VALUING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION

Hello there mate. For this post, I will talk about the value of organizational information. Information is everywhere in business. Organizational information comes at different levels and in different formats and 'granularities'.Information granularity refers to the extent of detail within the information. 

 

Next, we need to know the value of transactional and analytical information. Transactional information encompasses all of the information contained within a single business process or unit of work, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of daily operational tasks. The example of transactional information is withdrawing cash from ATM.

As for analytical information encompasses all organizational information and its primary purpose is to support the performing of managerial analysis task. Sales and trends are the examples of analytical information. 

Furthermore, we should know the value of timely information. Real time information means immediate, up to date information. Real time systems provide real time information in response to query requests. 

Last but not least is the value of quality information. There are 5 common characteristics of high quality information that we should know, which is: 

1. Accuracy

2. Completeness

3. Consistency

4. Uniqueness

5. Timeliness 

 This post is related to what I have learnt in chapter 6 of MGT300. Later peeps. :)

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES THAT SUPPORT STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Hello peeps. For today's lesson, i will talk about organizational structures that support strategic initiatives. So lets see what is the roles of information technology and its responsibilities. As we should know, information technology is a  relatively new functional area having been around formally in most organizations only for about 40 years.

There are 5 IT - related strategic positions that we should know in an organization : 

1. Chief information officer (CIO) - Responsible for overseeing all uses of IT and ensuring strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives.

2. Chief technology officer (CTO) - Ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability and reliability of organization's information technology.

3. Chief security officer (CSO) - Ensuring security of IT system and developing strategies and IT safeguards against attacks from hackers and viruses.

4. Chief privacy officer (CPO) - Ensuring the ethical and legal use of information within an organization.

5. Chief knowledge officer (CKO) - Collecting, maintaining and distributing the organization's knowledge.

One of the challenge today is effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel. Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing as for IT personnel have the technological expertise. So in order to improve the communication, business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT. While for IT personnel must understand the business if the organization is going to determine which technologies can benefit the business. 

Besides that, we should know about ethics which is the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people. There are 5 issues affected by technology advances which is : 

1. Intellectual property - Intagible creative work that is embodied in physical form.

2. Copyright - Legal protection afforded an expression of an idea.

3. Fair use doctrine - In certain situations,it is legal to use copyrighted material.

4. Pirated software - Unauthorized use, duplication, distribution or sale of copyrighted software.

5. Counterfeit software - Manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as much. 

This is what I have learnt in chapter 5 of MGT300. Thanks for reading. :)

MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Assalamualaikum peeps. For today's post, let us learn on how to measure the success of strategic initiatives. From what i have learnt, we need to know the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization to measure the success of strategic initiatives. But what is efficiency and effectiveness? 

Efficiency and effectiveness metrics are two primary types of IT metrics. Efficiency IT metrics measure the performance of the IT system including throughput, speed and availability. There are 5 types of efficiency IT metrics which is : 

1. Throughput - Amount of information that can travel through a system.
2. Transaction speed - Amount of time a system takes to perform transaction.
3. System availability- Number of hours a system is available for users.
4. Information accuracy - System generates correct results when executing same transaction many times. 
5. Response time - Time it takes to respond to user interactions. 

As for effectiveness IT metrics, it measure the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates and sell through increases. There are 4 effectiveness IT metrics that we need to know that is : 

1. Usability - The ease with which people perform transaction.
2. Customer satisfaction - Measured by such benchmark such as survey.
3. Conversion rates - Number of customers an organization 'touches' for the first time and persuades to purchase its products or services.
4. Financial - Such as return on investment. 

Besides that, we need to know about balanced scorecard, which is a management system in addition to a measurement system, that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both internal business processes and external outcomes in order to improve strategic performance and results. 

This post is about what i have learnt in chapter 4 of MGT 300. Hope we meet again in the future.   :)

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES FOR IMPLEMENTING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Assalamualaikum friends. For this post, I would love to talk about the high profile strategic initiatives that an organization can undertake to help it gain competitive advantages and business efficiencies. There are 4 strategies that can be taken,which is : 

Supply Chain Management - It involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability. This must include the 4 basic components of SCM which is supply chain strategy,supply chain partners,supply chain operation, and supply chain logistics.

Customer Relationship Management - It involves managing all aspects of a customer's relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization's profitability. It must include accounting system, order fulfillment system, inventory system and customer service system. 

Business Process Reengineering - It is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises. In order to finding opportunity using BPR, there are 7 principles that must be follow which is ; 

1. Organize around outcomes.
2. Identify all organization's processes.
3. Integrate information processing into real work.
4. Treat geographically resources.
5. Link parallel activities in the workflow.
6. Put the decision point where the work is performed and control them.
7. Capture information once at the source.

Enterprise Resource Planning - It integrates all departments and functions through an organization into a single IT system so that employees can make decisions by viewing enterprises information on all business operations.

Thats all for today's post. I think this is what i have learned in chapter 3 of MGT 300. Thanks for reading.   :)