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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.