“Here is a spoon. Please dig a 30-foot trench in the next couple of hours, please.” To most people, this is a ridiculous request as there are a vast amount of better suited equipment available to complete the job within the specified time. Yet, when companies do not align their Information Systems (IS) and Architecture with organizational business and strategic needs, their processes, equipment, and efforts prove ineffective and costly. For this reason, companies need to invest time and money into planning, investigating, and selecting the right software solutions, architecture and vendors to help them achieve high productivity and return on investment. To demonstrate, this paper will investigate Colorado Christian University’s (CCU) …show more content…
Also, a variety of mobile applications are available for BlackBoard (with links to Ellucian WebAdvisor), Concur, and the CCU Mobile application which is a mobile version of the student extranet, which will be discussed next. Furthermore, the organization uses a collaboration tool, Microsoft SharePoint, integrated with Office 365 in a cloud environment (Microsoft [MS], n.d) to host an intranet to provide employees with a platform where they can find company information, scheduled and upcoming events, a social networking component to keep all parties connected, and a search function to enable topic searches. This is also the platform for the student extranet that provide a single secure webportal to students which hosts all relevant information, announcements and social networking features to enhance and support the student experience while at CCU (Turbin, Volonino, & Woods, 2015). Furthermore, SharePoint also provides email services through a webbased Outlook which is the main communication medium between business and educational staff and individual students. Moreover, these solutions are supported through a secure tiered, client/server network infrastructure (assumption based on industry
Business is getting more complex in this world. So the competition between the organizations to achieve their target becomes more complicated. In every business the impact of IT services is booming. But when we look into the success rate of IT projects it’s very disappointing. Every IT organization tries to minimize their cost to attain maximum profit and also most of their targeted goals set with a low limit of time. Every IT projects is differing from other projects in invisibility, complexity, conformity and flexibility.
It has become progressively more documented that information is the most important strategic resource that any organization has to deal with. Key to the compilation, analysis, production and allocation of information within an organization is the quality of IT services provided to the business. It is necessary that it is recognized that IT services are vital, strategic, organizational assets and consequently organizations must invest suitable levels of resources into the support, delivery and management of these vital IT services and the IT systems that support them. The challenges for IT managers are to co-ordinate and work in collaboration with the businesses to deliver high quality IT services. This has to be accomplished while adopting a more business and customer oriented approach to delivering services and cost optimization (Cartlidge, Hanna, Rudd, Macfarlane, Windebank & Rance, 2007).
With the amount of information and moving data, the development and use of these systems is imperative to stay ahead, innovative, and secure as a company. With such an overload of different information it would be nearly impossible for an individual to organize or recognize different patterns that a developed system can. Although, wise people are needed in order to create and develop them and without their knowledge and insight the systems can never be created successfully in the first place. People, information, and information systems are all an important parts of the puzzle to analyze data and create new management information systems that enable new ways to stay ahead of
Apple is a technology company that is forever changing. From the iPod to the iTouch/iPhone to the Mac, Apple’s rapid growth as a technology superpower could not have been possible without an intricate information system. The innovation of Apple over the years has seen unprecedented advances in the way we look at technology. This is important to Apple because they have expanded their range of business and revolutionized their product. The problem with this is that not a lot of companies and businesses see Apple as unnecessary
MIS infrastructure: the plans for how a firm will build, deploy, use, and share its data, processes,
The development of information systems requires cooperation between end-users and IS specialists. End users provide the business needs and requirements of the system. The people who will use the system the most know what functionality they require. For a large facility, there may be many departments
What is the business rationale for making the technology investment? This is one of the most important questions to ask. Almost all companies depend on some technology solution to deliver goods and services. Investing in new technologies for the sake of having the latest up-to-date systems, just does not seem to cut it in the minds of most industry executives, nor does trying to rationalize a major technology investment solely on the basis of reducing ongoing maintenance costs of the old systems. Information technology usually does not have a direct impact on the bottom line. “IT is applied to business processes, and it is those business processes that increase revenue or reduce expenses” [Berman,Knight]. This implies
Yet this case along with the other cases also illustrates that implementation and design of each company 's software and software strategy is unique to its competitive situation, industry and strategic objectives. These factors influence how they choose between packaged and customized software options for achieving specific goals and how they measure their success. Indeed, as part of their strategic integration, Merck and the other leading software users interviewed have linked their software strategies with their overall management goals through clear mission statements that explicitly note the importance of information technology to firm success. They have coupled this with active CIO (Chief Information Officer) and IT (information technology) support group participation in the firm 's business and decision making structure. Thus for firms like Merck the totally independent MIS (Management Information Systems) department is a thing of the past. This may be one reason why outsourcing for them has not been a real option, though their successful business performance is not based solely on software. Rather as shall be described below software is an integral element of their overall management strategy and plays a key role in serving corporate goals such as enhancing productivity, improving inventory management or strengthening customer relations. These systems thus must be coupled with an appropriate approach to
When exposed to programs like blackboard in high school, students would already be prepared to use educational web pages in college. While a common perception is that not every person has access to some form of mobile technology, Dr. Teresa Franklin points out that high school students have an ample amount of access to some form of handheld technology. Dr. Franklin demonstrates through a survey how increasingly available wireless and mobile devices are for high school students. The survey shows ten percent of these students have access to a tablet like an iPad, forty-four percent of them have access to a smart phone, and sixty-seven percent of students have access to a laptop. This establishes that the students have hefty amounts of access to some type of mobile device; moreover, it means that implementing this mobile technology in the high school classroom would not be cumbersome and certainly not detrimental when universities all over, like University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Francis Marion University and others, use this technology in and
Conceptually, FoxMeyer’s information system planned to conduct business with its customers on a daily basis. FoxMeyer focused its value chain on activities in their business where competitive strategies could be best applied. (Porter, 1985) However, the implementation was inconsistent with the changing business environment. The new system caused problems at every step of implementation. Problems ranged from inadequate time allocation for development, testing, debugging, lack of interaction between management, systems personnel, consultants and low user involvement.
Easy accessibility: One of the advantages of our online courses and certification programs is the easy accessibility and inclusion of the mobile learning through various iOS and Android apps available
The development of mobile applications offers new solutions for communication among teachers, parents and students so as to expedite notifications and guarantee the receiving of the information and help school to pursue its work privately and securely, As Laura Briz-Ponce(2016) suggets.
Most organizations depend critically on the successful deployment of their information and communication systems, to help them deliver efficient and effective operations and to achieve the changes they need in order to translate strategic plans into
In today’s high-paced business environment, organizations succeed or fail based on how well they manage information internally and externally. To address this reality, successful organizations devote substantial funds to secure their information advantages. Companies must adopt new information technologies and methodologies and remove olds ones in order to avoid being left behind by its competitors. The information
Making effective use of information has become a challenge for all firms. It is inevitable that as the technology industry maintains its growth, certain organizations will flourish, while others will be swallowed completely. With this climate of competitiveness, it becomes more critical than ever for innovative companies to understand their needs, integrate real time solutions into the workflows, transform service and maintenance operations, mitigate risk, and ensure compliance with industry, market and firm requirements (Gareis, 2009). If a firm is unable to integrate into the workflows, they will have a harder time understanding their future needs. Innovative organizations must avoid this sort of competitive disadvantage, as it will inhibit their ability to be competitive in a dynamic marketplace.