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Answer to Question 1:

Todays age has been marked by massive explosion of technologies and amount of

data being generated by use of these technologies. Corporations are trying to run

businesses in these day and age needs to master these technologies else they risk to fall

behind. The internet technology in particular has been a great democratizing factor.Information about worldwide happenings including product prices, features, benefits

are shared among millions of people in an instant. The same epoch has also been

marked by huge reduction in hardware prices, allowing even small sized businesses to

have state of art technical equipment.

The wide penetration of technology has allowed corporations to have just-in-time

inventory levels and to have far stretched out supply lines. Grocery chains for example

are directly in contact with coffee growers to provide consumers coffee grown in

accordance with fair trade practices. Or Nike has worldwide network of suppliers and

shoe producers, which keeps track of even one single shoe lace.

Past few years has seen increased government laws to protect consumer rights

and privacy (HIPPA), and to regulate financial transactions (Sarbanes-Oxely Act). This

puts onus on corporations to record every detail of their transactions so that auditors

can certify their business processes and financial statements, also businesses can protect

themselves in any future legislations.

Thus we can easily see that when we design a new system, or involved in any

problem solving, we need to keep all above in mind. The solution needs to be nimble,

and flexible enough to adapt to fast changing technology. A careful analysis of Total Cost

of Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment ROI needs to be done. The solution to

be created shouldnt cost huge amounts of money and should meet all legal data capture

requirements.

Answer to Question 2:

The biggest asset in the information technology age is data. Data is the core of

todays businesses. And IT (or IS) department is in charge of the most valuable asset.

Traditionally businesses are organized functionally, viz. Human Resources,

Manufacturing, Sales & Marketing, and Finance & Accounting. All these departments

need access to information to do their day to day work. And it ITs duty to provide good

computer based application systems.

Since data is core of what modern corporations do, investments in IT can:

a. Achieve operational excellence such as productivity, efficiency, and agility.

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b. Develop new products and services. (The place I work at has a popular fuelsreward program, which would not be feasible without investment in IT).

c. Attain consumer intimacy and service. (Many retailers are using loyalty cardsto get understand what customers want and change accordingly to keep

customers loyal).

d. Improve decision making. (My company is investing big amounts of money onnew system. The new system will allow executive dashboards to be real time.

Right now they are a day late due to batch processing.)

e. Achieve competitive advantage. (We invested in a data ware house appliancemade by Oracle. It allows data queries to run hundred to thousand times

faster. Thus users seeking information is able to get reports more quickly and

spend more time in making tactical decisions.)

f. Ensure survival.

Answer to Question 3:

Decision making involves following steps:

a. Identify the problem: The first step in any problem solving and decisionmaking is to identify the problem. Sometimes there may not be problems, but

there could be new projects which business wants to do to achieve new

business goals. Even such projects will either solve business problem orspecify new business targets, which are not solvable in current environment.

b. State the Alternatives: In this step analysts list all possible solutions, and listpros and cons of each. Some typical response could be repair, replace,

outsource, or continue business as usual.

c. Analyze: Here feasibility analysis and cost analysis of alternates are done.After which decision is made and solution is selected. All the aspects of good

decision making are to be exercised.

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d. Design and Develop Solution: In this critical step, the steps to create thesolution are executed. The solution is designed and developed in accordance

to the requirements listed earlier.

e. Implement: At the end the system or solution developed is implemented. Theimplementation needs to be documented well, and all affected business

entities need to be notified in advance. The solution is monitored and results

are analyzed. If the solution is successful then the wrap-up, else go through

steps a-d again.

Answer to Question 4:

Supply chain management in one of the critical functions of businessorganizations. Businesses basically exist to supply products to consumer and supply

chain is the system which makes this possible. Supply chain systems are not contained

within the organizations but they span out of the organizational boundaries to the

suppliers and vendors. Supply chain is network of organizations and business processes

for procuring raw materials, transforming these materials into intermediate and

finished products, and distributing these products to end consumers. Internet is widely

used to interconnect group of suppliers and consumers.

A good supply chain requires smooth and regular flow of products from

manufacturers to consumers. The consumer can be end product consumer or anotherbusiness. The former is called B2C and the last one is called B2B. The upstream portion

of the supply chain includes the companys suppliers, suppliers suppliers, and the

processes to manage relationships with them. Downstream portion of the supplier

include supply chains to the end consumers.

If good supply chain is in place the suppliers know when and what to supply to

their consumers. The participants in the supply chain network know how the flow of

goods is occurring in the system at any instant. A drop in inventory levels automatically

triggers order from supplier in a good supply chain system. If product is lost the parties

involved can quickly track the point where the product was lost. A good supply chain

get rids of excessive inventories thus saving capital costs for all the parties involved.

Sudden swings in demands can be well cared in such systems.

A supply chain touches almost all the departments in a business. Marketing

usually runs marketing campaigns and needs strong supply chain systems to fulfill

promises made in the supply chain. For example the company I work for advertise sales

on weekly basis. And the supply chain has to get extra quantities of products moving in

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the supply chain which were promised in the advertisements. In this case, the suppliers

needs to be informed well in advance of extra supplies, and the system should allow for

automatic flow of this information. The extra trucks, extra ware housing space required

to store extra quantities need to be provisioned for using the supply system. The Human

Resources need accurate time report from supply chain to pay the supply chain workers

based on the actual hours they worked. The HR also needs to know about shortfall or

excess human labor in supply chain to make adjustments in labor force. The finance

department might want to know if the investments in supply chain are working as

promised or not. Supply chain should create reports of underutilization or over

utilization of resources for Finance departments. Accounting department needs to know

if the consumers received the products or not so that the consumers can be billed and

payments could be arranged.

Thus supply chain systems helps businesses to:

1. Decide when and what to produce, store, and move.2. Rapidly communicate orders.3. Track the status of orders.4. Check inventory availability and monitor inventory levels.5. Reduce inventory, transportation, and warehousing costs.6. Track shipments.7. Plan production based on actual customer demands.8. Rapidly communicate changes in product design.9. Adhere to all contractual obligations for customer satisfaction and legal

compliance.