Competing Through Information Technology

for

MBAC 6080

Kenneth A. Kozar

Spring, 1998

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21st Century Organization

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What IT offers?

• Informationalizing - Plumbing?
• Mass Customization - Dell, Saturn
  • inven., order proc., MRP, work flow
  • perceptions vs product? quality?
• Globalization - compress space and time
  • China, Yugoslavia
  • Convergence

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Competing With IT

• Cust.-Driven/Value Chain/5 Forces
• Improved Decision Making
• Improved Environmental Scanning
• Improved Alliances
• Improved Communication

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An Example - Flowers?

Ruth Owades founded Calyx & Corolla in 1989. It has grown to a $20 million dollar business. The business is now going global using the same model of shipping directly from growers to customers.

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Major Drivers

• Low Cost - Just in Time, Computer Integrated Manufacturing
• Closeness - Supplier/Customer
• Superior Product/Service Quality

Tracy, Michael and Wiersema, Fred. The Discipline of Market Leaders, Addison-Wesley, 1995.

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Decision Making - User Needs

• Decision Models with Information Inputs / I->D->C?
• Both Internal and External Data
• Dialog / Interaction

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The Decision Maker

• Detail vs Summary?
• Rational vs Intuitive?
• Administrator vs Leader?

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Individual Differences? - Meyers/Briggs

• design for position or person?
• human needs?

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Reports vs Decision Support Systems

• Ad Hoc Questions "Hmm, I wonder....?"
• Interactive "But, if ....?"
• Special data access "Who has that?"
• Models "What if we ....?"
• User-Centric Design

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Expert Systems

• Why have them? (preserve knowledge)
• Different than Decision Support?
• Knowledge Base (facts/rules)
• Inference Engine (processes facts/rules)
• Who? User/Expert/Knowledge Engineer

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Finding Opportunities - Business Objectives/Tactics

• The system boundary - Expand
• Think in terms of time, space, and intangibles (S. Davis, Future Perfect)
• Think about who does what?

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Expanding Boundaries

• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) -- Inter-Organizational Systems
• Virtual Organizations
  • Supplier to Firm to Customer/Inventories
  • Supplier to Firm to Customer/Designs

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Teamwork Technology - Groupware

• Communicating through Technology
• Different Time/Different Place to
• Same Time/Same Place

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Meeting Support

• Simplest is keypad voting, can lead to:
• Big screen and linked terminals
• Anonymous input
• Private ranking and voting
• Everyone talking at once (electronically)

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All Requires Change

• "Little Deaths"? - from denial to acceptance
• Fear of the unknown?

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IS is hard to avoid.

It is hard to manage.

We could depend on a rabbit's foot?

Hope this makes sense - But remember if the world made sense,.....