BUS 237 Final Exam Study Guide Solutions

BUS 237 Final Exam Study Guide Solutions 2 basic ways to gain competitive advantage through systems: - ANSWER-1. Changing the product 2. Business Process Porter's Value Chain - ANSWER- Functional Systems - ANSWER-Facilitate the work of a single department or business function. May also be called functional silos because they work independent of others. Cross-functional systems - ANSWER-These systems integrate data and business processes across different departments and systems Inter-organizational systems - ANSWER-Are systems that are used by 2 or more related companies. ex. e-commerce applications. Problems with isolated functional systems: - ANSWER-- Data duplication/inconsistency - Disjointed processes - Limited info/lack of integration - Isolated decision lead to overall inefficient activities - Increased expense Ways to improve business without technological change: - ANSWER-1. Adding resources Copyright © KAYLIN 2024/2025 ACADEMIC YEAR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FIRST PUBLISH NOVEMBER, 2024 Copyright ©Stuvia International BV Page 2/27 2. Adding specialization 3. Changing/eliminating unproductive activities Business Process design - ANSWER-This is the idea that businesses should not just automate or improve a existing functional systems. Instead it is making changes by integrating functional systems. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) - ANSWER-Is an approach to combining functional systems, it uses layers of software as a bridge to connect FS. A customized EAI interface is created for each FS, which allow them to pull whatever information they want from each system. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - ANSWER-There is one central database and there is a set of standard business processes built on top of it. - ERP uses a prebuilt software, so the company must get rid of its functional systems before it adopts it - Primary users are manufacturing companies Challenges of business process design: - ANSWER-- Process design projects are expensive and difficult - May take a long time - Employees resist change - Ultimate outcome is uncertain Challenge of implementing Business Process changes: - ANSWER-- Process is often very complex and require many people to agree. - Hard to convince the organization that the changes are worth the effort. - Many employees resist this change Copyright © KAYLIN 2024/2025 ACADEMIC YEAR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FIRST PUBLISH NOVEMBER, 2024 Copyright ©Stuvia International BV Page 3/27 Industry Standard Process - ANSWER-Processes built into business applications from companies such as oracle or SAP Benefits of industry standard process: - ANSWER-- Integrate activities across departments - Save costs of tailor-made process design - enables the company to benefit immediately from tried and tested cross-departmental processes Problems with industry standard process: - ANSWER-- May be very different from existing processes - May require the org. to change. This may disturb employees. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cont.. - ANSWER-- Is a cross functional system - Supports all primary business processes as well as HR and accounting support processes - Integrates sales, order, inventory, manufacturing and customer service. Characteristics of ERP - ANSWER-- Provides cross-functional, process view of org. - Has a formal approach based on formal business models - maintains data in a centralized database - Offers large benefits, often has challenges, and can be slow to implement - often VERY expensive Benefits of ERP: - ANSWER-- Efficient business process - Inventory reduction - Lead-time reduction Copyright © KAYLIN 2024/2025 ACADEMIC YEAR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FIRST PUBLISH NOVEMBER, 2024 Copyright ©Stuvia International BV Page 4/27 - Improved customer service - Greater, real time insight into the org. - High profitability Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system - ANSWER-CRM systems support all the direct value chain activities that involve the customer. Difference between CRM and Functional database: - ANSWER-CRM address all activities and events that touch the customer and provide a single repository data about all customer interactions. With functional databases, customer info is sprinkled throughout the database. 4 phases of the customer life cycle: - ANSWER-1. Marketing (attra