NMIMS

Course: Information Systems for Managers

Internal Assignment Applicable for June 2020 Examination

Answer 1:

Customer relationship management (CRM) is an approach to manage a company’s interaction with

current and potential customers. It combines the function of sales force management, direct selling,
call centres and customer support. It works on data analysis from the customer’s history with a
company to improve business relationship, customer retention, new customers’ introduction and
ultimately helps in driving the sales growth.

Customer relationship management software generally operates on four activities, which are
analysis, execution, collaborative and customer data platform. Analytical CRM are based on data
obtained from organisational data repositories and analyse the same to do demand forecast, make
customers profiles, predict customer’s demands, assess competitors’ strategies, etc. Operational
CRM supports background data and analysis for the members of the sales and marketing team.
Functions like tele calling or email advertisement are done using operational CRM. Another
important aim of CRM software is to include external stakeholders such as vendors, suppliers,
distributors and share them the information about customers and the company. The last activity of
CRM is incorporating Customer data platform (CDP) software that helps in assembling data about
customers or potential customers from various sources into one database, which can be used by
several software systems.

The success of CRM generally depends a lot on company’s needs to have the same and a process in
place for maximum utilization. Otherwise, there is a possibility of it being un-utilised and expensive.
The pros and cons of using this as a means to engage with customers effectively are as follows:

Advantages

 Effective sales and marketing: An organisation can build up a clearer picture about the
customers based on the amount of data they ensemble on customer interactions. It helps to
find insights and evaluate the loopholes that the company have in terms of managing its
customers. With the help of CRM the company can identify the ideal target market, it will
show companies the data of their highest spenders to narrow the customers database. This
automatically saves the company a lot of time and effort put to find real customers. The
software helps a company in their marketing communication to achieve higher effective
sales and find a greater return on investments in sales and marketing.
 Increases staff productivity and saves time: CRM saves a company from doing lengthy paper
work, which can be time consuming and tasking at the same time. The time that is saved
from the manual documentations and other paperwork can then be used to do real
productive work that will added value to the business. The increase in staff productivity and
elimination of unnecessary paper work automatically increases morale as staff feels that the
work is important and rewarding.
 Helps in sales conversion: CRM software that is integrated with a marketing campaign helps
the company with in-depth information on the interest of the potential customers. Once the
 client is identified and is in sales funnel, conversion can be automated faster. This may be
enhancing the sales interaction, while keeping the sales personnel free to focus on high
profitable and more important deals.
 Improves customers’ loyalty: The excellence of any business lies on how the company is
dealing with the customer’s queries and problems. This can only be done by having an
efficient CRM in place which can access customers’ data and interest and familiarize with
their needs. CRM helps the companies to deal with multiple queries at a time and provide
better customer experience.
 Helps a dispersed team to work closely: Companies often work with employees from
different locations, remotely-accessible CRM software allows a company to exploit the
efficiencies and benefits of multiple geographical locations. An organisation fully integrated
with CRM can help the sales team on field to work and spend more time with prospective
clients.

Disadvantages

 Security Concerns: Keeping a lot of data in one place, definitely involves some risks. In case
of CRM it is inevitable to have proper security processes put in place to safeguard customers
data and information. This may be a cost incurred by the company, however not having a
security system in place may cost far higher.
 Staff being too reliable on CRM: CRM have the possibility of reducing the staff flexibility in
dealing with customers. These have the possibility of affecting quick decision making power
of the staff and have obvious implications on the customers experience if gone wrong.
 Cost of implementations: The employees in an organisation might take some time to get use
to new software and there are chances of mistakes to be made on initial days. A new CRM
has a cost attached to it which has to be incurred and management have to ensure that t
here’s adequate buy-in and support in the process of transitioning. This can be expensive as
it distracts manpower from their core tasks.
 Requires a process driven sales team: A CRM may only be used to its maximum capacity
when the data that are stored are utilised by the employees of the company and also the
data need to be updated consistently. The real value of a CRM comes from using it to
manage the sales pipeline, flagging the issues and holding people to account. With not a
strong process driven team, this becomes very difficult to achieve, which sometimes
involves excessive investment in the right people hiring and training.
 CRM softwares are not for every company: Certain business where customer transactions
are highly standardised might not enhance from using a CRM. For example a CRM may not
perform too well in a restaurant where there is many touch points, however may efficiently
work in a insurance brokerage company.

Taking all the benefits, cost and the above mentioned points in consideration, it can be concluded
that the pros outweighs the cons. There definitely will be short term disadvantages. However,
strategically CRM can be used to create the kind of financial and time efficient software that allows a
business to grow also increases the speed and efficiency in managing the same.
Answer 2:

Green It is the practices and policies that an organisation follows to manage its IT compliances with
green norms. In other words, it is environmentally sustaining computing. Green IT practices helps
the organisation to reduce or monitor carbon or other polluting emission. Green IT aims to minimize
the negative impact of IT operations on the environment by designing, manufacturing, operating and
disposing of computers and related products in a sustainable way. The motives behind green IT
practices include reducing the use of hazardous materials, maximizing energy efficiency during the
product's lifetime and promoting the biodegradability of unused and outdated products.

Given the demand by regulatory agencies, consumers, societies, many organisations are now
dedicating time and resources to protect the environment and implement different strategies to
mitigate the impact of their IT operations, so that the energy consumption and waste decreases.

The various approaches required to achieve green computing includes both efficient hardware
implementations and improving software methodologies:

Green practices in Hardware: IT hardware goes through the same cycle of design, manufacture and
disposal as other products. The physical components of a device like laptops, tablets, keyboards,
mice, monitors, cables, processor boards, network router are part of hardware devices. These
products are manufactured in different part of the world. The entire supply chain impacts to the
environment. To find out the actual carbon footprints, it is necessary to combine the foot print of
the different parts of the products and also calculate the carbon emission from assembling the final
product. Very high amount of fuel and chemicals are utilised to make these devices and it also leads
to high carbon emissions. Also packaging them for shipping adds up the carbon footprint to already a
higher value. So all care need to be taken to use, manufacture and dispose the hardware causing the
minimum damage to the environment. Also while sending the hardware if the company does not
provide user manual, however asks the client to view from a website is also a kind of energy
conservation.

Green practices in Software: The software determines how efficiently the hardware can be used.
Software designs have to include aspects of power and energy management for Green IT. The
software systems are generally defined into two states: active and idle. The software that is
performing an activity, like a word file, excel sheet, playing a music are termed as active state. And
the software those are not performing currently like a browser, a downloading application or a page
not being is used is known as idle. The most important aspect is that the energy used by hardware
should be in active state and not the software in idle state. The developers nowadays are making
software that can do task efficiently and consumes the least energy.

For Example, for a search task, the software has to search through a lot of texts and numbers, so the
developers are creating algorithms that are efficient and takes least number of steps to give the final
result. Such algorithms are considered to be energy efficient and it puts less pressure on the
processer of the unit too. Please see below two major task of software and how can it be used to
conserve the energy:

Data efficiency: Software can be designed to minimise energy consumption. For hard disk
consumes power when rotating. Less power is consumed when it is idle state, and more power is
consumed when it moves from idle to active state to read or write. So green technology will help the
disk to go into a high spin as few times possible and remain idle when not in use. Another example
is, when large audio or video files are read from the disk, green software are designed to read
maximum data possible and buffer it, so that disk does not need to start and stop multiple times.
Buffering is a temporary storage in RAM or cache that stores the data read from the secondary
storage and it is way to conserve energy.

Context Aware Design: The designing of few hardware systems are context aware and those
hardware adjust their working accordingly. For example, many smart phones and laptops today
increase or decrease the brightness of the device considering the ambient lighting. Context aware
devices use embedded software and operating system drives to enable sensing and responding to
the surrounding which helps in energy conservation as a whole.

Green computing benefits the environment. It reduces the usage in a eco friendly way and translate
the same to lower carbon/ carbon dioxide emulsion, branching from a reduction in the fuel
consumptions in power plants and transportation. Conserving resources is a way of saving or using
fewer resources to produce, use and dispose products.

The benefits to Green IT is for both large and small scale business. It is available for the entire
organisations or for a single work station. If the company is able to look beyond the initial
investment in green IT will be able to reap long term benefits and cost savings. Green IT also helps in
making data centers and computing devices more energy efficient, it uses more of renewable energy
sources. Green IT uses less hazardous materials in computing devices, it increases device longeitivity.

Green IT is just not a trend; it is a technology in itself. It is a way to become environment conscious
and actually bother about it and not just put in place to safeguard company’s image. It definitely is
going to bring additional cost in IT budget. The Green IT is developing everyday and new and
improved ways of the same surface every now and then.

The important key to remember is that while all of these technologies are beneficial in some way,
the most beneficial to existing corporations are those that directly affect their processes and IT
infrastructures. Reducing the number of servers using virtualization is a great way to consolidate but
in order to get the maximum benefit the corporation must reorganize its data centre infrastructure
and in addition, rethink processes and procedures that utilize these resources from the users’
standpoint.

Answer 3 a:

It is very clear from the mentioned statistics in the question that the online gaming is at its peak
worldwide. In addition to it being fun, online gaming also reduces stress, helps in quick reacting,
improve multi tasking and improve decision making powers. Also with online gaming, there are
many ways for criminals to lie, cheat, bully or steal from the players. There are two lines of thought
with online gaming crime. The first is that these online platforms provide easier opportunities to
compromise, attack and steal data. The second is that these online games are becoming hub for
more serious cyber-crimes like:

1. Phishing: It is a cyber-crime in which the targets are contacted online by someone posing to
be what they are not to lure the players into providing sensitive data like identifiable
 information, banking details and credit or debit card password. It is done with fake websites
that looks like a real one. For example, criminals may build up a gaming website and urge
gamers to validate the account by changing passwords. The goal is to take over the account,
which is known as identity theft and use it for wrong doings or sell it in black market.
2. Trolls and bullying: Almost all the online games nowadays have provision of voice or text
messaging. This is made to keep the competitiveness between players. However, the feature
is also widely abused. Sometimes there is a possibility of hearing abusive curse, personal
attack and some players cross the line into bullying other players. This kind of trolling or
bullying affects the player’s mentality in particular affects the younger players a lot.
3. Cracking and hacking: It is the act of breaking into computers or computer networks illegally.
From the online chat forum there is a possibility of getting information from the player
about the password or other security keys. The hackers intention of doing so is to steal
information, digital resources or money.
4. Gold farming or fraud: Most of the online games have real or virtual money to win. Some
cyber criminals use bots to generate the assets like gold, coins or gems which they would
want to sell to other players at a discounted price than the original price on the gaming
app/website. Often the criminals ask for players’ credit card information or direct them to
an unsafe third party website outside the game. And most of such trades turn out to be
fraud.
5. Computer or smartphones compromise: Some hackers target gamers with fake game
updates to customize the game or help them speed up the game progress. The idea is to
spread malware through legitimate game update mechanism. The malware steal gamers
credentials, steal bank account, add the device to a botnet or mines bitcoins.

It is clear that online gaming, while more convenient, interactive and fun than non-connected
and traditional alternatives, is also being exploited by cybercriminals. It is very important to be
extra cautious and stay safe while indulging in online games.

Answer 3 b:

As discussed in the above answer with so many people making themselves known to complete
strangers, it is obvious that online gaming has become a hub for cyber criminals. It is impossible to
guarantee that one won’t fall victim to a cyber criminal in some disguise, however it is important to
educate the customers to take certain precautions to prevent them from being a victim while playing
online games.

The mentioned crime can be avoided by taking the following steps:

1. Phishing: The ways to prevent phishing is to avoid clicking on a link in an email or games chat
box. Rather the website should be typed in an open browser and must be checked
thoroughly before feeding in any information. If an email takes one to a page where they are
required to log in from account, on should be suspicious as most organisations do not ask for
a customer password. Using online protection is a good idea to prevent the browser from
opening fake pop up websites. Most importantly if anything is suspicious, one should never
ignore it. They should get in touch immediately with the company’s customer support and
inform about the same.
 2. Trolls and bullying: If someone is bullying online, they should be immediately blocked and
reported to the game abuse team. It is advisable to never reveal real identity or personal
details to a gaming partner. The kids need to be taught the “stranger – danger” principle
which is highly applicable in online games and real world.
3. Malware: Having a strong antivirus in the device is a good way to stop a malware at the
initial stage itself. Many computers come with an inbuilt antivirus and if not, it is worth
investing in one of those. It is advisable not to download anything from an unfamiliar or
suspicious site and not to install software that one has never heard of.
4. Hackers: A little use of common sense and a simple fix is having a strong password that is not
easy to crack. One should always avoid obvious passwords like birthdays, anniversary, and
name of self or family members. There is a possibility of using keychain tools to
automatically generate a password. As the game progress one must be more cautious about
the account. Along with using complex password, it is advisable to setting up two-factor
authentication for the account and using a strong security solution for the device.
5. Public Wi-Fi: It is encouraged to avoid public wi-fi when playing games. Incase if someone is
using public wi-fi it is encouraged to use a VPN (virtual private network). These can provide
an additional layer of encryption, while hiding the true location.

It is not only breach of data which impact online safety but gamers, often kids, become the victim of
more personal and psychological attacks. So it is an absolute necessity to prevent these things to
happen. Special organisations have been set up to prevent cyber crime from having an impact on
people.