FREE online courses on Information Technology - Chapter 1 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE MANAGER

 

Managers are challenged with decisions about:

 

¨       The use of technology to design and structure the organization, as reflected in the discussion of the T-Form organization.

¨       The creation of alliances and partnerships that include electronic linkages. There is a growing trend for companies to connect with their customers and suppliers, and often with support service providers like law firms.

¨       The selection of systems to support different kinds of workers. Stock brokers, traders, and others use sophisticated computer – based workstations in performing their jobs. Choosing a vendor, designing the system, and implementing it are major challenges for management.

¨       The adoption of groupware or group decision support system for workers who share a common task. In many firms, the records of shared materials constitute one type of knowledge base for the corporation.

¨       Determining a World Wide Web strategy. The Internet and World Wide Web offer new ways to provide information, communications, and to engage in commerce. A manager must determine if and how the firm can take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Web.

¨       Routine transactions processing systems. These applications handle the basic business transactions, for example, the order cycle from receiving a purchase order through shipping goods, invoicing, and receipt of payment. These routine systems must function for the firm to continue in business. More often today managers are eliminating physical documents in transactions processing and subsisting electronic transmission over networks.

¨       Personal support systems. Managers in a variety of positions use personal computers and networks to support their work.

¨       Reporting and control. Managers have traditionally been concerned with controlling the organization and reporting results to management, shareholders and the public. The information needed for reporting and control is contained in one or more databases on an internal computer network.

¨       Automated production processes. One of the keys to competitive manufacturing is increasing efficiency and quality through automation. Similar improvements can be found in the services sector through technologies like image processing, optical storage, and workflow processing in which paper is replaced by electronic images shared by staff members using networked workstations.

¨       Embedded products. Increasingly, products contain embedded intelligence. A modern automobile may contain six or more computers on chips, for example, to control the engine, the climate, compute statistics, and manage an antilock brake and traction control system.