Reference no: EM133368357

Part A

Part 1. The role of the IT manager in organizations

IT management arose in the 1990s when it became clear that that software developers and hardware engineers had neither the insights nor interest in guiding organizations on the effective use of information technology to help them improve their business operations. Both software developers and hardware engineers focus on the technical aspects of computers and do not spend much time reflecting on the management implications of technology. The IT manager, in contrast, is primarily concerned with how information technology should be integrated into business operations.

Assume you have taken over responsibility to play the lead IT management role in Magnum Enterprises. Your boss, Rachel Heigl, is Magnum's CIO. The IT management group is comprised of six people who you will be supervising.

Ms. Heigl is an enlightened manager, and she believes that if you are to carry out your responsibilities effectively, you need to work with her in defining your IT management role. As a first step, she invites you to write a short statement where you describe what you see to be your role as head of the IT management effort at Magnum.

Describe how you see your role in integrating software, hardware, and business management capabilities. What challenges do you anticipate encountering as head of the IT management effort at Magnum? By serving as the centerpiece of software, hardware, and management capabilities, how the efforts of you and your team make Magnum a better organization?

Part 2. Handling the e-business challenge at Magnum Enterprises

Six months after you take over the lead IT management role at Magnum, the CIO, Ms. Rachel Heigl, is pleased with your work. She has just attended a meeting of Magnum's executive committee (the committee comprised of the most senior managers of Magnum), where the CEO and Vice President of marketing have indicated that Magnum's mediocre e-business capabilities must be strengthened. As C10, Ms. Heigl is given primary responsibility in improving Magnum's e-business performance. She in turn puts you in charge of a small task force comprised of representatives from the operations, marketing, finance, and legal departments.

Question 1. Why is it important to take into account the views of operations, marketing, finance, and legal when working on strengthening e-business capabilities? Be specific - no vague generalities, please.

Question 2. Based on what you have learned in your readings, what are key technical challenges you will encounter in re-engineering the e-business function at Magnum? How can these be addressed (provide brief suggestions).

Question 3. What are the key management challenges you will face?

Part B

How a company generates revenue from its assets is referred to as its
Select one:
a. asset infrastructure
b. business model
c. corporate culture
d. organizational structure

Why are companies, such as Monsanto and Wells Fargo, willing to invest in the building of new data centers?
Select one:
a. To stop wasting capital maintaining outdated energy-inefficient data centers.
b. To comply with government energy regulations.
c. To develop new computing capabilities.
d. To improve business process performance.

Ethical issues can be challenging because:
Select one:
a. there are no standards of right and wrong.
b. security is more important than privacy.
c. all countries agree on what is ethical.
d. what is considered ethical by one person may seem unethical to another.

involve the purchase of materials, the processing of materials into products, and delivery of products to customers.
Select one:
a. Supply chains
b. Logistics
c. Primary activities
d. Support activities

Managers decide to increase the number of new accounts by 4.0% within the next quarter. This is an example of:
Select one:
a. an objective.
b. a strategy.
c. customer loyalty.
d. qualitative metric.

involves the evaluation of strengths and weaknesses, which are internal factors; and opportunities and threats, which are external
factors.
Select one:
a. Strategic analysis
b. Business performance
c. Operational planning
d. SWOT analysis

Which of the following statements about mobile market opportunities is false?
Select one:
a. Mobiles are replacing computers as the primary way to connect with public and private networks and to get work done.
b. Mobile gadgets are starting to look and feel like handheld computers, able to run all sorts of software.
c. Desktop and laptop computers are taking on more and more nontraditional duties, like streaming media to TV sets, stereos, and other household appliances.
d. Touch-navigate devices running on 3G and 4G networks create business opportunities and eliminate business threats.

RFID is a technology that uses instead of to identify products or pallets.

Select one:
a. electronic tags; bar codes
b. electronic tags; chips
c. bar codes; PINs
d. PINs; EPC tags

Which of the following represents the evolution to Internet-based infrastructure?
Select one:
a. public cloud computing; private cloud computing; virtualization
b. wired; wireless; mobile computing
c. virtualization; cloud computing; enterprise computing
d. virtualization; private cloud computing; cloud computing

If a customer sets up an account with REI.com to purchase from their Web site, the will validate that the address, city, and postal
code are consistent and valid in order to improve
Select one:
a. OLTP; data storage
b. OLTP: data visibility
c. TPS; data quality
d. TPS; data transfer

is the science concerned with managing material and information flows to optimize supply chain operations.
Select one:
a. Database management
b. Process control
c. Logistics
d. Sourcing

is data that has been processed, organized, or put into context so that it has meaning and value to the person receiving it.
Select one:
a. Information
b. A transaction
c. Knowledge
d. A report

When employees log into the company network or e-mail accounts, or access data or documents to perform their jobs, two critical factors impacting their productivity are:
Select one:
a. password strength and availability of mobile networks.
b. cloud computing and software applications.
c. virtualization and private clouds.
d. speed of the response and the reliability of the hardware.

IT infrastructure is the collection of:
Select one:
a. hardware and software.
b. hardware, software, and networks.
c. hardware, software, networks, and mobile devices.
d. hardware, software, processes, networks, and users.

According to the principle of the more recent the data, the more valuable they are.
Select one:
a. data uncertainty
b. 90/90 data use
c. diminishing data value
d. data in context

Creating backups of records is not a form of electronic records management (ERM) because:
Select one:
a. the content on backups is not organized so that it can be accurately and easily retrieved.
b. business records and documents may need to be modified.
c. records and documents cannot be stored together.
d. the requirement to save records is new.

An extremely economical and effective method of delivering data from a data warehouse to decision makers throughout the enterprise is via
Select one:
a. data marts
b. data cubes
c. an intranet
d. operational data stores

Which is not an advantage and capability of a DBMS?
Select one:
a. security
b. audit trail
c. backup
d. physical view

consists of powerful software tools to discover and extract knowledge from text documents.
Select one:
a. Document mining
b. Master data management
c. Knowledge mining
d. Text mining

Companies implement systems to retain and archive their business records that are not needed for current operations or decisions,
but that must be accessible for legal or auditing obligations.
Select one:
a. electronic records management
b. database management
c. archive management
d. infrastructure management

TCP performs error checking, which can cause packet delivery delays. Because of the error-checking process, TCP is not well-suited for what type of transmissions?
Select one:
a. digital voice or video
b. data
c. documents
d. e-mail

are built by attaching a wireless access point (WAP) to the edge of the wired network.
Select one:
a. WLANs
b. WiMAX
c. Wi-Fi hot spots
d. Base stations

 

is a general term that means fast transmission speed.
Select one:
a. Bandwidth
b. Protocol
c. TC P/IP
d. Broadband

transmits voice and data in packets and has become one of the most cost effective ways to communicate.
Select one:
a. TCP
b. UDP
c. VoIP
d. UM

is the throughput capacity of a network, which is a measure of the speed at which data is transmitted.
Select one:
a. Bandwidth
b. Protocol
c. TC P/IP
d. Broadband

What is significant about 4G networks is that they do not have a which both 2G and 3G networks do have.
Select one:
a. packet-switched IP system
b. circuit-switched subsystem
c. WiMAX standard
d. GSM-based LTE subsystem

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedln, and other social networks are making IT security dangers worse. Why?
Select one:
a. Users invite in and build relationships with others. Cybercriminals hack into these trusted relationships using stolen log-ins.
b. E-mail viruses and malware have been increasing for years even though e-mail security has improved.
c. Communication has shifted from social networks to smartphones.
d. Web filtering, user education, and strict policies cannot help prevent IT security dangers on Facebook and other social networks.

is a security technology for wireless networks that improves on the authentication and encryption features of WEP.
Select one:
a. Network access control (NAC)
b. Security exchange commission (SEC)
c. Wi-Fi protected access (WPA)
d. Intrusion detection system (IDS)

Before the people who are responsible for security make any decisions about infosec defenses, they must understand
Select one:
a. the requirements and operations of the business
b. how firewalls, anti-virus software, and other technology function
c. tactics of hackers, fraudsters, botnets, and identity thieves
d. how much to invest in risk management

A(n) is something or someone that may result in harm to an asset.
Select one:
a. threat
b. risk
c. vulnerability
d. exploit

such as AirSnort and WEPcrack, are readily available tools that can be used to gain unauthorized access to networks putting them at great risk.
Select one:
a. Wireless packet analyzers
b. Password crackers
c. Firewall sniffers
d. Intrusion detectors

is the chain of events linking the business continuity plan to protection and to recovery.
Select one:
a. Disaster recovery
b. Auditing
c. Date recovery
d. Internal control

E-procurement strategies and solutions have two basic goals, which are
Select one:
a. to control costs and simplify processes
b. collaboration and negotiation
c. supplier selection and product selection
d. RFQ processing and exchanges

One of the problems with advertising is that advertisers knew very little about the recipients.
Select one:
a. direct mail
b. Web
c. interactive
d. social media

Public and private are sites where many sellers and many buyers buy and sell.
Select one:
a. networks
b. exchanges
c. sources
d. value chains

is the filtering out of irrelevant information for consumers in order to reduce their information overload.
Select one:
a. Affiliate marketing
b. Customizing ads
c. Sourcing
d. Viral marketing

refers to word-of-mouth marketing in which customers promote a product or service by telling others about it.
Select one:
a. Affiliate marketing
b. Customizing ads
c. Sourcing
d. Viral marketing

are e-marketplaces that serve one industry, e.g., automotive, chemical, along the entire supply chain.
Select one:
a. Vertical exchanges
b. Supply hubs
c. Horizontal exchanges
d. Collaboration hubs

Data acquired by a GPS is inserted into a digital map, which is known as a , to identify a specific place or address.
Select one:
a. geographical information system (GIS)
b. data visualization
c. mapinfo
d. mobile positioning center (MPC)

Writing apps for handheld devices, such as smartphones, is
Select one:
a. easy because only a few lines of code are needed
b. easy because the devices have limited features
c. difficult because of many different models and OSs
d. about the same as writing apps for computers.

handhelds are a special technology that involves computer-generated images superimposed on pictures of real things and can be
used by advertisers in several ways.
Select one:
a. Augmented reality
b. Foursquare
c. WAP
d. Skype

How can handheld mobile computing devices and technology significantly improve performance in the healthcare system?
Select one:
a. Make it easier and faster to get prescriptions
b. Reduce the preventable errors made by healthcare providers
c. Reduce the need for emergency medical care

Engineers can find the location of any receiving station to within 50 feet by using the distance from a GPS to three satellites to
make the computation.
Select one:
a. latitude
b. longitude
c. triangulation
d. altitude

According to the Daiwa Institute of Research, account(s) for most of the purchases that are done on mobile phones, if the users are
on flat-fee-based service.
Select one:
a. entertainment
b. impulse shopping
c. travel
d. sports

YouTube has become a popular way for companies, such as BlendTec, to promote themselves using and often less expensive than
traditional advertising efforts.
Select one:
a. response hierarchies
b. mashups
c. microblogging
d. viral videos

Organizations previously communicated with their audiences using a model, where messages flowed from the sender to the receiver. Now, they must learn to use a model, where communication flows back and forth between sender and receiver.
Select one:
a. talking; listening
b. outbound; inbound
c. broadcast; conversation
d. indirect; direct

such as Facebook, represent a special type of virtual community and are now the dominant form of online community. Individual users maintain an identity through their profile, for e.
Select one:
a. Social graphs
b. RSS
c. Mashups
d. Social networking sites

Facebook and other are different from the broader category of online communities in that they usually allow individuals to control
who can access information they post to the site.
Select one:
a. bookmarking sites
b. mashups
c. social networking sites
d. wikis

Why do companies create private social networks?
Select one:
a. To better understand their customers
b. To communicate short messages with followers
c. To interact with employees using avatars
d. To broadcast messages to very large groups of followers.

Which of the following is a characteristic of Web 2.0?
Select one:
a. static pages
b. user controlled content
c. the goal of marketing is to influence buyers
d. single source of data

The Exxon Mobil Speedpass allows customers to fill their tanks by waving a token, embedded with an RFID device, at a gas-pump sensor. This is an example of
Select one:
a. data-driven marketing
b. a distribution channel
c. inventory control
d. a marketing channel

Generally speaking, why do organizations automate TPS data entry as much as possible?
Select one:
a. To reduce labor costs
b. To be able to capture online data
c. For competitive advantage
d. To minimize errors and data entry time

The data requirements of operational-level units are because they depend heavily on standard operating procedures.
Select one:
a. extensive, unique, and change frequently
b. extensive, routine, and rarely change
c. limited and customized
d. external, unstructured, and constant

An effective technology for e-training and e-learning is , which uses computer graphic displays that the user can adjust during the
decision-making process to see the results of an intervention.
Select one:
a. LOT
b. flash
c. WebEx
d. visual interactive simulation (VIS),

Tracking sales, inventory levels, orders, and customer support are examples of control activities.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

at virtual worlds and social networking sites is very popular. It is done at most major sites, such as Linkedln, MySpace, Facebook,
Craigslist, and Second Life.
Select one:
a. Risk management
b. Distribution
c. Recruitment
d. Forecasting

The best-known part of financial planning is the which allocates the financial resources of an organization among participants,
activities, and projects.
Select one:
a. annual budget
b. income statement
c. balance sheet
d. owners equity

Marketing ISs consist of to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute relevant, timely, complete, and accurate data for use by
marketing decision makers to improve planning, implementation, and control.
Select one:
a. software and hardware
b. procedures and policies
c. people, equipment, and procedures
d. channels

is a field that deals with policies, procedures, compliance requirements, and acquiring and keeping people in organizations.
Select one:
a. Accounting
b. Human resources
c. Marketing
d. Management

Why are the three levels of management and decision making often modeled as a pyramid? .
Select one:
a. To show the importance of senior management decision making on the organization.
b. To show the importance of the decisions made at each management level.
c. To show the hierarchy of the management levels.

Some of the most innovative HR developments are in the area of live online training (LOT) using or other online meeting software.
Select one:
a. CIM
b. TUN
c. VIS
d. WebEx

Improved relationships with employees result in better retention and higher productivity. Therefore, companies invest in , which
includes self-services such as tracking personal information and online training.
Select one:
a. benefits management
b. employee relationship management
c. budgeting management
d. intelligent agents

Why does a functioning KMS have a cyclical life cycle?
Select one:
a. Knowledge is continually being created and that new knowledge must be placed in context and stored so that it is actionable.
b. Knowledge has a short useful life span and needs to be replaced.
c. As knowledge bases increase in size, they become less useful because the knowledge cannot be disseminated effectively.
d. Knowledge tends to be categorized incorrectly initially, and needs to be refined to become useful.

Enterprise systems help managers and companies improve their performance by enabling them to
Select one:
a. distribute data and periodic reports via e-mail internally to authorized users.
b. seamlessly share real-time data internally among departments and with external business partners.
c. consolidate data stores into a central data repository.
d. outsource business processes to SaaS vendors and eliminate waste.

Business-to-business integration (B2Bi) is vital for efficient and accurate flow of data across internal ISs and external business partners. B2Bi and secure data exchange over the Internet is done through
Select one:
a. wireless routers
b. B2B gateways
c. data sources
d. enterprise application integration (EAI) middleware

A limitation of enterprise systems is that finance processes cannot be totally automated.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

Having knowledge implies that it can be used to solve a problem, whereas having information does not.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

help organizations identify, select, organize, disseminate, preserve, and share information and expertise. Essentially, a system that
organizes, enhances, and expedites intra- and inter-firm knowledge management; centered around a corporate knowledge base or depository.
Select one:
a. CPFR systems
b. Knowledge Management System (KMS)

Which is not one of the reasons why companies might need to migrate from legacy systems to enterprise systems?
Select one:
a. Legacy systems have high maintenance costs.
b. Monolithic legacy architectures are inflexible.
c. Legacy systems are hardwired by predefined process flows making integration with Internet-based apps difficult or impossible.
d. Enterprise systems require retraining of end users whose productivity will slow initially as they adjust to a new way of doing their jobs.

Enterprise systems allow workers to access and analyze real-time information and transaction processes across the entire organization.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

CPFR systems generate demand forecasts for a planning period, such as a quarter, month, or week.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

According to the loyalty effect, a five percent reduction in customer attrition can improve profits by as much as percent.
Select one:
0 a 5
0 b 10
0 c 15
0 d 20

KM systems are developed using communication and collaboration, and storage and retrieval technologies.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

Typically, how are ERP systems acquired?
Select one:
a. By purchasing or leasing packaged software
b. Built in-house
c. Built with proprietary software
d. Custom built by consulting companies and vendors

Today, BI ranks near the top of many companies' IT purchase plans. What is the underlying reason for this interest in BI?
Select one:
a. Costs and complexity of B1 software have dropped significantly.
b. Managers are more IT and database literate.
c. Inflation and energy prices are cutting into profit margins and consumers' disposable income.

Managers rely on decision models because they the situation or problem.
Select one:
a. simplify
b. detail
c. solve
d. explain

Which is not one of the characteristics or objectives of data mining?
Select one:
a. The miner is often an end user.
b. Business sections that most extensively use data mining are manufacturing.
c. Data mining tools are readily combined with spreadsheets.
d. Sophisticated tools help to remove the information buried in corporate files.

In a you are trying to find what others have prepared. With
obvious or known. you are trying to discover new patterns that may not be

Select one:
a. query; Web mining
b. query; data mining
c. search; text mining
d. search: reporting

Twitter, Foursquare, and other real-time media add to or leverage capabilities of smartphones-improving your ability to be well-informed in real-time.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

From an IT perspective, which of the following best describes BI and BI apps?
Select one:
a. Stand-alone
b. Support a specific objective
c. A collection of ISs and technologies
d. Web-based systems designed for for-profits

Planning a BI implementation is a complex project and includes typical project management steps. Therefore, the first step in the BI planning process is to
Select one:
a. define the scope
b. define the budget
c. identify the resources needed
d. define the timeline

Data mining and tools are used to find relationships that are not obvious, or to predict what is going to happen.
Select one:
a. DSS
b. reporting
c. predictive analytic
d. queries

B1 systems have eliminated a common organizational problem, which is simultaneously having too much data but somehow not enough.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

Regarding mobile intelligence, are locations such as the commuter train, aisle in a store, line in a factory, or retail floor where
business people can make decisions without delay.
Select one:
a. data centers
b. decision sweet spots
c. REID
d. Wi-Fi

The term started in the music world, but has been adopted by IT to mean an application that combines data from different sources
into a new application.
Select one:
a. analytics
b. mashup
c. visualization
d. dashboard

After data has been loaded into a data warehouse, data tables can be linked to form which is another term for multidimensional
databases.
Select one:
a. data cubes
b. relational databases
c. OLAP
d. ETL

Which of the following statements about outsourcing is false?
Select one:
a. Increasingly, organizations are leveraging existing global cloud infrastructures from companies such as Amazon and Google.
b. Established companies are less willing to outsource company-critical functions in an effort to reduce costs.
c. New start-up companies typically outsource and rely on SaaS to avoid upfront IT costs.
d. Outsourcing companies have started to offer interesting new business models and services around cloud computing.

IT plays a pivotal role in improving corporate governance practices because most critical business processes are automated; and managers rely on information provided by these processes for their decision making.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

Why did British-Swedish company AstraZeneca undergo a major restructure from a traditional model to a loosely-coupled business model?
Select one:
a. Management forecasted a significant loss in its sales revenues.
b. Management wanted to implement the latest IT and social networks.
c. Competition in the pharmaceutical industry was decreasing.

Which is not one of the lessons that eBay learned from its BPO implementation?
Select one:
a. Challenges can be avoided by partnering with a global leader in business process and technology management.
b. Build a project-management infrastructure
c. Create a governance mechanism
d. Properly define how success will be measured

are the most essential things that must go right, or be closely tracked, to ensure the organization's survival and success.
Select one:
a. Key performance indicators (KPIs)
b. Critical success factors (CSFs)
c. Scorecards
d. Financials

Both IT and organizational strategies are static and can be harmed when people resist change because IS success depends on the skills and cooperation of people.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

Why is it insufficient to develop a long-term IT strategy and not reexamine the strategy on a regular basis?
Select one:
a. Systems need to be maintained
b. To keep the CIO part of the executive team
c. Organizational goals change over time
d. To automate business processes

Making IT investments on the basis of an immediate need or threat are sometimes necessary. What can managers expect from making investments in this way?
Select one:
a. These are proactive approaches that will maximize ROI.
b. These just-in-time approaches to investments minimize long-term costs.
c. These are reactive approaches that can result in incompatible, redundant, or failed systems.
d. These quick responses provide the best defenses.

Business service management is an approach for linking or metrics of IT to business goals to determine the impact on the business.
Select one:
a. key performance indicators (KPIs)
b. critical success factors (CSFs)
c. scorecards
d. financials

Business strategy sets the overall direction for the business; while the IT strategy defines what information, ISs, and architecture are needed to support the business and how infrastructure and services are to be delivered.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

A prerequisite for effective IT business alignment for the CIO to understand the latest technologies and for the CEO and business planners to understand competitors.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

Making IT investments on the basis of an immediate need or threat is not a smart strategy because it can result in incompatible, redundant, or failed systems.
Select one:
a. True
b. False

A is any system or procedure that an organization uses to achieve a larger business goal.
Select one:
a. business process
b. business scenario
c. web site
d. marketing plan

Governments and industry associations have introduced a range of programs on IT and the environment to address global warming and energy use.
Select one:
a. true
b. false