Chapter 13 - Building Information Systems
The chapter discusses how information technology can promote various degree of organizational change. The most common form of IT-enabled organizational change is automation, but three additional kinds of change include: rationalization, business process redesign, and paradigm shifts. Core activities in systems development are systems analysis, system design, programming, testing, conversion, production, and maintenance. We also learned that the two principal methodologies for modeling and designing information systems are structured methodologies and object-oriented development. A chapter-concluding Interaction Session on Technology mentioned USAA, a U.S. military financial services company. I thought it was interesting how USAA is now using its relatively new (since ~2007) mobile services platform. In particular, their mobile app allows customers to take a photo and submit an accident claim directly from the site of an accident. They also allow their banking customers to deposit checks by simply taking a photo of the check, which allows for considerable savings in terms of labor and expense by not having to process the traditional paper checks.
Chapter 14 - Managing Projects
I found this chapter to be particularly interesting, especially the content regarding the typical failure rates of projects. The authors note that there is a very high failure rate among information systems projects. They point out that in nearly every organization, information systems projects take much more time and money to implement than originally anticipated, or it is possible that the completed system does not work as intended. For one, they say that between 30 and 40 percent of all software projects are "runaway" projects that far exceed the original schedule and budget while failing to perform as originally specified. This is quite the cautionary tale! Thus, good project management is essential for ensuring that systems are delivered on time, on budget, and provide solid business benefits. Fundamentally, the costs and benefits must be calculated to determine whether an information systems project may be a good benefit.
Chapter 15 - Managing Global Systems
We learned that a number of factors have driven the increasing internationalization of business including the expansion and prevalence of inexpensive international communication and transportation, political stability, and a growing global knowledge base that is widely shared. The chapter summarizes four basic international strategies including: domestic exporter, multinational, franchiser, and transnational (all factors of production coordinated on a global scale). However, the choice of strategy is a function of the type of business and product. Global information systems pose challenges because cultural, political, and language diversity magnifies differences in organizational culture and business processes and encourages disparate local information systems that are difficult to integrate. In an introductory case study, we learned about L’Oréal Cosmetics, which has more than 23 global brands in 130 countries and more than 67,000 employees worldwide. The case study discusses how through a standarized ERP the company has become more efficient. One particularly interesting example is that when the company had multiple versions of SAP running in different operating units, it could take two to five years for the entire company to upgrade to the latest version of the software But now, with its global enterprise wide version of SAP/FlexNet, a recent L’Oréal’s upgrade took just one weekend!
