Chapter 2: End-of-Chapter
Questions
1. The firm interacts with its environment
by means of resource flows.
2. The eight environmental elements
include suppliers, customers, competitors, government, global community,
financial community, stockholders and owners, and labor unions.
3. Margin is the value of the firm’s
products and services, as perceived by the customers, less the costs.
4. Primary value activities are those
associated with producing the firm’s products and services and making them
available to customers. Support value activities provide the infrastructure and
inputs to the primary value activities.
5. The value chain consists of the primary and support
value activities that facilitate the flow of resources through the firm and to
its customers.
6. The value system consists of value
chains from all of the firms that work together to meet customer needs.
7. The information resources include
hardware, software, information specialists, users, facilities, database, and
information. None of these resources are restricted exclusively to information
services. Even information specialists can be found in user areas in the form
of functional support personnel.
8. The CIO title isn’t as
important as the responsibilities and stature within the organization that it
implies. Many computing managers function as CIOs even though they have other
titles.
9. A business degree would put a CIO in a better position to understand the firm’s business
and see the importance of integrating the computer into the firm’s business
operations. The degree would also enable the CIO to function as a manager
rather than a technician.
10. Information management is more complex
today mainly because the resources are more widely disbursed throughout the
organization.
11. A major weakness of strategy set
transformation is that it this to consider the ability of information resources
to support the organizational strategy set.
12. The two key elements of a strategic plan
for information resources are the identification of objectives and the
resources needed to meet the objectives.
13. The four classes of end users are
menu-level, command-level, end-user programmers, and functional support
personnel.
14. The main benefits of EUC are a workload
shift from IS to user areas and a reduction in the communications gap between
users and information specialists. The risks are poorly aimed
systems, poorly designed
and documented systems, inefficient use of information resources, loss of data
integrity, and loss of security. The risks can be minimized when top management
imposes the same types of controls on users that information specialists have
imposed upon themselves.
15. When the top computer manager is located
on the strategic planning level there is a strong indication that the firm is
practicing IRM.
16. The CIO title in itself
is no guarantee that IRM
is being practiced. Perhaps top
management has simply bestowed the title as a way to keep the computer manager
happy.
17. The strategic plan for information
resources includes resources located in the central computing facility and in
user areas.
Topics for
Discussion
1. Answers will vary.
2. Porter includes suppliers and
customers. Electronic linkages could easily be established between the firm and
the financial community, government, and labor unions. They would be less easy
to establish with the global community and stockholders. The firm would
probably not want to establish linkages with competitors.
3.
Many executives view cost reduction as an effective competitive
advantage strategy. Some CIOs have
voiced the view that the only sustainable competitive advantage produced by the
computer is cost reduction.
4. Answers will vary.