The University of British Columbia – COMM 391 (Introduction to Management Information Systems) – 2012W2 Final Exam Reference Sheet
Authorized f or use during the final examination – relevant only for COMM 391 section s 202/ 203 (SAUNDERS, Adam R.)
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 4
Primary competitive strategies (generic
Value chain model [!] Types of generic information s ystems [!]
strategies) [!] Primary: inbound logistics(acquiring of materials; Transaction Processing Systems (TPS): Operational
Cost leadership; product differentiation; focus (narrow delivery of supplies; material handling and inventory level; performs OLTP; provide information to other IS.
[cost-focus] vs. broad [differentiation -focus]) control; raw material warehousing);operations Examples: payroll systems; order entry systems;
Porter’s Five Forces Model (scheduling operations; manufacturing products; accounts payable/receivable systems; inventory
1. Potential entrants : How easy it is for new optimizing workflow design efficiency; production management systems; reservation systems. Typically
competitors to enter the industry? inventory); outbound logistics (distribution of finished used by clerk or analyst. Type/level of decision
2. Substitute products and services : What alternatives goods; finished goods warehousing); marketing and typically handled: structured/operational . Type of data
are there to your product or service? sales (market research; developing and maintain normally found: transactional.
3. Bargaining power of suppliers: How many choices markets); customer service (soliciting customer Decision Support Systems (DSS): Can be used on
do you have for suppliers? inputs; handling customer complaints; providing transactional data or analytical information; analysis
4. Bargaining power of buyers: Do your customers replacement) include: sensitivity (effect on outcome by changing
have many other firms they could buy your Secondary: Procurement (development of alternate constraints; what-if (testing various sets of
product/service from? sources of inputs; procurement of raw materials, assumptions on outcomes); goal-seeking (constraints
5. Intra-industry rivalry: How intense is the plant, machinery, and buildings; facilitating long -term that need to be used in order to achieve a set of
competition? relationships with reliable suppliers); technology goals). Typically used by manager or analyst.
Value Proposition [!] development (working relationships between R&D Type/level of decision typically handled: semi-
personnel and other departments; work environment structured/managerial. Type of data normally found:
Defines how a company’s product/service fulfills the
needs of customers (i.e. how the business will a ttract that encourages creativity and innovation); HRM transactional data/analytical information.
customers; why will customers choose to do business (recruiting, training, promoting employees; reward Executive Information Systems (EIS): Strategic level,
with your firm instead of another; what your firm will systems for motivating employees; maintaining a safe for unstructured decisions; contain information from
provide that others do not/cannot). It is also the and productive environment); administrative external data sources as well as internal data sources;
primary source of competitive advantage. coordination and support services/firm infrastructure support executive end-users; produce summaries,
Revenue Model (coordination and integration of all activities in the trends, or projections. Example: a digital dashboard.
Advertising; subscription; transaction fee; sales; value chain; timely and accurate information for Typically used by executive. Type/level of decision
affiliate management) typically handled: unstructured/strategic. Type of data
Supply chain and supply chain management normally found: analytical information.
Supply chain is all activities and processes to supply Data warehouses
products/services to final end customers; all activities Takes data from multiple platforms/technologies and
PHASE 3 associated with the flow of materials, information, and puts it in one place, for ease of analysis; data would
services among raw material suppliers, be standardized. A data warehouse is not a location
Data vs. i nformation [!] manufacturers, distributors, and end customers. for all of the data in a business. Rather, it is data used
Data: Raw facts representing events such as business
transactions; unprocessed facts of interest to end Components of supply chain: upstream (from/to for decision-making.
users (singular: datum). Example: customer […] suppliers); internal (value chain); downstream supply Characteristics of data warehouses: Subject-oriented
chain (from/to retailers and customers). (rather than organized around a transaction
bought product […] for $[…] on date […]. Supply chain management : A set of approaches to processing system); integrated (data is merged in a
Information: A meaningful aggregation of facts that is
useful to human beings in management and decision efficiently integrate suppliers, manufacturers, coherent and consistent whole);time-variant (all
warehouses, and retail stores in order to deliver information is time-stamped); non-volatile
making. Example: year -to-date revenues from products/services to final customer. The purpose of (information is stable; once loaded, data never
customer […] are $[…], average gross margin from
customer […] is […]%, compared to firm average SCM is to ensure that right product be supplied to the changes; old information is never removed/modified).
of […]%. customer in the right quantities, at the right time, to Business intelligence and data mining
the right location, and at the optimal cost. Business intelligence is needed because of too much
Database Components of supply chain management: data, but not enough information); provides
Databases hold data; can help to search for data; can
tell information about data; can link pieces of data Inbound/outbound logistics; inventory management; information of the past; monitors current operations;
demand planning; supply planning; production predicts the future.
together. planning Data mining is part of the business intelligence effort.
Database Management System (DBMS)is an
organized collection of logically related data. A DBMS IT helps organizations share timely information for It is an information analysis software that
uses special database management software to SCM, between the trading partners and rapid automatically analyzes large volumes of data to
response to that information: forecast demand vs. identify patterns, trends, and relationships ina data
reduce data redundancy, share data in a controlled actual demand; inventory levels; production capacity, warehouse or a database. It applies various
way, and reduce data integrity problems.
User’s role in DBMS is that they have to deal with the plans, and yield; shipment status; product mathematical models and statistical tools to the data
application specific requirements. Data evolution: specifications, design, and change orders. stored in a data warehouse to discover new
Operations management and IT: Input ! information.
Often, users start to keep track of a small amount of Data mining pitfalls: Correlation does not imply
data and if the way to keep track of data is not transformation ! output. Information systems help
properly done, a lot of time will be wasted when the forecast and monitor operational processes. All of the causation; the results of data mining are onl y as
operational processes for a product or service useful as the data being mined; r esults are based on
amount of data grows. comprise its supply chain. historical data (uncertain if they will hold in the
future).
MICROSOFT ACCESS
Criteria [!] Total [!]
Number of currency: 123 | Text: “text” | Prompt: [Enter prompt] If one field is“count” or “sum,” then the other fields must be “Group by.”
Date: #dd/mm/yyyy# OR #mm/dd/yyyy# OR #yyyy/mm/dd# Use “Group by” for all fields if the information cannot be shown more than once.
Date range: >#start_date# and 123 (bigger than) | <=123 (less than or equal to) | 123 (equal to) Example: to calculate subtotal: Subtotal: [Price]*[Quantity] ; leave “table” blank. PHASE 6 PHASE 7 PHASE 8
System development life cycle Specifying requirements Insourcing vs. outsourcing [!]
(SDL C)/Waterfall methodology of Interview users; observe users; look at documents Insourcing: IT specialists within the organization
programming Business processes develop the system; the organization has control over
Planning ! analysis ! design ! development ! A standardized set of activities that are put into a the resources required; the IT people know the
testing ! implementation ! maintenance sequence that serves a customer’s need, such as industry and the company; the project team’s goals
Very structured; goes through the seven distinct processing a customer’s order. It turns business are aligned with the company’s goals. The
inputs into outputs; good business processes can
phases in order without deviating; n
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