Information Systems

CHAPTER 1

Information Systems and the Role of General and Functional Managers

- Basic definitions

o General manager

 Knowledge worker in charge of an entire organization/business unit

o Functional manager

 Functional worker in charge of functional area or team

o End user

 Individuals with direct contact with software applications

o Managers sometimes act as end-users

- Importance of IS

o Quote from Thomas Watson Jr

 As long as you still have the people and information, you can always rebuild a company as strong as ever even if one was to burn down the infrastructure

o IS is NOT a job of the "IT guy"

 Modern general and functional managers are responsible for working in partnership with IT pros

* IS managers should be PROactive in finding the work rather than waiting for the work to come to you

o Critical lessons

 Managers have to make educated decisions about the use of IT

 Organizations use new IT to serve growing/changing business needs

 Savvy managers partner with IT pros to ensure information systems success

 Managers may or may not be end-users of the new systems they help introduce

o End user

 Comes into direct contact with the technology

 Use technology to complete their day-to-day work + improve own productivity

 General and Functional managers sometimes also end-users; but critical skills are diff

o The new CIO's

 Increasing prevalence of IT > necessary understanding of how to use resource

 Broad view of operations, business processes, inter-organizational coordination challenges, + opportunities

 Broad understanding of how the firm is positioned to execute strategy

o Modern CIO skills

 Perpetually develop the IT Team/organization

 Effectively manage change while in pursuit of:

* Marketplace innovation

* Process improvement

* Maximum agility

* Leverage of legacy systems

 Achieve 100% customer satisfaction

 Consistently improve business performance

o IT Trends of Managerial Significance

 IT is the enabler of new strategy, initiaves, and effective mgt

 Processing power, storage, + battery life continue to increase rapidly

 IT consists continue to decline rapidly

 IT continues to be user friendly

o More IT trends of Managerial Significance

 Data storage cost continues to decline

 More