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IS2184 Mock commentary
1. Assume that you are the manager in charge of maintaining the
relationships with many customers in different markets. How would you use a
CRM system to help increasing your competitiveness? What are the main
technological solutions that can help better achieving these goals? Support your
answer with relevant examples.
a CRM system can collect relevant information with regards to the pattern of consumption
of individual customers. This is valuable to better serve the customers’ individual needs. If
this information is integrated with the information stored and maintained in the logistic
management system, and triangulated with the information about the production processes,
the organisation can become much more efficient in serving customers’ in all the different
markets it operates. The more the organisation can strategically exploit the value generated
by the integration of the information about all its customers, the more the organisation will
be able to serve their needs and hence increase its competitiveness. Providing unique
customer services the company can differentiate form competitors and generate unique
values for its customers
Organisations can use BI and BA to fully exploit the potential offered by the data that are
collected by a CRM system and a manage in charge of a country market can use the
information about other markets as well to better position the firm in the specific market
and hence to increase the revenues.
Moreover, cloud architectures can be chosen to reduce to cost and technical challenges of
using these systems
2. Discus the main features of an ERP system. What are the main
managerial challenges faced while implementing and ERP system. Support your
answer with relevant examples
An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an integrated bundle of software
applications designed to organize, standardize and coordinate the date exchange across the
entire organisation to facilitate the managerial planning and control of the organisation
business processes.
The systems are designed to model the activities of the organisation in a flow of standardised
data to enable a smooth and integrated view of the organisation activities. This will help
managers to get an easy access to all the relevant data about organisation processes. The goal
is to build a common data architecture that makes comparable data across different divisions
of the organisation, and to reduce the complexity of the management of the overall activities
of the organisation.
The value of the implementation of these technological architectures not simply delivered by
the embedded in the technology but rather by the ability of the organisation to exploit the
functionalities offered by the ERP system. It is therefore very important that managers
involved in these implementation project can manage to technical and organisational
transformation that are needed to find a configuration that is sustainable from a business as
well as an organisational perspective.
All the positive business returns associated to ERP deployment however require a very
specific approach to the management of the organisation transformations that are associated
to the deployment of ERP systems. These transformations are extremely complex and very
difficult to be archived by organisations. Managers in charge of these projects must align the
organisation goals with the systems one. To reach this alignment it is needed to analyse and
tune both organisation’ features and technological features. This requires dynamic
adaptation and hence management.
3. Imagine that you are a senior manager that needs to develop and
business strategy. How might you exploit the benefits offered by a knowledge
management system to support you this task? Support your answer with
relevant examples.
Knowledge management solutions can help organisations to make a better use of their
knowledge assets. ICTs in fact can help the organisation to produce, classify and share
documents useful to improve the management team’s knowledge on the issues they have to
decide upon. This knowledge about suppliers’ behaviours and market statistics, as well as
successful procedures or practices that have been developed to address and solve specific
suppliers’ needs are of fundamental importance to define and identify best practices for a
successful e-business strategy.
Knowledge management solution can help managers engage in the definition of an e-
business strategy since the can help, among other things: to make an objective assessment as
to whether or not the organization has adequate skills, sufficient experience, and the
corporate culture necessary to succeed in the e-business venture; to better identify the
customers’ needs that can be satisfied by the e-business proposition; to exploit multichannel
integration; to assess costs an benefits of the move on the e-business platform of different
business activities, etc.
4. Discuss how and why scope, time, and cost are important dimensions of
project management? Support your answer with relevant examples.
Project management consists of nine functions: scope, time, cost, quality, human resources,
communications, risk, procurement, and integration.
Project Scope Management refers to the definition of the processes needed to guarantee that
the project incorporates only the tasks that are needed to fulfil the project goals. Project
scope management is needed to define the boundaries of activities that will shape the project
outcomes.
Project Time Management is needed to ensure that the execution of all the project activities
is completed within the project timeline. To be successful in manging the project time all the
project activities need to be defined, their sequences clearly organised, a proper estimation
of the duration of each activity needs to be made. Accordingly, a clear schedule development
shall be ruled out and schedule control shall be maintained during the execution.
Project Cost Management concerns the control of the project costs. Project cost
management is needed to overview the project costs and to ensure that the project is
completed within the allocated budget. To fulfil its goals, project cost management needs to
clearly plan the available resources, produce an accurate costs estimation, and effectively
control the costs over the execution of the project.
Scope; time; and cost define fundamental pillars for the unfolding of the project.
Students shall discuss how each dimension impact upon the overall project’s outcomes using
relevant examples.
5. Discuss the main benefits of IT outsourcing. Justify your answer with
examples.
While the most common reason to outsource is related to cost savings, organisations can
also follow this strategy to acquire new capabilities not available internally or to better use
internal resources to support the core business processes.
The reason why outsourcing can provide substantial cost savings is that of specialisation.
Companies that focus on one single activity or service provision can optimise their business
processes and become more efficient than any other company in executing that specific
activity or process. Thus, it becomes convenient for other companies to buy the service from
the specialised company rather than to produce the same service internally. The outsourcing
provider will not only produce the service at a lower cost but often will also be able to better
produce the service. Outsourcing can add quality value to cost savings. Offshore outsourcing
can also exploit lower employment costs, taxation and more favourable regulator conditions
that will help reducing the cost of the provision of the service even more. This is the reason
why developing countries have become important hubs of outsourcing providers.
Since outsourcing can offer substantial cost-savings, it has become a strategic requirement
for many companies to rely on external suppliers to reduce the operational costs and hence
keep the pace with their competitors.
6. What is ICT governance. How it can help reducing the risk associate with
an ICT project.
ICT governance deals with the strategic choices underpinning the goals that should be
achieved by investing in a specific ICT architecture. ICT governance is a component of
corporate governance and hence under the responsibility of the leading executives in the
organisation, while ICT management is a functional responsibility of a department in the
organisation.
ICT governance is responsible for the alignment of the technological choices with the
overarching business goals of the organisation. Given the high level of integration between
ICT and business activities and functions, the choice of the ICT infrastructure supporting
these activities, and their integration, is one of the most important decision that will define
and shape the way in which an organisation operates. ICT governance defines the way in
which an organisation does its business, which is indeed a main domain of reference for the
decisions that concerns corporate governance.
Effective ICT strategic planning is vital to help companies to fulfil the goals of an effective
ICT governance and hence reduce the associated risks.