DECEMBER 2016 EXAMINATION

DCA 01

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

Time: Three Hours Maximum Marks: 100

Note:

1. The paper is divided in TWO Sections: SECTION-A and SECTION-B.

2. There are five questions in SECTION-A. Students are required to attempt ANY THREE.
3. All the questions of SECTION-B (Case Study) are compulsory.

SECTION-A (20 Marks each)

1. a) What are some of the toughest management challenges in developing IT solutions to

solve business problems and meet new e-business opportunities?
b) Why are there so many conceptual classifications of information systems? Why are they
typically integrated in information systems found in the real world?

2. a) How could a business leverage its investment in IT to build strategic IT capabilities that
serve as a barrier to entry by new entrants into its markets?
b) What strategic role can information technology play in business process reengineering
and total quality management?

3. What are several e-business applications that you might recommend to a small company to help
it survive and succeed in challenging economic times?

4. a) Do you agree that most businesses should engage in electronic commerce on the
Internet?
b) Do the e-commerce guarantee success for a business venture?

5. a) What are your major concerns about computer crime and privacy on the Internet?
What can you do about it?
b) What would be the positive and negative effect of the use of e-business technologies in
ethical and societal dimensions? Illustrate with example.

SECTION-B (40 Marks)

Case Study (Compulsory)
Bay Networks Inc.

Bay network Inc. Uses the internet to link with its suppliers. The driving force behind Bay Network
extranet, however, was the company’s need to link its supply chain systems with its distributers.
For years we have wanted daily point-of-sale information from our distributers; says Maynard Webb, CIO
of the Santa Clara, California, manufacture of networking devices. With such data, the company new its
manufacturing unit could match production levels better to demand. After meeting with several

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distributers, Webb discovered that these business partners had the technical resources to provide the
data, but needed a link between their sales tracking systems and Way Networks supply chain systems.
In, effects, Bay Networks wanted to have a look into its partners ordering systems and it’s
devised an extranet to do so. Partner Net, the company’s extranet, is a conduit for Bay Networks to give
distributers the timely sales data they need. But Webb still had to cajole distributors in to giving them
data back, because some tracked their sales weekly, not yet daily.
Moving from weekly to daily sales reports required distributors to do some order-system
recording. They were a little hesitant to do the extra work, Webb says. But by pointing out that Partner
Net would give distributers critical information such as Bay Networks’ production capacity and inventory
data, Webb persuaded them to accept the system and do the recording.
When taking customer orders, distributers now can check Bay Networks inventory status to see
how many routers are available for immediate shipping, for example, and how many will be available
within a week. Enabling distributers to track shipment status with Federal Express Corp.Did not hurt
either.
‘The real issue is that {distributers} have to believe that this will radically change the business for
the better,’ Webb says, ‘for themselves as well as for Bay Networks.’ On the other end of the supply
chain, Bay Networks can see how many orders have been placed so it can step up production during
peak sales periods. The result, Webb says, is that customers get their order faster. Both distributers and
Bay Networks benefit from that.
‘When you are going outsiders access to sensitive data such as production schedules for the first
time, security is the major concern,’ he says.to address that issue, Bay Network’ distributors and
suppliers each have a unique account number and passwords that give them to access to the system, but
only to the information pertaining to their own business. For example, a distributer can access to the
status of its own backlog orders, but not that of its competitors.
Bay Networks uses SAP’s ERP system with an Oracle database for its supply chain transactions. In
order to capture Way Networks ’ERP’s data, most production scheduling information from Partner Net in
to a spread sheet program.
They then import that data in to their own back office database systems. The ideal method, says
Webb, would be a direct transfer of data from Partner Net to a supplier’s back-end systems. To
accomplish that, Way Networks is testing SAP’s new release of the ERP system, R/3, release 3.1, which is
internet capable.
Not all of Way Networks’ business partners, however, are equipped with SAP. Those that are do
not require a mechanism for translating Bay Networks’ R/3 data protocol to their own.
A potential solution to that problem may come from Actra Business Systems, a joint venture
formed in 1996 between Netscape Communications and GEIS. Actra sells software that converts
conventional EDI software in to internet formats such as the secure stocks layer encryption protocol,
allowing EDI users to do business on the internet.
It is still very early in the game, though, and CIOs may have to find the right solution by trial and
error, according to Webb. ‘You have to be willing to throw some stuff out,’ he says, ‘because this stuff is
in its infancy and changing so fast.’

6. Case Questions:

i. Discuss the advantages of the E-SCM solution deployed by Bay Networks for its
distributers?
2. What are the problems associated with the proper implementation of E-SCM. Find
solution to overcome these problems?

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