BMGT301 Spring 2014 Final Exam Study Guide For Barney Corwin BUSINESS PROCESSES ANALYSIS 1 Describe business processes and their importance to an organization Business process is a standardized set of activities that accomplish a specific task such as processing a customer s order It transforms a set of input into a set of output It streamline outdated practices enhance efficiency and agility of the organization it also promotes compliance and standardization it measures what matters the most to customers monitor the performance of key business assign accountability for process improvement 2 Differentiate between customer facing processes and business facing processes Customer facing processes are product or services receive by an organization s external customers ex marketing distribution customer service business facing processes are invisible to the external customers but are essential to the effective management of a business ex strategic planning budgeting training 3 Compare the continuous process improvement model and business process reengineering continuous improvement attempts to understand and measure the current process and then make performance improvement accordingly Business process reengineering analyzes and redesign the workflow within and between enterprises 4 Describe the importance of business process modeling or mapping and business process models A graphical description of the process that shows the sequence of process tasks a Improve efficiency productivity reduce organizational costs improve agility 5 Explain business process management and why it is important to an organization Considers all of an organization s business processes and seeks to make the interconnected processes more efficient IT business departments a Benefits improve customer service reduced process cycle time 6 Summarize the activities associated with each of the phases of the Systems Development Life Cycle SDLC a Planning b Analysis c Design d Development e Testing f Implementation g Maintenance 2 Oracle database 3 Firefox vs Chrome IE 4 VLC vs iTunes SOFTWARE IN FLUX 1 De ne open source software and understand how it di ers from conventional o erings Open Source is free for anyone to look at and potentially modify the software 2 Provide examples of open source software and how rms might leverage this technology 1 Linux operating system vs Windows Mac 2 Know the primary reasons rms choose to use OSS Open Source Software 1 Quality Customizability Freedom Support Options 2 Be able to list commercial products and their open source competitors Refer to Question 2 2 Understand how vendors make money on open source 1 By selling support and consulting services by modifying them by integrating them with other programs and systems by installing them etc 2 Selling them is incorrect OpenSource is FREE and not to be sold 2 Understand the concept of cloud computing 1 Cloud computing is replacing computing resources either an organization s or individuals hardware or software and replacing it with services provided over the Internet 2 Identify the two major categories of cloud computing 1 Software as a Service SaaS where a firm subscribes to a third party software replacing service that is delivered online 2 Utility computing a firm develops its own service and then runs it over the internet on a service provider s computer IaaS Infrastructure as a service as the name suggests provides you the computing infrastructure physical or quite often virtual machines and other resources like virtual machine disk image library block and file based storage firewalls load balancers IP addresses virtual local area networks etc Examples Amazon EC2 Windows Azure Rackspace Google Compute Engine PaaS Platform as a service as the name suggests provides you computing platforms which typically includes operating system programming language execution environment database web server etc Examples AWS Elastic Beanstalk Windows Azure Heroku Force com Google App Engine While in Saas Software as a service model you are provided with access to application softwares often referred to as on demand softwares You don t have to worry about the installation setup and running of the application Service provider will do that for you You just have to pay and use it through some client Examples Google Apps Microsoft Office 365 8 Know how rms using SaaS products can dramatically lower several costs associated with their information systems a Organizations that adopt SaaS skip the large upfront costs of buying and installing software packages SaaS products lower costs by eliminating or reducing software hardware maintenance and staff expenses Forrester Research estimates that SaaS can bring cost savings of 25 to 60 percent if software licenses server hardware system maintenance and IT staff costs are factored in 9 Know how SaaS vendors earn their money a A usage based pricing model which is similar to a monthly subscription b Others offer free services that are supported by advertising c Others promote the sale of upgraded or premium versions for additional fees 10 Be able to list the bene ts to users that accrue from using SaaS a Other than the cost related benefits that accrue from using SaaS SaaS also provide the advantage of being highly scalable the vendor assumes responsibility for ensuring that systems meet demand fluctuations It also has the potential for higher quality and service levels 11 Be able to list the bene ts to vendors from deploying SaaS a SaaS allows a vendor to counter the vexing and costly problem of software piracy b SaaS applications also impact distribution costs and capacity limiting development to a single platform instead of having to create versions for different operating systems c tighter feedback loop with clients helping fuel innovation and responsiveness d ability to instantly deploy bug fixes and product enhancements to all users e lower distribution costs f accessible to anyone with an Internet connection 12 Be able to list and appreciate explain the risks associated with SaaS a dependence on a single vendor b concern about the long term viability of partner firms c users may be forced to migrate to new versions possibly incurring unforeseen training costs and shifts in operating procedures d reliance on a network internet connection which may be slower less stable and less secure e data asset stored off site with the potential for security and legal concerns f g limited configuration customization and
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