9th Edition Part I.

Managing the Value of Data

Information and Information Technology
Technology

for Management Chapter 4

Advancing Sustainable,

Profitable Business Growth Networks, Collaboration and

Sustainability

[INSERT COURSE NAME HERE]

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-1
 Chapter 4 Outline

4.1 Business IT Networks and Components

4.2 Wireless Network Applications and Mobile

Infrastructure
4.3 Network Management and Search

4.4 Collaboration and Communication Technologies

4.5 Sustainability and Ethical Issues

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-2
 Chapter 4 Learning Outcomes
• Describe network systems and their quality of service issues.
• Describe wireless applications, mobile network infrastructure and
how they support worker productivity, business operations, and
strategy.
• Explain the business valve of intranets, extranets and other
network portals and their role in improving relationships with
employees, customers and supply chain partners.
• Evaluate performance improvements from virtual collaboration
and communication technologies, and explain how they support
group work.
• Describe how companies can contribute to sustainability, green,
social, and ethical challenges related to the use and operations of
IT networks.
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-3
 For Class Discussion & Debate
Case 1: Mobile Network Gives Haneda
Airport Its Competitive Edge

Opening Case (see book for full text)

Discuss
1. Why is free, easy instant-on wireless connectivity an important
service at an airport?
2. How does the WLAN impact customer service?
3. How can wireless connectivity reduce customer service costs for the
airlines that use Haneda Airport’s international terminal?
4. What do international airports compete for? Why?
5. What components are needed for a WLAN?

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-4
 Case 1: Decide and Debate
Decide
6. Visit the Haneda Airport, International Flight Passenger Terminal at
haneda-airport.jp/inter/en/. Click on MOBILE TIAT. What other
mobile IT-based services are offered to travelers? How might these
mobile technologies make it easier and less expensive to manage
airport operations?

Debate
7. What are Haneda Airport’s competitors?
8. Does TIAT’s investment in the WLAN to provide instant-on
connectivity to customers in the international terminal provide
Haneda Airport with a strategic advantage? Or is the WLAN an
expense—that is, the cost of doing business today?
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-5
 4.1 Business IT Networks and Components

Business networks support five basic functions:

 communication
 Mobility
 collaboration
 relationships
 search
• Digital Transmission: The transmission of the signal by the
switches and routers is called switching.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-6
 Switching: transmission of the signal
 Circuit switching: Circuit switching is older technology that
was used for telephone calls. Plain old telephone service
(POTS) and most wired telephone calls are transmitted, at
least in part, over a dedicated circuit.

 Packet switching: The path of the signal is digital, and is

neither dedicated nor exclusive. A file is broken into smaller
blocks, called packets.

Figure 4.3. Wireless local area

network is created by multiple
wireless access points
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-7
 IT at Work 4.1: Hospital of the Future Built
on Network Infrastructure
See text for full case
 When hospital’s management began planning a move to a new facility, they saw
an opportunity to design the hospital of the future. Their goal was to use state-
of-the-art clinical, information, and mobile network technologies to provide
safer, more effective patient care
 Robust Next-Gen Wireless Network
 Network Solution and Benefits
• Questions
• 1. What capabilities did RMH management envision for the
• hospital of the future?
• 2. Why was an adaptable network solution so critical to RMH?
• 3. What were the main components of the hospital’s network?
• 4. In your opinion, how do the hospital’s network-enabled capabilities
• influence quality of health care and health care costs?
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-8
Network Terminology

 Bandwidth: Throughput capacity or speed of a network

 Protocol: Standards that govern how networked devices
exchange information.
 TCP/IP: Transmission control protocol/Internet Protocol
are a suite of Internet protocols.
 Broadband: Short for broad bandwidth.
• Fixed-line broadband: Cable or DSL Internet connections.
• Mobile broadband: Wireless high-speed Internet access through
a portable modem, phone, or other device.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-9
 3G and 4G Networks
3G: Short for third generation of cellular
telecommunications technology
4G: Short for fourth generation. 4G mobile network
standards enable faster data transfer rates.

Users can get 4G wireless connectivity through one of

two standards:
1. WiMAX
2. LTE (Long-Term Evolution)

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-10
 IT at Work 4.2: Net Neutrality vs. Traffic Shaping
See text for full case
 Net neutrality is a one-tier system in which all Internet data packets
are treated the same, regardless of their content, destination or
source.
 Traffic shaping is the practice of managing data transfer to ensure a
certain level of performance or QoS. Specifically, traffic is shaped by
delaying the flow of less-important network traffic (e.g., bulk data
transfers, P2P (peer-to-peer) file-sharing programs, BitTorrent traffic)
and giving priority to more important data. Traffic shaping creates a
two-tier system.
Questions
1. What is net neutrality?
2. Why is net neutrality such a hotly debated issue?
3. Did the FCC’s ruling favor either side of the debate? Explain.
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-11
 4.2 Wireless Network Applications and Mobile
Infrastructure
 More users are using more bandwidth. By 2016, there will be
an estimated 5.1 billion mobile users, up from 4.1 billion in
2011. By 2016, 60%, or 3 billion people, will generate more
than one gigabyte of mobile data traffic per month.
 More users have more mobile devices. By 2016, there will be
10 billion mobile devices and connections—that’s one-and-a-
half devices for each person on Earth.
 More powerful mobiles. By 2016, smartphones will be 82% of
all handsets, up from 12% in 2011. Mobile traffic originating
from tablets will grow 62-fold from 2011 to 2016.
 Wireless networks serving mobiles are getting faster. By 2016,
36% of mobile data traffic will be on a 4G network (The
Network, 2011).
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-12
IT at Work 4.3: Mobile and Virtual Care
See text for full case
Verizon Wireless is developing a suite of digital health care solutions
that include chronic care management and virtual care.
 Digital care management solution leverages a cloud platform and
connected medical devices. This solution will integrate biometric
devices and deliver personalized care plans to people on their
mobile devices.
 Virtual care solution will leverage advances in 4G LTE technology by
utilizing smartphones, tablets, and video technology.
Questions
1. What are the benefits of digital health care solutions?
2. What technologies are needed for virtual health care?

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-13
Strategic Build-Out of Mobile Capabilities
 Enterprises are moving away from ad hoc adoption of
mobile devices and network infrastructure to a more
strategic planning build-out of their mobile capabilities.
 Mobile infrastructure consists of the integration of
technology, software, support, security measures, and
devices for the management and delivery of wireless
communications.
 Wi-Fi technology allows devices to share a network or
Internet connection without the need to connect to a
commercial network.
 There are three types of WWANS: WANS, WiMAX, and
LANS.
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-14
 Figure 4.5. Wi-Fi allows
computers to share a
network wirelessly without
connecting to a commercial
network.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-15

 Figure 4.6. WiMAX: a broadband wireless metropolitan area
network (MAN) access standard that can deliver voice and data at
distances of 30 miles.
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-16
Questions
1. What factors are contributing to mobility?
2. Why is strategic planning of mobile networks
important?
3. How does Wi-Fi work?
4. What is a WLAN?
5. Why is WiMAX important?
6. What factors should be considered when
selecting a mobile network?

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-17
 4.3 Network Management and Search
 When the network goes down or access is blocked, so does the
ability to operate or function.
 Damages when a company cannot operate or fulfill orders include:
• lost sales and productivity
• inability to send and receive payments
• inability to process payroll and inventory
 Network infrastructure alone does not improve business
performance. It’s how network capabilities combine with other IT to
support employees, connect remote locations, service customers,
and coordinate with supply chain partners.
 Figure 4.7 shows the model of network, collaboration and
performance relationship

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-18
 Figure 4.7. Model
of Network,
Collaboration, and
Performance
Relationship

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-19
IT at Work 4.4: US Custom’s Network
Crash…
See text for full case
 On August 2007, more than 20,000 international travelers were
stranded for up to eleven hours because the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) Agency could not process passengers due
to a network crash.
 Immediate Causes of the Crash and Crisis. The outage started with
a malfunctioning NIC on a single workstation.
 Policy Remained in Force. Because of a zero-tolerance policy, all
travelers must be processed and screened through national law-
enforcement databases.
 Human or Machine Error? Human errors were a bigger part of the
outage than technological ones.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-20
IT at Work – 4.4 continued
• CBP’s Plan to Avoid Another Crash. The CBP recognized the
need to improve its IT staff, equipment, and infrastructure.

Questions
1. What are the risks of a legacy network?
2. What were the technical factors that contributed to the
failure of the backup system?

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-21
IT at Work 4.5: Labatt Brewer Builds “The
Pub”
Canada’s Labatt Brewer Builds “The Pub,” an Intranet for Enterprise
collaboration and Search – see text for full case
How does an enterprise ensure that its employees get the information
they need when they need it?
 Labatt’s Intranet’s Architecture and Benefits. After determining
Labatt’s business and technology requirements, the Labatt IT team
decided that an intranet would provide the most efficient way of
delivering the single point of access to employees.
 Using The Pub, Labatt rolled out new programs to its employees,
such as the Innovation Database.
 With the robust search function within The Pub, employees are able
to quickly locate the documents they need and obtain the
information they require to make better business decisions.
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-22
IT at Work 4.5 – continued

Questions
1. How do information silos impact productivity?
2. Why was a single point of access an important feature?
3. How has sharing information via The Pub improved
collaboration at Labatt?
4. Why might workers not be in favor of document and data
sharing?

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-23
 Computer Networks
 Intranets: a network serving the internal informational needs of a
company.
 Extranets and VPNs. An extranet is a private, company-owned
network that can be logged into remotely via the Internet. Typical
users are suppliers, vendors, partners, or customers.
 VPNs. A major concern is the security of the transmissions that
could be intercepted or compromised. One solution is to use
virtual private networks (VPNs), which encrypt the packets before
they are transferred over the network.

• Figure 4.9. Virtual Private Network.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-24
Enterprise Search
 The volume of data stored in many organizations reached the
point where it actually interferes with productivity rather than
contributes to it. One solution is enterprise search.
 Enterprise search (Figure 4.10) starts with content indexing,
which is created by software that crawls through directories
and websites to extract content from databases and other
repositories.
 Once the index is created, it can be queried—just as users do
Google searches of the Internet.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-25
 Figure 4.10. Overview of enterprise search.
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4-26
Enterprise Search – continued
Questions
1. How might a company’s business performance be affected by
its network’s capabilities?
2. What are the benefits of an IP-based network?
3. Describe how VoIP can reduce an organization’s
communication costs.
4. What is the difference between an intranet and an extranet?
5. How does a virtual private network (VPN) provide security?
6. What is the importance of enterprise search?

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-27
4.4 Collaboration and Communication
Technologies
Virtual Collaboration:
 Information Sharing between Retailers and Their Suppliers: P&G and
Wal-Mart.
 Retailer-Supplier Collaboration: Asda Corporation.
 Lower Transportation and Inventory Costs and Reduced Stockouts:
Unilever.
 Reduction of Product Development Time: Caterpillar, Inc.
Group Work and Decision Processes:
 Group Work and Dynamics.
 Online Brainstorming in the Cloud.
• Evernote (evernote.com)
• iMindMap Online

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-28
4.4 Collaboration and Communication
Technologies – continued
Questions
1. What is virtual collaboration?
2. Why is group work challenging?
3. What are the benefits of working in groups?
4. What might limit the use of in-person brainstorming?
5. How can online brainstorming tools overcome those
limits?

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-29
 4.5 Green, Legal, and Ethical Issues
• MOBILE, CLOUD, SOCIAL, AND GLOBAL LEAVE A FOOTPRINT
ON THE ENVIRONMENT
 Sustainability Solutions
• Communications technology accounts for approximately
2% of global carbon emissions
• Network service providers, as well as organizations, face
the challenges of energy efficiency, smaller carbon
footprint, and eco-sustainability

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-30
IT at Work 4.6: Eco-Sustainable Networks Cut
Carbon Emissions by 42%
See text for full case

• Sustainability Incentives
1. To reduce costs. Energy consumption is one of the biggest
operating costs for both fixed and mobile networks.
2. To overcome limited availability of reliable electricity.
3. To be more socially responsible.
4. To gain competitive advantage.

All of these factors helped eco-sustainable networks cut carbon

emissions by 42% by 2013.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-31
 Ethical Considerations of a Connected
Workforce
 Driving while distracted
 Health Risks
 RF emissions and SAR
• specific absorption rate, or SAR, is a way of measuring the
quantity of radio frequency (RF) energy that is absorbed by the
body.
 Life out of control

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

4-32