12 17 2012 Ch 6 7 9 10 11 13 Ch 2 4 Netflix Salesforce article Cloud computing big data e commerce CPO article Final Exam Review Review Sheet for Final Fall 2012 BMGT 301 Dr Karake Strategy Technology positioning Differentiate between operational effectiveness and strategic o Operational effectiveness performing the same tasks better and less costly than rivals o Strategic positioning performing different tasks than those of rivals or the same task in a different way o Operational effectiveness is about cutting costs while strategic positioning is about making the product different Differentiate between competitive advantage and sustainable than that of rivals competitive advantage o Sustainable competitive advantage lasts over the long term rather than short term competitive advantage o Competitive advantage is defined as the strategic advantage one business entity has over its rivals within its competitive industry Achieving competitive advantage strengthens and positions a business better within the business environment Imitation resistant value chain o Value chain set of interrelated activities that bring products or services to the market o Imitation resistant value chain a way of doing business that others will struggle to replicate In nearly every successful effort of this kind technology plays a key enabling role o The value chain can be used to map a firm s efficiency and to benchmark it against rivals revealing opportunities to use technology to improve processes and procedures When a firm is resistant to imitation its value chain may yield sustainable competitive advantage Resources for competitive advantage o In order to have sustainable competitive advantage firms must have a product or service with four characteristics Valuable rare hard to imitate and non substitutable Concept of switching costs o Cost associated with changing or switching the provider of a product or service for one of its rivals o Cost can be financial but also time data and other assets lost as a result of the switch Differentiation o Create a product that is perceived to be different by the customer than the products of the rivals Networks effects o When the value of a product or service increases as its number of users grows Also known as Network externalities or Metcalfe s Law Exchange with other users Metcalfe power of a network of users2 Staying power Long term viability of a product or service Switching costs can strengthen the value of network effects as a strategic asset Cost a consumer incurs when moving from one product to another TCO Total cost of ownership Complementary benefits Products or services that add additional value to the primary product or service that make up a network Platform products and services that encourage others to offer complementary goods Activities involved in Value Chain Analysis model o Primary activities Inbound logistics obtaining raw materials operations creating product outbound logistics marketing and sales and support o Support activities Firm infrastructure technology and R D HR management and procurement sourcing and purchasing functions Competitive Forces model o Five forces Michael Porter Intensity of rivalry among existing competitors Potential for new entrants to challenge incumbents Threat posed by substitute product or services Power of buyers Power of suppliers o Use this model to identify potential areas where IT can be used to gain a competitive advantage IT Infrastructure slides on Cloud Computing What is IT infrastructure and what are its components o IT infrastructure provides a platform for supporting all information systems in the business Computer hardware Computer software Data management technology Networking and telecommunications technology Describe the components of IT infrastructure that firms need to manage o Computer hardware platforms Client machines Servers Mainframes o Operating system platforms o Enterprise software applications o Data management and storage o Networking telecommunications platforms o Internet platforms o Consulting system integration services What are the stages and technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution Describe Moore s Law and the Law of Mass Digital Storage o Moore s law computing power doubles every 18 months o Law of mass digital storage the amount of data being stored each year doubles The world produces as much as 5 exabytes of unique information Describe how network economics declining communication costs and technology standards affect IT infrastructure o Declining communication costs and the Internet As communication costs fall utilization of communication and computing facilities explode o Technology standards Specifications that establish the compatibility of products and the ability to communicate in a network Unleash powerful economies of scale and result in price declines as manufacturers focus on the products built to a single standards Discuss the current trends in computer hardware platforms o Emerging mobile digital platform o Nanotechnology Describe the evolving mobile platform grid computing and cloud computing o Grid computing Connects geographically remote computers into a single network to combine processing power and create virtual supercomputer Provides cost savings speed agility o Cloud computing Firms and individuals obtain resources over the Internet Explain how businesses can benefit from autonomic computing virtualization and green computing o Autonomic computing Development of systems that can configure themselves heal themselves self updating antivirus software o Virtualization Allows single physical resource to act as multiple resources run multiple instances of OS Reduces hardware and power expenditures Facilitates hardware centralization Discuss the current trends in software platforms o Open source software o Cloud computing o Software as a Service SaaS What are open source software o Computer software with open source code so users can study change or improve the software Discuss the challenges of managing IT infrastructure and management solutions o Centralized central IT dept makes decisions v Decentralized business unit IT departments make own decisions o Amount to spend on IT Rent vs buy Outsourcing o Total cost of ownership Direct and indirect costs Hardware software account for 20 of TCO Other costs installation training support maintenance infrastructure downtime space and energy Decrease through cloud services greater centralization and
View Full Document
Unlocking...