Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Chapter 19: OUTSOURCING IN THE 21 CENTURY


 OUTSOURCING PROJECTS
          Insourcing (in-house-development) – a common approach using the professional expertise within an organization to develop and maintain the organization's information technology systems
          Outsourcing – an arrangement by which one organization provides a service or services for another organization that chooses not to perform them in-house

           Reasons companies outsource

           Onshore outsourcing  engaging another company within the same country for services
          Nearshore outsourcing – contracting an outsourcing arrangement with a company in a nearby country
          Offshore outsourcing  using organization from developing countries to write code and 
    develop systems


          Factors driving outsourcing growth include:
          Core competencies
          Financial savings
          Rapid growth
          Industry changes
          The Internet
          Globalization

          According to PricewaterhouseCoopers “Businesses that outsource are growing faster, larger, and more profitable than those that do not”

          Most organizations outsource their non core business functions, such as payroll and IT


          Outsourcing benefits include:
      Increased quality and efficiency
      Reduced operating expenses
      Outsourcing non-core processes
      Reduced exposure to risk
      Economies of scale, expertise, and best practices
      Access to advanced technologies
      Increased flexibility
      Avoid costly outlay of capital funds
      Reduced headcount and associated overhead expense
      Reduced time to market for products or services

          Outsourcing challenges include
      Contract length
          Difficulties in getting out of a contract
          Problems in foreseeing future needs
          Problems in reforming an internal IT department after the contract is finished
      Competitive edge
      Confidentiality

      Scope definition



Chapter 15: CREATING COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS.



TEAMS , PARTNERSHIPS AND ALLIANCES

Organizations create and use teams, partnerships and alliances to :
  • Undertake new initiatives
  • Address both minor and major problems
  • Capitalize on significant opportunities


Collaboration systems : supports the work of teams by facilitating the sharing and flow of information




  • Organization form alliances and partnerships with other organizations based on their core competency


Core competency : an organization’s key strength a business function that it does better than any of its competitors
Core competency strategy : organization chooses to focus specifically on its core competency and forms partnerships with other organizations to handle nonstrategic business processes.

Information technology can make a business partnership easier to establish and manage
Information partnership – occurs when two or more organizations cooperate by integrating their IT systems, thereby providing customers with the best of what each can offer.

COLLABORATION SYSTEMS

An  IT based set of tools that supports the work of teams by facilitating the sharing and flow of information.

2 categories of collaboration :

·         Unstructured collaboration (information collaboration) : includes documents exchange, shared whiteboards, discussion forums and email.
·         Structured collaboration ( process collaboration) : involves shared participation in business processes such a workflow in which knowledge is hardcoded as rules.

Collaboration systems include :
  •  Knowledge management systems
  • Content management systems
  • Workflow management systems
  • Groupware systems


KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTMES

Knowledge management (KM) - Involves capturing, classifying, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing information assets in a way that provides context for effective decisions and actions
Knowledge management systems – supports the capturing and use of an organization’s “know-how”

EXPLICIT AND TACIT KNOWLEDGE

Explicit knowledge – consists of anything that can be documented, archived, and codified, often with the of IT.
Tacit knowledge – knowledge contained in people’s heads.

Two best practices for transferring or recreating tacit knowledge :
Shadowing – less experienced staff observe more experienced staff to learn how their more experienced counterparts approach their work.

Joint problem solving – a notice and expert work together on a project

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social networking analysis (SNA) – a process of mapping a group’s contacts (whether personel or profesional) to identify who knows whom and who works with whom.
SNA provides a clear picture of how employees and divisions works together and can help identify key experts.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Provides tools to manage the creation, storage, editing and publication of information in a collaboration environment.

CMS marketplace includes :
·         Document management systems (DMS)
·         Digital asset management systems (DAM)
·         Web content management systems (WCM)

WORKING WIKIS

Wikis – web based tools that make it easy for users to add, remove, and change online content
Business wikis – collaborative web pages that allows users to edit documents, share ideas or monitor the status of a project.

WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Workflow – defines all the steps or business rules, from beginning to end required for a business process
Workflow management system – facilitates the automation and management of business processes and controls the movement of work trough the business process

Messaging -based workflow systems – sends work assignments through an e-mail system
Database-based workflow systems – stores documents in central location and automatically asks the team members to access the document when it is their turn to edit the document.

GROUPWARE SYSTEMS

  • Software that supports team interaction and dynamics including calendaring, scheduling and videoconferencing.


Video conference – a set of interactive telecommunication technologies that allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously.

Web conferencing – blends audio, video, and documents sharing technologies to create virtual meeting rooms where people “gather” at a password protected web site.

Instant messaging – type of communications service that enables someone to create a kind of private chat room with another individual to communicate in real-time over the internet.

Saturday, 1 March 2014

Chapter 14: E-Business


Sooooo, here we meet again. Thank you for visiting my blog. So. here little information for you guys. Enjoysss!!!


The Internet is a powerful channel that presents new opportunities for an organization to:
      Touch customers
      Enrich products and services with information
      Reduce costs
          How do ecommerce and ebusiness differ?

      Ecommerce – the buying and selling of goods and services over the Internet

      Ebusiness – the conducting of business on the Internet including, not only buying and selling, but also serving customers and collaborating with business partners
  Industries Using Ebusiness


 Ebusiness model

               Ebusiness model – an approach to conducting electronic business on the Internet

 1. Business-to-Business (B2B)
          Electronic marketplace (emarketplace) – interactive business communities providing a central market where multiple buyers and sellers can engage in ebusiness activities
          Common B2C ebusiness models include:
          eshop – a version of a retail store where customers can shop at any hour of the day without leaving their home or office
          emall – consists of a number of eshops; it serves as a gateway through which a visitor can access other eshops
         Business types:
  •         Brick-and-mortar business
  •         Pure-play business
  •       Click-and-mortar business

  _   Priceline.com is an example of a C2B ebusiness model

 _ The demand for C2B ebusiness will increase over the next few years due to customer’s desire for greater convenience and lower prices
2. Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
          Online auctions

      Electronic auction (eauction) - Sellers and buyers solicit consecutive bids from each other and prices are determined dynamically
      Forward auction - Sellers use as a selling channel to many buyers and the highest bid wins
      Reverse auction - Buyers use to purchase a product or service, selecting the seller with the lowest bid
   C2C communities include:
  •        Communities of interest - People interact with each other on specific topics, such as golfing and stamp collecting
  •        Communities of relations - People come together to share certain life experiences, such as cancer patients, senior citizens, and car enthusiasts
  •        Communities of fantasy - People participate in imaginary environments, such as fantasy football teams and playing one-on-one with Michael Jordan

EBUSINESS BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
         Ebusiness benefits include:
  •         Highly accessible
  •         Increased customer loyalty
  •          Improved information content
  •          Increased convenience
  •          Increased global reach
  •          Decreased cost

     Ebusiness challenges include:
      Protecting consumers
      Leveraging existing systems
      Increasing liability
      Providing security
_     Adhering to taxation rules
  •     There are numerous advantages and limitations in ebusiness revenue models including:
  •       Transaction fees
          Subscription fees
          Value-added fees
          Advertising 

    MASHUPS
              Web mashup - a Web site or Web application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new service
          Application programming interface (API) a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications
          Mashup editor - WSYIWYGs (What You See Is What You Get) for mashups 






    Chapter 12: Integrating the Organization from End to End—Enterprise Resource Planning

    Assalamualaikum everyone. Today i want to share with you guys what are integrating the organization from end to end. So lets everyone.


    ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP)
              At the heart of all ERP systems is a database, when a user enters or updates information in one module, it is immediately and automatically updated throughout the entire system


               ERP systems automate business processes

     BRINGING THE ORGANIZATION TOGETHER
              ERP – bringing the organization together


    THE EVOLUTION OF ERP


     INTEGRATING SCM, CRM, AND ERP
              SCM, CRM, and ERP are the backbone of e-business
              Integration of these applications is the key to success for many companies
              Integration allows the unlocking of information to make it available to any user, anywhere, anytime
              SCM and CRM market overview 



               General audience and purpose of SCM, CRM and ERP


     INTEGRATION TOOLS 
              Many companies purchase modules from an ERP vendor, an SCM vendor, and a CRM vendor and must integrate the different modules together
          Middleware – several different types of software which sit in the middle of and provide connectivity between two or more software applications
          Enterprise application integration (EAI) middleware – packages together commonly used functionality which reduced the time necessary to develop solutions that integrate applications from multiple vendors
              Data points where SCM, CRM, and ERP integrate


    ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP)
              ERP systems must integrate various organization processes and be:
          Flexible
          Modular and open
          Comprehensive
          Beyond the company

    ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING’S EXPLOSIVE GROWTH
              SAP boasts 20,000 installations and 10 million users worldwide
              ERP solutions are growing because:
          ERP is a logical solution to the mess of incompatible applications that had sprung  up in most businesses
          ERP addresses the need for global information sharing and reporting
          ERP is used to avoid the pain and expense of fixing legacy systems