Fundamental roles of IS applications in Business

Fundamental roles of IS applications in Business

Three major roles of the business applications of information systems include

Support Business Processes – involves dealing with information systems that support the business processes and operations in a business.

Support Decision Making – help decision makers to make better decisions and attempt to gain a competitive advantage.

Support Competitive Advantage – help decision makers to gain a strategic advantage over competitors requires innovative use of information technology. The role of information systems in the organization is shifting to support business processes rather than individual functions. The focus is outwards to customers, rather than inwards to procedures. Services are as important as products. Businesses are changing more and more rapidly.

This poses a challenge to existing information systems, which are often inappropriately structured to meet these needs. It also poses a challenge to the people who design, work with, and use these systems, since they may hold outdated assumptions.

IS can simply be defined as input -> process -> information. IS takes data as input and processes them and generate information.

Managers can use this information for the betterment of their organizations. e.g. IS can analyze existing historical data about customers in bank and generate information like good customers, bad customers etc.

Managers can use this information while deciding to provide loan for new customers. IS helps manager to conduct their daily activities and functions properly e.g. in bank different activities like account creating, withdrawal of money, statement generation etc take place.

IS help mangers to conduct such activities accurately and timely manner with the help of software.

IS can give strategic information like which items to launch in which location by analyzing data collected from different sources such that company can have advantage by using these information over their competitors.

Electronic Business

E-business is a term used to describe businesses run on the Internet, or utilizing Internet technologies to improve the productivity or profitability of a business. In a more general sense, the term may be used to describe any form of electronic business - that is to say, any business which utilizes a computer.

This usage is somewhat archaic, however, and in most contexts e-business refers exclusively to Internet businesses. The most common implementation of e-business is as an additional, or in some cases primary, storefront.

By selling products and services online, an e-business is able to reach a much wider consumer base than any traditional brick-and-mortar store could ever hope for. This function of e- business is referred to as e-commerce, and the terms are occasionally used interchangeably.

An e-business may also use the Internet to acquire wholesale products or supplies for in-house production. This facet of e-business is sometimes referred to as e-procurement, and may offer businesses the opportunity to cut their costs dramatically. Even many e-businesses which operate without an electronic storefront now use e-procurement as a way to better track and manage their purchasing.

Case study Julia Photography’s e-business scope

Does having a webpage/e-business give you an advantage over competitors in your industry? Is it possible to do online marketing yourself? Julia is a great photographer who uses her website to display her portfolio and attract new clients to her small business.

This e-business case study tells the story of how Julia, with no formal training, developed a top notch website for her business. When she moved to a new city, she needed to build a new client base from scratch.

Julia’s Project

When Julia started her project, she was familiar with computer software that was mainly dedicated to editing photographs but had little experience with web development or design. With a little guidance from her brother and online tutorials, Julia learned how to use Adobe Golive for creating webpages.

After three or four months of going through online tutorials, experimenting, and learning how to make websites, Julia had a website that she felt would help her display her portfolio and attract new clients.

A New Perspective

In June 2005 Julia learned about e-business Connection and decided to go for a one-on-one consultation with an e-business consultant. Julia came out of the consultation with several ideas on how to improve her website.

She then began an overhaul of her website which concluded in October of 2005 with a general goal of improved usability and consistency.

Lessons to be Learned

Julia has learned a lot while developing a website for her business and has some advice she would like to share with other small business owners. First of all, do the research! When it comes to choosing a service provider, such as a hosting company, it is important to shop around and make an educated decision.

She encourages considering a company’s record of customer service and not just price. Working with a company that provides decent and timely answers to questions is essential to anyone who is learning while they develop their website.

Second, be patient when it comes to developing effective skills. It is not possible for one to produce a professional looking website over a couple of weekends. It will take a few months of experimenting during the limited time that one have for this project until one come up with something passable.

Finally, learn from mistakes! Like most small business owners, Julia has made her fair share of mistakes. As in anything else, mistakes can be the best lessons in the world of website development.

Success

Julia’s website had been up and running for a little over three years. And she says it has been a worthwhile endeavor. Potential clients want to see her previous work before hiring her and her website provides easy access to her portfolio.

Whether referrals come from past clients or from giving out her business card, people always go to her website to check her out before contacting her for business.

In an industry where all of her competition is also going online, her website establishes legitimacy. Any large business worth a grain of salt has a website and consumers are beginning to expect that kind of accessibility from all legitimate businesses.

Julia also uses the internet to check out her competition, research future sites for photo shoots, and learn about new trends in the industry.

To analyze traffic on her website, Julia uses her website server logs and free services like Google Analytics. These statistics give Julia an idea of how many people are viewing her portfolio, what particular services are generating the most interest and what areas her clients are coming from.

There are many different benefits of E-commerce and E-business. Some of the benefits of E-commerce include purchases can be made 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, making it available to every place in the world, at any time.

Other benefits of e-commerce include a larger marketplace, more secure then using cheques, can increase you sales potential, leads to increased productivity.

Benefits of e-business include improved speed of response, cost savings, reduced in inventory, better transfer of best practices, and improved customer service. These are all benefits and advantages of e-commerce and e-Business.

Advantages

With the use of e-commerce you can promote your product globally.

Reduces Time and money spent

Gives a competitive advantages

Removes Location and availability restrictions

Disadvantages

Security - there are still some people who don’t think it is safe to buy on- line

You may not receive what you believe you have purchased.

Things such as viruses could mean losing the site or affecting your customers computers while on your website.