Chapter 2.

Information Systems: Concepts and Management - Chapter Exercises

Implementing Strategy with IT For the first week of your internship, you got to know Lisa and Reuben, the owner/managers of Club IT, and learning some of the back office operations. Youve become familiar with the Club IT website, and you want to help Lisa and Reuben see how they can achieve their primary strategic objective - to build a community that meets regularly at Club IT. After reading Chapter 2, you have seen many real business cases where IT has helped organizations achieve strategic objectives. The real estate industry has seen a major transformation with electronic communications and the web, the airlines are continuing to innovate, and even your course registration process is getting easier with online options. While Club IT doesnt have the IT resources of Kmart or Sears, it is much more agile and should be able to take advantage of its information base to help build a community with the support of IT. 1. Many organizations now have a members website, where customers can keep track of different kinds of information related to the organization. Many have wish lists where you can keep track of items related to that business eBay is a good example. Visit a site that allows users to keep a my favorites type of list (eBay, Amazon, Dell, Old Navy are examples) and prepare a paragraph discussing the kinds of competitive information the organization can gain by providing this service.

2. Consider the different strategies for competitive advantage listed in the chapter: a. Cost leadership b. Differentiation c. Innovation d. Operational effectiveness e. Customer orientation Can ClubIT compete with all of these strategies? Choose one strategy for Club IT to focus on and describe the kinds of information it would need to pursue that strategy.

3. Lisa has discussed with you possibilities to expand the Members Only part of the Club IT website, such as adding a blogspace, or creating a rewards program. She has asked you to create some rewards scenarios and the possible costs associate with those rewards. Download the spreadsheet Ch2_RewardsProgram.xls and use Excels Data Table function to compare the cost of discounts between 3% and 10%. The column input cell should reference the formula for total cost of the

discounts:

4. Prepare a memo to Lisa and Reuben discussion the strategic advantages of a rewards program, the kinds of data that it would generate and how much different levels of rewards would cost. Copy and paste the Data Table generated in #3 into your report.