Chain Management (SCM) Systems
- Manage firm’s relationships with suppliers
- Inter-organizational systems
Automate the flows of information across organizational boundaries - Share information about
Orders, production, inventory levels, delivery of products and services
Goal:
Right amount of products to destination with least amount of time
and lowest cost, e.g. re-order food for inventory, from supplier
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
- Provide information to coordinate all of the business
processes that deal with customers
Sales
Marketing
Customer service - Helps firms identify, attract, and retain most profitable
customers - Customer Loyalty programs help to collect more
information about customers
Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)
- Support processes for capturing and applying knowledge and expertise
How to create, produce, and deliver products and services - Collect internal knowledge and experience within firm and make it
available to employees - Link to external sources of knowledge
- Include enterprise-wide systems for
- Managing documents, graphics and other digital knowledge objects
- Directories of employees with expertise
E-business:
Use of digital technology and Internet to drive major business
processes
E-commerce
- Subset of e-business
- Buying and selling goods and services through Internet
E-government
Using Internet technology to deliver information and services to
citizens, employees, and businesses
Social business:
- Use of social networking platforms (internal and external) to engage
employees, customers, and suppliers - Aims to deepen interactions and expedite information sharing
- “Conversations” to strengthen bonds with customers
- Requires information transparency
Driving the exchange of information without intervention from
executives or others
Six steps in evaluating software tools
- Identify your firm’s collaboration challenges
- Identify what kinds of solutions are available
- Analyze available products’ cost and benefits
- Evaluate security risks
- Consult users for implementation and training issues
- Evaluate product vendors
The Information Systems Department
Often headed by chief information officer (CIO)
Other senior positions include:
chief information security officer (CISO),
chief technology officer (CTO),
chief privacy officer (CPO)
- Programmers
- Systems analysts
- Information systems managers, project managers
- End users
