MIS StrategiesJanuary 30 – February 3 Business and Technical People:o Assume that at your organization, the technology is handled by computer scientists and the business decisions are handled by marketing and accounting people. Assume that your organization wants to increase the number of buyers on its Web site. The computer scientists do not know enough about buyer behavior to come up with a solution. The business people do not know enough about Web design to create an effective site. A project team is a team designed to accomplish specific one-time goals, which is disbanded once the project is complete. A project team draws the best knowledge of the business people from the business people and best technical solutions from the technology people.o Bridging the gap between the technology people and the business people is what MIS is all about. An employee trained in MIS is able to communicate between the business and technology personnel. The Value Chain:o The value chain views the organization as a series of business processes, each of which adds value to the product or service. If you view your organization as a value chain, you can identify the important processes in adding value for customers and, thus, identify IT systems that support those processes.o The processes of the value chain can be broken into several components. Receiving and storing raw materials, actually making the product, delivering the product are known as primary value processes. There are processes that support primary value processes such as human resource management, accounting, etc. These are known as support value processes.o To successfully use a value chain, you must learn to identify the processes capable of adding the most value and those processes capable of reducing the most value. Outside the Organization:o Value can be added to a product through processes that occur outside your organization.o Just-in-time is an approach that produces or delivers a product or service just at the time that the customer wants it (p. 73).o A supply chain consists of the paths reaching out to all parts and services. It consists not only of a company’s suppliers, but its suppliers’ supplies as well (p. 72). The aforementioned supply chain management (SCM) system is an IT system thatsupports supply chain management activities by automating the tracking of inventory and information among business processes and across companies (p. 72). To support supply chain management, an application service provider (ASP) supplies software applications, maintenance, technical support, etc. that would otherwise reside on customer’s in-house computers (p. 76). Customer Resource Management:o A customer resource management (CRM) system uses information about customers to gain insights into their needs, wants, and behaviors in order to serve them better (p. 78).o Goals of CRM (p. 79): More effective marketing based on precise knowledge of the customer. Sales process is efficiently managed. After sales support. E-commerce Strategies:o The big difference between the old economy and the new economy is the Internet. New strategies have been created to gain competitive advantages in the new economy.o With mass customization, a business gives its customers the opportunity to tailor its product or service to the customer’s specifications.o The idea of personalization is that a Web site can know enough about your likes and dislikes that it can fashion offers that are more likely to appeal to you.o Disintermediation simply means that with the Internet as a delivery vehicle, intermediate players in the distribution channel can be bypassed.o Global reach is the ability to extend reach to customers anywhere there is an Internet connection and at a lower cost. The U.S. Airline Industry:o The U.S. airline industry has used IT in many creative ways to create a competitive advantage.o First of all, American and United used IT to create airline reservations systems. Other airlines had to pay for the right to have their flights listed on their systems (p. 92).o Airlines used IT to limit the power of their customers to choose other airlines by creating frequent flyer programs. Because of frequent flyer programs, their customers saw that it made sense to concentrate their travel with a single airline as much as possible in order toget free trips and upgrades to first and business class (p. 93). Frequent flyer programs also reduce the threat of substitute products or services by increasing switching costs. Frequent flyer programs also reduce the threat of new entrants by making a frequent flyer programs a necessity.o Airlines use IT to create yield management systems. These systems are used to offer lower priced tickets when a flight does not reach capacity (p. 94).o Travel agents receive a commission on every ticket they sell. By offering tickets directly to customers on their Web site, the airlines are disintermediating the travel