Management Information System

CIA-1
Submitted by- Rochak Vyas

1021256

Q.1) Define e-organization, e-business, e-communications, e-collaborations? And

their roles in e-enterprises.

Ans: E-Organizations: organizations that function primarily utilizing the

medium of Internet and/or technology--in particular information technology
in their revenue generation are called as E-Organizations.

There are some major differences between electronic organizations and

other "traditional" firms--the so-called brick and mortar organizations. The
most obvious of these is in the human element. In reality, there will be at
least a one generation gap between employees who are responsible for
revenue generation in electronic firms and their counterparts in traditional
businesses. Either due to work demands or the generation gap, or both,
electronic workers have very different personality and work characteristics.
Moreover, what is even more important in E-organizations is that there is
usually very little leadership and direct supervision that employees can
expect from their managers in execution of their line work.

E- Business: E-business includes developing strategies for running Internet-

based companies improving communication with suppliers and customers
,collaborating with partners to electronically coordinate design and
production ,identifying a different kind of leader to run a “virtual” business
,the challenge of finding skilled people to build and operate intranets and
Web sites ,and running the “back room” or the administration side. E-
business includes the creation of new markets and customers, but it’s also
concerned with the optimum ways to combine computers, the Web, and
applications software.

E-Collaborations: can be defined as any activity performed by means

of/supported by electronic tools or infrastructure, aimed at reaching a
goal/meta-goal and possibly involving human interaction.
It is collaboration among people or organizations made possible by means of
electronic technologies such as the Internet, video conferencing, and
wireless devices E-Collaboration is not a new research and technological
topic but it involves a number of very different areas each one at different
levels of maturity. Shared white boarding, multimedia conferencing,
calendaring and scheduling, e-mailing can all be considered part of the E-
Collaboration world.

E-COMMUNICATION: The Internet and electronic communications (also

called computer mediated communications, or CMC) doesn't just mean new
tools for communication; it means new ways to communicate. Today your
organization interacts with its various constituents differently - employees,
board members, customers, partners and others - depending upon the
nature of the message, the goals you are trying to achieve and the strengths
(and weaknesses) of the available media - telephones, voice mail, fax
machines, print, etc. Electronic communications adds a powerful new
channel that not only will change how you use this mix of options, but it will
create entirely new ways to interact. For example Electronic communications
lets you combine numerous media - text, graphics sound, video, etc. - into a
single message. That can result in far more meaningful communications
tailored to the nature of your particular audience. In contrast to
broadcasting, narrow casting reflects the ability to develop numerous
communications for subsets of your market or constituencies.

Electronic communications is interactive. It engages audiences in active,

two-way communications. That requires a new way of thinking about
advertising copy and the handling of public relations. The pay-off, however,
is a self-selected audience, engaged and actively participating in the
communications process.

Two-way communication is nothing new. But electronic communications

creates a new form of many-to- many communications that lets
geographically distributed groups communicate interactively and
simultaneously through text, sound and video. You can hold inexpensive
video conferences or press conferences from your desk, or conference with
people at several desks located across the world. One of the burgeoning
phenomena of the Internet is businesses and organizations sponsoring,
supporting and moderating discussion groups about issues, products,
strategies-anything of interest to the organization and its constituents.
Sponsorships are also solicited for popular resources, such as indexes and
other Internet search tools, and these provide a further communications and
marketing opportunity. Many organizations are using electronic
communications facilities, such as the World Wide Web, as internal
communications tools to enhance team work. Many individuals at different
locations can work on the same documents, hold meetings and integrate
research findings. Electronic communications removes the power of
communications gatekeepers to both positive and negative effects. Most
organizations are used to controlling the messages that go out to its
constituents through managers, spokespeople and others. But with the
Internet, constituents begin to talk among themselves, requiring new
approaches and a new emphasis on listening and reacting, not just talking.
With the Internet you have the ability to transmit and receive large amounts
of information quickly to and from individuals and workgroups around the
world.

These changes the way activists, for example, can galvanize communities,
inform legislators and change public opinion. It changes the sources and
depth of your constituents' knowledge levels. It also lets those constituents
reach you with new kinds of communications they may never have
attempted before. And these are only some of the changes we are seeing
now. There will be unanticipated and ripple effects we can't imagine. For
example, will electronic mail become a buffer to avoid communications or
confrontations that might be better resolved in person? Will managers find
themselves traveling more in order to gain the personal touch with members
of distributed workgroups? How will organizations prepare themselves for
this increased level of participatory constituent interaction.

Q.2) Explain the Functional and Cross Functional Information

System.
Ans: Functional Information System (FIS) works with systems are those
which process the daily information. A classic example of FIS is: TPS
(transaction Processing Systems) it collects, stores, modifies, and retrieves
the transactions of an organization. The important features of TPS are as
follows:-
  Rapid response

Fast performance with a rapid response time is critical. Businesses

cannot afford to have customers waiting for a TPS to respond, the
turnaround time from the input of the transaction to the production for
the output must be a few seconds or less.

 Reliability

Many organizations rely heavily on their TPS; a breakdown will disrupt

operations or even stop the business. For a TPS to be effective its
failure rate must be very low. If a TPS does fail, then quick and
accurate recovery must be possible. This makes well–designed backup
and recovery procedures essential.

 Inflexibility

A TPS wants every transaction to be processed in the same way

regardless of the user, the customer or the time for day. If a TPS were
flexible, there would be too many opportunities for non-standard
operations, for example, a commercial airline needs to consistently
accept airline reservations from a range of travel agents, accepting
different transactions data from different travel agents would be a
problem.

 Controlled

The processing in a TPS must support an organization's operations. For

example if an organization allocates roles and responsibilities to
particular employees, then the TPS should enforce and maintain this
requirement processing.

Cross functional information system-

A cross-functional information system is the third era of information
systems, after calculations systems and functional systems. Cross-functional
systems were designed to integrate the activities of the entire business
process, and are called so because they 'cross' departmental boundaries.
Changing over to a cross-functional system from a functional one can be
problematic at times, as it involves the coordinating of activities across
multiple departments, with the users changing the way that they work.
There is no clear line of authority, and fierce peer competition can often lead
to inter departmental rivalries that hinder the development of the new
system.

Examples of Cross-functional systems are as follows:-

Enterprise applications integration (EAI)

EAI (enterprise application integration) refers to the plans, methods, and

tools aimed at modernizing, consolidating, and coordinating the computer
applications in an enterprise. EAI may involve developing a new total view of
an enterprise's business and its applications, seeing how existing
applications fit into the new model, and then devising ways to efficiently
reuse what already exists while adding new applications and data.
Enterprise application integration (EAI) entails integrating applications and
enterprise data sources so that they can easily share business processes and
data. Integrating the applications and data sources must be accomplished
without requiring significant changes to these existing applications and the
data. Before EAI, integrating applications and data within a corporate
environment has been an expensive and risky proposition

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrates internal and external

management information across an entire organization, embracing
finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, etc. ERP systems
automate this activity with an integrated software application. Its purpose is
to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the
boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside
stakeholders.
ERP systems can run on a variety of hardware and network configurations,
typically employing a database to store data. ERP systems typically include
the following characteristics:
  An integrated system that operates in (next to) real time, without
relying on periodic updates.

 A common database that supports all applications.

 A consistent look and feel throughout each module.

 Installation of the system without elaborate application/data

integration by the Information Technology (IT) department.

Customer relationship management (CRM)

It is a widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions
with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to
organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales
activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical
support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture
and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into
the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. The use of a
CRM system will confer several advantages to a company:

 Quality and efficiency

 Decreased costs

 Decision support

 Enterprise agility