Future Technology Movie Reviews

Surrogates

The film is set in a futuristic world where people lives and interacts with society through remote-controlled humanoid robots, surrogates – fit, good-looking and a physically perfect mechanical representation of themselves. A surrogate operator is protected from harm and does not feel any pain when their surrogate is damaged. Because people are safe all the time, rarely leaving the safety and comfort of their homes, it is a peaceful world free from fear, crime and pain. This technology is so advanced that everything the robot experiences are felt by the human being controlling it.

But all of a sudden, something went wrong when humans are murdered when their surrogates are destroyed, which is something that is not supposed to happen, since it is assured that a surrogate operator is safe from any damage done to his/her surrogate. Looking a decade back, robots are made and used to be just for fun and toys. But then Man never stop thinking of innovative ways to engineer and use robots where it can assist those people with physical disabilities, perform calculations, carry heavy loads, and reduce work and labor in manufacturing, production and distribution of goods. It became even more advanced as it is even more used in industrial, professional and military applications. But whatever technological advancements and breakthroughs may be made on these robots, there are some other things- much more critical things - that only humans alone can do.

Eagle Eye

The movie was so unpredictable that I missed the part that the actor will end up shooting in front of convention. On the other hand, this movie can happen today but I doubt if a computer as powerful that exist now. It is true that super computers nowadays can have enough processing sped to almost do anything in unison but no computer today has the power to decide on their own. If you come to think of it, the computer even controlled cameras and other things that are electronic even though there is no way for it to access them. This is very creepy especially if we think that the computer controlled a vehicle in the part where they are chased by the police. Although this movie can be possible there are some things that will make you think about its possibility to happen in real world. First, the computer is so cool. Nothing can be compared to it now and even for the next years to come. Second, you can see that the bomb used was a crystal that can explode in a certain tone which is something tat is too good to be true. That would be the best bomb if that is true. This technology may be possible but it will be in the form of a mechanical bomb that will explode given a certain pitch or any kind of signal. Lastly, I am also wondering why it is in present setting. It is quite awkward with such advancements in computer and bomb technology that other forms of technology are untouched. Even their cellular phones are just the normal ones. It should be better if some wonderful technologies were also introduced.

I, Robot

Robots are human-made. They are not created to change the law, the way people lived. The movie was helpful indeed especially to those people who relies more in technology. Sooner or later, robots have the potential to ruin and to take over world if this scenario happens.

Wall-E

The movie presented robotic technology that was created to clean the earth which during that time was over-run by garbage after hundred years in the future. In the movie, robots emphasized the awareness to make the earth clean and unpolluted. It shows that using the robotic technology, man can use robots to become a cleaning instrument and give it instructions for only to follow. The movie also presented a robot, Wall – E, that somehow possess human feelings and emotions therefore make him have the feelings of care and love which he showed to the plant and to another robot, EVE. Robots have artificial intelligence that can give mankind an easy way to give orders since they can be able to comprehend. However, it can also give problems wherein robots can become stubborn to follow a modified order from his primary order because he was created to do a certain order. That somehow can be a weakness when using robotic technology in doing human jobs. Another weak point of the movie is that humans became fat and lazy and they depend too much on robots to do the things a man usually do such as getting a drink or walking. Too much reliance on robots as seen on the movie can also cause a bad result to the humans’ health and attitude.

Silicon Valley

This is an excellent movie talking about great names in the history of personal computers; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The movie evolve on the building of two great companies the Microsoft and the Apple. The story develops on the ventures of going to yonder of horizons and perspectives one who is firmly focus to its craft while the other started in a happy go lucky situation and turned his dreams to reality and reality becomes honor and prestige and yonder to go even to the extent of getting minds into minds, brilliance into brilliance and power into power. The story pointed so many things on technology into three important matters. The first matter is that technology is influx and it goes to wildest streams to a vast matter of ocean, as it is seen in the movie knowledge, creation and building up can be seen in technology where things can be done in its wildest scope and space. The second matter is that technology could be a blurting business where power is taken and knowledge is acquired, as it is seen in the movie we see people goes beyond of betrayal and pirating in order to gain more and to access big. The third matter would be technology can be a great source of moving forward in the computer industry and later can a source for renewing values and style of life.

Why do we need to study technology?

We need to study technology in order to improve the quality of lives of many people particularly in basic needs in food, clothing, shelter and education. With the study of technology we can make inventions but with these, there are problems arise that's why continuing effort to improve inventions makes the study of technology inevitable in human life. There are many studies about technology out there like in communication, medicine, transportation and many more but for me the most important study is in environment because mother earth is our only home to live for us, human.

We need to exert more effort, finances, and time on how to give care and love on our environment. The food we eat, the water we drink, the fresh air we breathe, the things we touch and see came from seas, mountains, farms, watershed that we need to preserve and grow now. Again we will not be here in more than two thousand years without technology. That's why I'll go for technology in a good way especially for environment.

We need to study technology

We need to study technology in order to improve the quality of lives of many people particularly in basic needs in food, clothing, shelter and education. With the study of technology we can make inventions but with these, there are problems arise that's why continuing effort to improve inventions makes the the study of tecnology inevitable in human life. There are many studies about technology out there like in communication, medicine, transportation and more more but for me the most important study is in environment because mother earth is our only home to live for us, human.

We need to exert more effort, finances, and time on how to give care and love on our environment. The food we eat, the water we drink, the fresh air we breathe, the things we touch and see came from seas, mountains, farms, water shed that we need preserve and grow. Again we will not be here in more than two thousand years without technology. That's why I'll go for technology in a good way specially for environment.

MIS 2 - Assignment 9

Information technology (IT) is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware", according to the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA). IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information.

Today, the term information has ballooned to encompass many aspects of computing and technology, and the term has become very recognizable. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management and administration of entire systems. Information technology is starting to spread farther than the conventional personal computer and network technology, and more into integrations of other technologies such as the use of cell phones, televisions, automobiles, and more, which is increasing the demand for such jobs.
When computer and communications technologies are combined, the result is information technology, or "infotech". Information technology is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information.

In recent days ABET and the ACM have collaborated to form accreditation and curriculum standards[2] for degrees in Information Technology as a distinct field of study separate from both Computer Science and Information Systems. SIGITE is the ACM working group for defining these standards. Information technology (IT) changes rapidly, seriously challenging IT management. In response, many organizations create a formal group of IT professionals to evaluate emerging IT so they can better cope with its change. A survey based on structured interviews was mailed to a nationwide sample of 1,000 IT organizations. Two hundred forty-six respondents provided data to identify categories of coping mechanisms to handle changing IT. Five categories emerged: Education and Training, Internal Procedures, Vendor Support, Consultant Support, and Endurance. Organizations apply Education and Training more extensively than the others. Thus the research contributes to understanding the means by which organizations cope with rapid IT change. The research also found that organizations with a group dedicated to investigating emerging IT cope more extensively, but not more successfully, than do those without one. Thus the research contributes not only by providing an understanding of how organizations cope with rapid IT change, but also by suggesting the need to achieve more from the group charged with emerging IT.

A stream of research has been done on the individual use of information technologies (IT). Their purpose was to find out how technology was received and utilized by the users. The researchers knew that information technologies could add significant value to an organization in terms of productivity increases and performance improvements, but technologies were constantly evolving over time, and as a result, adoption behaviors of individuals were changing with them. Traditionally, the earlier models of innovation adoption represented marketplace deterministically and proposed improvements based on assumptions of certainty. They claimed that although more recent adoption models integrate some dynamic effects (i.e., learning and risk), the basic recommendations had not changed much for decision-making. In fact, the only distinction came from the fact that the later models improved the traditional models by elaborating on them and by providing understanding of additional variables. We think that the traditional models underestimate the forces of changes and uncertainty that dominate today's innovative markets, which are full of continuous processes of technology development, improvement, and application.

Thus, it is the objective of this paper to provide a conceptual framework for discussion of how technologies get diffused through their acceptance by the users and to understand the characteristics of technologies, users, and organizations in the face of changes and uncertainty. Our paper draws on various branches of previous research. From the marketing perspective, we look at several researchers who have discussed the models of and/or issues of innovation adoption. We begin with Kamien and Schwartz and Reinganum] who present models of firm adoption of innovations, examining the factors affecting a firm to adopt a certain innovation. Gatignon and Robertson describe the implications of organization adoption decisions in a competitive environment. Bass develops a mathematical model to examine the timing of adoption of new products and applies it by empirically testing demand growth for consumer products. This model later becomes widely adopted, extended, and applied in empirical research. Mahajan et al. review extensively the deterministic models for diffusion of innovations. Whereas Kalish and Sen discuss how the marketing mix variables impact diffusion, Eliashberg and Chatterjee provide thorough review of the stochastic models for innovation diffusion. From a strategy viewpoint using the diffusion of innovation theory, a stream of researchers has contributed to the subject matter.

They have examined various factors, generally regarded as determinants of IT adoption and usage, in their studies. Examples of these factors include individual user characteristics, innovation characteristics, and environment characteristics. Similarly, Information Systems (IS) researchers have addressed the issues of acceptance and diffusion of IT by providing varying answers to what are the factors determining IT usage by individuals, and discussing the relevance of different IT usage models. For example, the theory of reasoned action (TRA) developed by Fishbein and Ajze] helps to predict and understand human behavior in making adoption decisions. In their review, Igbaria et al. incorporate the concern for the determinants of behavior and relations among beliefs, attitudes, subjective norms, intentions, and behaviors. Determining how the relevant factors affect each other to lead to a decision-making is the primary focus of the TRA model. Ajzen also introduces the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model as an extension of an earlier TRA to consider the situations where individuals do not have complete control over their behavior. TPB was designed to predict individual adoption behavior across different settings and can be applied to IS use as well. Davis et al.’s well- known technology acceptance model (TAM) is an improvement of the generic TRA model. TAM adapted certain components of the generic TRA model and applied them to the particular domain of computer technology, and more broadly, to the information technology.

The difference between the two models is that in place of the TRA’s attitudinal determinants, TAM introduces two key variables, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, as having central relevance for predicting computerbased technologies user acceptance behaviors. Although previous models of IT acceptance provide useful insights, more research is needed to determine the key factors affecting or motivating individuals to use computer-based information technologies for various purposes. In light of this need for more research, our paper tries to extend previous research by examining the major determinants of IT adoption and diffusion based on what other researchers have done and by proposing an additional determinant of IT adoption that is of important relevance. As such, the purpose of this research is to seek better and valid measures for predicting and explaining IT use by individuals in network computing environment. Our research differs from other previous studies in that we try to move away from the old ways of thinking and pursue new ideas. Recognizing that the computing environment has changed due to the development of innovative technologies and the growth of the Internet, we scrutinize carefully the changes which have occurred and propose an enhanced IT acceptance (usage) model which can help to explain the new phenomenon of technology adoption in today’s distributed network computing environment.

Thus, we present an extended and improved model of IT usage by reexamining the key determinants of IT usage, taking account of the changes in user needs and computing environment. We believe that only by understanding various factors affecting the IT adoption and diffusion can we truly understand how and when individuals use information technologies. The paper proceeds as follows: In section , we discuss the relevant prior literature and the motivation for the study. The core of our study is contained in section. The model of IT usage (acceptance) and theoretical rationales are presented in this section. Section discusses the contribution of the model of IT usage in IT adoption research. Future research directions and issues not covered in this paper are outlined in section. We conclude in section . The topics of interest which are relevant in the study of user acceptance model of IT (IT adoption) are network externality, complementarity, diffusion of IT, user acceptance of IT, etc. We review the relevant literature on each of the topics to provide background information and theoretical support for our research, and especially to set the stage for a constructive discussion of our IT usage model. We try to integrate the ideas derived from the different disciplines to contribute a new body of knowledge to the area of IT adoption and diffusion research.

We argue that until now, research on IT has primarily focused on the problems and issues of IT use in the context of individual computing environment. In particular, the field of economics has studied the diffusion of externality-related products such as telephone, focusing on the positive externality. These studies introduce positive externality but they rarely mention negative externality. An example of negative externality is illustrated in the following example. When we have many people using the World Wide Web (WWW) or collaborating in some other ways, people get easily overwhelmed by the volume of information they come in contact with. As a result, it becomes difficult for them to get organized and seek out the information they need in a timely manner. Thus, we have an information glut. As seen, there are definitely both positive externalities (i.e., characteristics of network environment, especially the Internet) and negative externalities, as in blocking in phone lines. We now look at the topics that are relevant to the study of IT adoption and diffusion in greater details.

These are the three changes likely to have substantial impact on USEP's services in the next three years:

Online Voting of Election in Clubs, Organizations, Local Councils of different colleges and Campus Student Council

This change in school services is based on the System Analysis and Design and Software Engineering project proposal which is the Project E-Vote. I think this project is feasible in the next three years. Based on the Project E-Vote description, it offers features such as simultaneous online elections as it aims to cater more than one election at a time. Project E-Vote features a customizable election page where the administrator may choose to generate a different election page depending on the demand of the organization. Project E-Vote also features an automated storage system that is more efficient in terms of capacity and data security. Project E-Vote marks an automated counting of votes thus consumes less time during canvassing. The development of Project E-Vote is a move that tries to solve the problems faced during elections conducted within the university such as the large cost of manual elections and election fraud. If well develop this application may be an inspiration to other organizations that conducts elections. The first part is the manual system, which involves accepting of candidacy. The second part is the automated system, which involves online casting of votes, automated counting of votes, data storage and also a part of data process.

Based on the developers’ project proposal document, the application provides the following benefits:

• It minimizes the cost of an election.
• It minimizes the time needed for canvassing the vote’s cast.
• Election procedure is automated thus eliminates or minimizes election fraud and cheating.
• It could cater to any election within the University.
• It can be integrated with other existing systems and databases.
• It has a concept of green computing as it minimizes the use of paper materials.
• It may be developed further to cater future problems concerning elections.


Online Passbook/Gradesheet

This is another application that will change in the next three years. This is also based on the System Analysis and Design and Software Engineering project. The Online Passbook is comparable to the manual passbook system used by the university. However, the online passbook avoids the students to actually go to each of their respective subject instructors. This could ease the process of retrieving the grades of the students since it can be viewed online. The online passbook has its owns restrictions in which only instructors designated to the subject is authorize to personally put the respective grades of the students and will only retrieve the grades when it’s done. The students, on the same manner, are only allowed to view his grades in which he is enrolled in that semester.

The objectives of this application are to discontinue the use of manual passbook system of the students, to cease manual retrieval and passing of grades of the teachers in the registrar, and to provide an easy and efficient way of retrieving the grades of the students. In accessing the online passbook, the registered student of the university is subjected to a password of his own for security and for him to view his own grade. The online passbook would also give an evaluation of grades of the students instantly. On the other hand, for the instructor, this could also avoid manual distribution of grades to the students of each of the subject they handle. The instructor will have a security password in accessing the system. The instructor will be able to put the grades of his students into the system and it will automatically distribute the subject grades to the corresponding students. It will then also automatically submit the respective subject grades to the registrar.

Online Tutorial of Different Languages

This service change in the University is based on the office of Institute of Languages. Institute of Languages offers language tutorial different languages like French, Arabic, German, Korean, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Nihongo, Bahasa Indonesia, and Philippine Dialects. The International Languages tutorial is a web-based step by step lesson covering basics, pronunciation, but also grammar, vocabulary. It offers audio support for better oral comprehension, a table of contents and an index for faster searches. It offers audio support for better oral comprehension, a table of contents and an index for faster searches. The online tutorial support is well structured and organized. The tutor employs strategies to encourage dialogue amongst students online. The tutor is prompt in responding to my questions or insights. The student expect s a response online within one day.The student would benefit from more interaction online. The student would benefit from more training to communicate online. The benefits of online different languages courses reach far and wide. With the difficulty of the language posing numerous stumbling blocks even for those with the different native language tongue, strong instruction that works is essential. Whether you are taking English as a second language or you need to increase your communication skills in other languges to be a better professional, online courses offer you a great freedom as well as a good opportunity.

Reference:
http://usep-ic.forumsmotions.com
http://wikipedia.org

MIS 2 - Assignment 8

I was hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. These are the questions I would ask the officers of the company:

1. What are the natures of the present IS planning process the organization has?

In this question, I can come up new strategic awareness for the organization. This strategic awareness involves determining key planning issues, defining planning objectives, organizing the planning team, and obtaining top management commitment.

2. What is the current business and working environment the company has?

In this question, I can form a situational analysis. Situational analysis must include analyzing current business systems, analyzing current organizational systems, analyzing current information systems, analyzing the current external business environment, and analyzing the current external information technology (IT) environment.

3. How does the organization conceive present strategy alternatives?

In this question, I can construct new strategy conception. The idea of this strategy conception evolves on identifying major IT objectives, identifying opportunities for improvement, and evaluating opportunities for improvement, and identifying high-level IT strategies.

4. How extensive the present Selecting Strategy is implemented?

With this question, I can make a fresh strategy formulation. This strategy formulation identifies new business processes, new IT architectures, specific new projects, priorities for new projects.

5. What are the impacts of current strategy implementation to the organization?

With this question, I can produce strategy implementation planning. This new strategy implementation planning defines change management approach, defines action plan, evaluates action plan, and defines follow-up and control procedure.

6. What is the current alignment of top management regarding on information strategic information systems plan?

I can formulate new ideas regarding this question. These ideas consists of understanding the strategic priorities of top management, aligning information systems (IS) strategies with the strategic plan of the organization, adapting the goals/objectives of IS to changing goals/objectives of the organization, maintaining a mutual understanding with top management on the role of IS in supporting strategy, identifying information technology (IT)-related opportunities to support the strategic direction of the firm, educating top management on the importance of IT, adapting technology to strategic change, and assessing the strategic importance of emerging technologies.

7. How the analysis phase is done in the previous information systems planning of the organization?

This is the question that needs the knowledge in understanding the information needs of organizational subunits, identifying opportunities for internal improvement in business processes through IT, improving understanding of how the organization actually operates, developing a “blueprint” that structures organizational processes, monitoring internal business needs and the capability of IS to meet those needs, maintaining an understanding of changing organizational processes and procedures, generating new ideas to reengineer business processes through IT, and understanding the dispersion of data, applications, and other technologies throughout the firm.

8. In terms of cooperation, how the systems developers of the organization interact with each other in developing an information system?

In this question, I can come up new strategic cooperation process for the organization. This strategic cooperation process involves avoiding the overlapping development of major systems, achieving a general level of agreement regarding risks/tradeoffs among system projects, establishing a uniform basis for prioritizing projects, maintaining open lines of communication with other departments, coordinating the development efforts of various organizational subunits, identifying and resolving potential sources of resistance to IS plans, developing clear guidelines of managerial responsibility for plan implementation.

9. What are capabilities of current system developers in order to measure and make an assessment to have new plan?

The idea of this capability plan evolves on ability to identify key problem areas, ability to identify new business opportunities, ability to align IS strategy with organizational strategy, ability to anticipate surprises and crises, ability to understand the business and its information needs, flexibility to adapt to unanticipated changes, and ability to gain cooperation among user groups for IS plans.

Reference:
www.wikipedia.org

MIS 2 - Assignment 7

Google

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Search is how Google began, and it's at the heart of what Google do today. Google devotes more engineering time to search than to any other product at Google, because it believes that search can always be improved. It is constantly working to provide you with more relevant results so that you find what you're looking for faster. To that end, it has added services such as personalized search, which tailors results for their clients if the clients are signed in to Google account.

As a business, Google generates the majority of its revenue by offering advertisers measurable, cost-effective and highly relevant advertising, so that the ads are useful to the people who see them as well as to the advertisers who run them. Hundreds of thousands of advertisers worldwide use Google AdWords program to promote their products and services on the web. Advertisers bid in an open and competitive auction to have their ads appear alongside the search results for particular keywords. They can specify the geographic location and time of day for their ads to appear. As a result, people see ads that are so useful and relevant that they become a valuable form of information in their own right. Since we believe you should know when someone has paid to put a message in front of you, we distinguish ads from search results or other content on a page by labeling them as "sponsored links" or "Ads by Google". Google doesn't sell ad placement in search results, nor does Google allow people to pay for a higher ranking there.

Google builds web applications, or "apps", to make it simpler for people to share information and get things done together. Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs help people communicate and collaborate more easily, whether planning a wedding or building a business itinerary. The information is stored securely online, accessible from any device with a web connection. And because it lives online, it's easy to share with a group of collaborators. Everyone in the group can work on the same material at the same time, even if they're working in different buildings, countries or continents.

Google’s clients should be able to access all of Google's services wherever they are – even if they don't have a computer nearby. Google makes it easy for them to use their favorite Google products, from Google Maps to YouTube, right from your phone. As mobile devices become increasingly central to people's lives, Google works hard to find new and better ways to help clients get the information they need when they are on the go. A lot has changed since the first Google search engine appeared. Google has grown and expanded its offerings from a single service to dozens, often in as many languages. Google now has thousands of employees and offices around the world. But some things haven't changed: its dedication to its users and its belief in the possibilities of the Internet itself. The 3 big competitors of Google are America Online(AOL), MSN, and Yahoo! Inc.

Google nowadays Google is the most used search engine engine in the world with more than 60% of the world requests made on search engines. Google is also a company providing a large range of services(exactly 149), his more recent ones(the web browser: Chrome) make it now compete with firms such as Microsoft. Some example of Google services: mails, blogs, videos hosting, companies ads, maps, pictures hosting, websites analytics During the last 4 semesters Google generated nearly 20 billions dollars of revenue with a net profit of 4,85 billions. As a comparison for the same period Microsoft(created 33 years ago) got 60 billions dollars and a net profit of 17,6 billions. The value of Google is nowadays estimated to 142 billions of dollars. In the High- Tech sector only three companies have a better quotation: Microsoft, IBM (created 97 years ago) and Apple (32 years ago). Google is physically present in 33 countries around the world with 68 offices: To understand how this company could have been so successful internationally let's study his internationalization steps during the last decade.

Google is now available in 72 languages, partnership with AOL and first office in Australia in Sidney. Several national acquisitions to extend Google services which at the end extend as well the world services abroad of Google, for example the blog services “Blogger”. Dublin became the first location for Google's regional operations outside the U.S. More than 100 Google domain names are available. Google opens new engineering offices in Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. R&D center opened in Tokyo. The famous Google Maps application is release for Europe. New R&D center opens this time in China. First offices in Mexico and Argentina. Several other acquisitions to extend their services with for each of them translation in several languages. Partnership with China Mobile, the world's largest mobile Telecommunication carrier, to provide mobile and Internet search services in China. Sign partnerships to give free access to Google Apps for Education to 70,000 university students in Kenya and Rwanda. Series of acquisitions and translations of other Google services. As we just saw in ten years Google developed a lot of International marketing structures from simple representation offices to R&D centers to complex partnerships. I did not mentioned it but Google acquired several companies(more than 50). The purpose of these acquisitions was to extend their range of services which are then translated in order to be internationally exportable. I however did not find until now an acquisition of another search engine. Google seems to prefer the partnership(the company keep her brand but use Google, the best example is AOL).

An IT expert would qualify Google as a Geocentric company(the same service for all the world). There are however some slight modifications made to their service which could make think that Google is acting as well as a Regiocentric company, at least on some marketing aspects. The reason which drove me to this conclusion is that Google managers are recruited from all over the world and the power is centralized in the United States. As said in Google's presentation they opened in 2003 in Dublin a location for regional operations outside the U.S. It has been designed to serve Google customers across multiple time zones and languages spanning Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Taking in account that Europe has a very strong addiction to Google I may think that Google has in fact two center of decisions(one for America and one for the rest of the world) However Google has a so huge amount of offices in the United States which make me think that the final decision are taking in the United States which include a hierarchy among those centers of decisions.

Google has latest services, and these are:

Reaching new customers:
• AdWords. Advertising business on Google
• Local Business Center. Making business searchable on maps
• Base: Product Search and more. Posting all kinds of content to Google
• Webmaster Central. Improving website's visibility

Enhancing website:
• AdSense. Earning revenue from website
• Analytics. Analyzing website traffic
• Checkout. Selling online
• Google Ad Manager. Managing ad inventory
• Website Optimizer. Building effective websites
• Google Site Search. Adding site search to website
• Google Friend Connect. Growing viral traffic to site

Increasing productivity
• Google enterprise search solutions. Searching company information
• Google Apps. Communicating and collaborating
• Postini services. Securing email
• Google Geospatial Solutions. Visualizing, analyzing and sharing


Reference:
Google.com

MIS 2 - Assignment 6

Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are defined as being ‘the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization.’ They are the few key areas where ‘things must go right’ for the business to flourish. As a result, the CSFs are areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention from management. The current status of performance in each area should be continually measured, and that information should be made widely available.

CSFs are the few key areas where ‘things must go right’ for the business to flourish. It is very important to identify them when aiming to obtain a profound understanding of the business. The very act of determining CSFs may help to crystallize objectives and strategies, and certainly to emphasize priority activities.

Every firm in an industry may have some common CSFs such as access to raw materials or timely delivery, due to pressures on or in the industry. The overall organization, which could have units in many industries, will have CSFs relative to its objectives of diversification, return on investment and portfolio mix. The key area for determining CSFs as part of IS strategy development is the business unit, since this is the practical level to determine strategy. The agreement of the business unit managers as to what these CSFs are is important in obtaining consensus on the major IS/IT investments. There will also tend to be a structured, cascading relationship in a large organization between objectives and CSFs.

Critical Success Factor (CSF) analysis has been the most commonly-used tool in the IS strategies toolkit and its value is increased if used in conjunction with the Balanced Scorecard. The establishment of a set of CSFs against a set of business objectives and measures, within a Balanced Scorecard framework, requires consolidation into a matrix of objectives and relevant CSFs. This is reasonably straightforward, provided there are not too many of either! The priority for dealing with the CSFs is not determined by the CSF (‘critical’ implies that no priority can be set), but by the priority of the objective that caused the success factor to be identified and by the number of objectives that will be affected by its satisfactory achievement. The next stage in the process is not, however, as straightforward. Interpreting CSFs in terms of information and information systems cannot easily be done without reference to the activities of the business and its organizational structure.

Critical Success Factors in Strategic Information Systems:

A second aspect of the analyses of our research base identifies some of the key factors that seem to recur frequently and underpin success. Few strategic information systems show all of the factors, but many show a number. Again, these factors are often at odds with traditional IS/IT approaches and show more commonality with business innovation.

1. External, not internal, focus: looking at customers, competitors, suppliers, even other industries and the business’s relationships and similarities with the outside business world. Traditionally IS/IT was focused on internal processes and issues. Toshiba is using wireless technology for remote monitoring of photocopiers, so that technicians can be dispatched as soon as there are signs of a problem. This reduces servicing costs and, since machines are out of action less often, increases usage and revenue.

2. Adding value, not cost reduction: although cost reductions may accrue due to business expansion at reduced marginal costs, ‘doing it better, not cheaper’ seems to be the maxim. This is consistent with the requirements of companies to differentiate themselves from competitors—better products, better services—to succeed. Historically, IS/IT was seen as a way of increasing efficiency—doing it cheaper—and, while this is obviously important in any business environment, it is not the only way to succeed. At Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, a Swedish pulp and paper company, foremen use a wireless system to send instructions to loggers in the field, specifying which trees to cut and in what order. This enables the company to coordinate harvesting decisions with inventory and transport requirements and match those decisions to market needs.

3. Sharing the benefits: within the organization, with suppliers, customers, consumers and even competitors on occasion! In many cases in the past, systems benefits have not been shared even within an organization, but used instead to give departments or functions leverage over each other. This reduces the benefits and does not allow them to be sustained. Sharing benefits implies a ‘buy in’, a commitment to success, a switching cost. Almost all of the examples involve sharing the benefits, with suppliers, customers, consumers and competitors, to provide barriers of entry to the industry. For instance, the introduction of debit cards to replace cheque books depended for its success on banks sharing some of the reduced processing costs with the retailers and consumers, since the benefits that the bank could gain depended on the commitment of retailers and consumers. Some would argue that this was achieved by increasing the cost of the alternative (i.e. cheques!).

4. Understanding customers and what they do with the product or service: how they obtain value from it, and the problems they may encounter in gaining that value. In the 1980s, McKesson, the pharmaceutical wholesaler, followed this principle very closely in providing a range of information-based services to drugstores, starting from a simple problem of stock control, solved by delivering products in shelf-sized batches. Black and Decker, a low-cost producer, supplied a value-added service to retailers to enable them to ‘swap’ goods they had over or understocked for the season. They did not want returns, but the retailer could not be expected to predict precisely how many lawnmowers, for instance, would be sold. It helped to solve a customer’s problem. Federal Express has built on its original customer-service system, which tracks every movement of every package, and extended access direct to customers.

5. Business-driven innovation, not technology-driven: the pressures of the marketplace drove developments in most cases. This tends to cast doubt on the idea of competitive advantage from IT, but, in practice, it means that new or existing IT provides or enables a business opportunity or idea to be converted into reality. The lead or the driving force is from the business, not necessarily a traditional route to using IS/IT, which has often been driven by technology, pushed by the IT suppliers and professionals, not pulled through by the users. It is only relatively recently that the latest technology has become of interest to business managers. But the business issue does not change: why take two risks at the same time—that is, a new business process based on new technology? It is a recipe for failure! Keen56 summed it up well by saying, ‘Major failures in using IT are often based on much better technology and bad business vision. Successes come from good enough technology and a clear understanding of the customer.’ An early prediction of the demise of many dot.com ventures?

6. Incremental development, not the total application vision turned into reality. Many examples show a stepped approach—doing one thing and building on and extending the success by a further development. To some extent, this is developing applications by experimentation but also not stopping when a success is achieved but considering what could be done next. This, again, is against the traditional notion of clarifying all requirements, defining all boundaries and agreeing the total deliverables of the system before embarking on the expensive, structured process of design and construction, freezing the requirements at each stage. Prototyping of systems obviously has a key role to play here.

7. Using the information gained from the systems to develop the business. Many mail order and retailing firms have segmented their customers according to the purchasing patterns shown by transactions and then providing different, focused catalogues or special offers. Product and market analyses plus external market research information can be merged and then recut in any number of ways to identify more appropriate marketing segmentation and product mix. This aspect has been exploited particularly well by the ‘direct’ insurers, who are able to target the lower risk, more profitable customers very accurately. Through using the information gleaned from customer transactions, the Britannia Building Society in the UK has developed a sophisticated segmentation strategy based on creating customer propensity models, which have helped the Society increase the average number of products per customer from 1.3 to over 2.0.57 Before Safeway introduced its loyalty card scheme, they knew virtually nothing about customers. They didn’t know who they were, what they bought or even if they were the same customers who shopped at the store the previous week. By introducing a loyalty card scheme, it persuaded customers to tell them what they bought, and yielded significant information such as: most customers aren’t profitable; average shopping range is 250 lines; women are 50% impulsive, men 90%; customers shop for concepts not commodities (e.g. Sunday lunch, kids treat, Italian meal); Feta cheese is the 298th most popular cheese on units sold, but leaps to 25th in terms of basket size.

As discussed above, these factors, in general, imply different attitudes to the use of IS/IT than have prevailed in the past, implying that we need new ways of thinking about IS/IT techniques to uncover such opportunities, and then new approaches to managing these applications to ensure success. Another general observation can be made from these examples, by considering what actually produces the success—information technology, information systems or information. Technology itself is the ‘enabler’, which provides short-term advantage and the opportunity to develop new systems and to capture and use potentially valuable information. But, normally, competitors will be able to purchase the same technology, and any advantages could soon be negated. However, the new information systems that developed, utilizing the technology, could provide advantages that may be less vulnerable to erosion by competitive copying. The potential gain will depend on how conclusively and exclusively the systems alter business processes and relationships.

In time, however, the existing competition or new entrants enticed into the profitable parts of industry could redefine the relationships by introducing alternative information systems. If the firm wishes to sustain its competitive advantage, it must use the information gleaned from its systems to improve its products or services—to match the requirements of the marketplace or influence its development.

Reference:
Strategic Planning for Information Systems, Third Edition
By: John Ward and Joe Peppard
Copyright © 2002 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.