CMIS 526 Exam 1 Chapters 2&3

Business Process - Answer- activities organizations perform in order to reach their business goals core activities + supporting activities Decision making levels - Answer- operational, managerial, strategic operational level - Answer- day-to-day business processes - info systems at this level are designed to automate repetitive activities, such as sales transaction processing, and to improve the efficiency of business processes at the customer interface - short term planning - Managerial/Tactical Level - Answer- functional managers focus on monitoring and controlling operational-level of the organization (this is what their IS help with too) - semistructured decision making because solutions and problems are not clear cut and often require judgment expertise Executive/Strategic Level - Answer- managers focus on long-term questions facing the organization such as which products to produce which countries to compete in and what organizational strategy to follow - IS help to improve strategy and planning by providding summaries of past data and projections of the future - executive decisions deal with complex problems with broad and long term ramifications for the organization functional area information systems - Answer- designed to support the unique business processes of specific functional areas Organizational Functional Areas - Answer- Accounting, finance, HR, marketing, operational Three general ways IS can provide value across organizational levels and functions - Answer- enable automating activities, enable learning, and enable the execution of organizational strategy IS for Automating: Doing things faster - Answer- help complete a task faster, more cheaply, and with greater accuracy/consistency ex) a database that screens loan applications IS for Organizational Learning: Doing things better - Answer- Organizational learning is the ability of an organization to use past behavior and data to improve its business processes ex) a computer-based loan processing system that tracks types of loan applications by date, month, or season. This allows the manager to see the trends and plan for timely staffing and training of personnel in the loan department IS for Supporting Strategy: Doing things smarter - Answer- organizational strategy is a firm's plan to accomplish its mission and goals as well as to gain or sustain competitive