1-Importance of Is

Management of Information Systems and
Services
INSY 4101
Course Objective
To familiarize students to the managerial issues related
to information technology/information systems in
organizations. Specifically to understand
IT’s strategic importance in business and essential
elements of strategic plan development
The contemporary managerial issues in effectively
choosing, deploying, and utilizing IT/IS to gain
competitive advantage
The various types of computer based information systems
and how they are used in supporting work for gaining
competitive advantage
09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide2

Course Outline
Weeks Reading Topic
1-2 Ch 1 Importance of Information Systems Management
• Terminology and basic concepts
• Information, technology and business
• History and trends
• Evolution of information systems and
technology
3-5 Ch2-4 Leadership Issues
•The top IS Jobs
•The Strategic uses of IT/IS
• IT/Business alignment
•IS Planning
6-9 Ch5-8 Managing the Essential Technologies and Operations
• Managing Telecommunications
•Managing Information Resources
•Managing Operations
10-11

Course Outline…
Weeks Readings Topic
10-11 Ch9-10 Managing System Development
• Technologies for Developing Systems
• Management Issues in Systems Development
12-14 Ch11-13 Supporting Work

• Supporting Decision Making
• Supporting Collaboration
• Supporting Knowledge Work
15 Ch14 Contemporary issues

•Business Process Management (BPM)
• Service Oriented Architecture
•Cloud Computing

Text Book, Methodology, Assessment
and Grading Scale
Text Book:
McNurlin, Barbara C. & Sprague, Ralph H. (2006). Information Systems and
Management in Practice (7th Edition), Prentice Hall
References:
Henderson and Venkatraman (1999). Leveraging IT for transforming
organization. IBM Journal.
Ross, Beath, and Goodhue (1995). Developing Long-term Competitiveness
through IT Assets. Sloan School of Management. Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Methodology: Lectures and Case Studies
Assessment :
Mid exam/test/ 30%
Group project1 15%
Group Project 2 10%
Attendance 5%
Final exam 40%
Importance of Information
Systems Management

Main topics
Terminology and basic concepts
Information, technology and business
History and trends
Evolution of information systems and technology
09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Ch7

Outline cont.
The Mission of Information Systems
A Simple Model
A Better Model
The Technologies
The Users
Systems Development and Delivery
IS Management

Introduction
 Information Technology (IT) -computers
and telecommunications - is having the
kind of revolutionary, restructuring impact
that has been expected and promised for
years
Rapid advances in speed and capacity +
pervasiveness of Internet, wireless, portable
devices etc. = making major changes in the
way we live and work
‘Go Back’ – 5, 10, 15 years

Introduction cont.
Organizational and operational uses of IT GO,

NGO’s
Organizations operating environment
diversified because of IS/IT
The nature of this environment is woven in
three themes:
Globalization
E-enablement
Knowledge sharing and management

Introduction cont.
Globalization
 The world seems to be getting smaller, companies seek to offer
their goods and services around the world
 Backlash from groups/nations that want to maintain local
identity – local needs Vs. ‘standard’
 Locales and regions want systems that suit their culture,
preferences, and they want jobs to stay ‘local’
 IS executives need ‘balancing act’
E-enablement
 Internet has become a hub for conducting business
 Companies integrate the Internet with their business
 Interconnectivity plus! More than e-commerce
Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Management
 Between people
 Out of people’s heads and into ‘lasting’ things e.g. systems,
policies and procedures etc

Introduction cont.
 Management of Information Systems
 Three Major Trends that impact IT management
1. Governance of IT- Deciding who makes which IT decision
is shifting from being handled exclusively by IS executives
to being a collaborative effort b/n IS executives and
business i.e all other members of Senior Management
2. Role of IS shifting from application delivery to system

integration and infrastructure development
3. Outsourcing – total / selective -becoming the life of

many IS organization, to the extent major responsibility
of IS’s developing and managing contracts and
09/15/2021 relationships with external service
INSY 4101 Lecture Slide providers Slide12
Introduction cont.
Historically, managing IT has been the job of ‘technical
managers’
NOW = increasingly becoming an important part of the
responsibilities of:
Senior executives
Line managers
Employees at all levels of an organization

The ‘Key’ (What’s it all about?)
Technology is configured into systems

that help manage information to
improve organizational performance

Historical Accounts
U.S. passed from the industrial era to the
information era as early as 1957
The number of U.S. employees whose jobs were
primarily to handle information surpassed the
number of industrial workers
In the late ’50s / ‘60s IT to support
“information work” = largely non-existent
(except telephone)
Information work = mostly done in general offices
without much support from technology
Computers were just beginning to be used in data
processing ; theirINSY
09/15/2021
impact was modest
4101 Lecture Slide Slide15
Historical account.. cont.
Information Technology:
Initially used to perform existing (manual)information
work more quickly and efficiently
Then = used to manage work better
Now = well into the 4th stage of technology
assimilation/industrial revolution:-era of AI
 IT makes pervasive changes in the structure and
operation of:
 Work/decisions
 Business practices
 Organizations
 Industries
 The ‘Global Economy’ (=enabler)
09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide

Slide17
Historical account cont.
1970s, it all ‘started’ with many of the
foundations of IT today invented and
costs starting to fall
Typewriters, fax, ‘smaller’ computers

As of 1980s, number of US
information workers surpassed the
number in all other sectors (>50%)

The Organizational Environment
The way IT is used depends on the environment
surrounding the organization that uses it
Simultaneously, technological advances affect the way

IT is used
Two aspects of the organizational environment:
1. The external forces that are causing executives to

reexamine how their organizations compete, and
2. The internal structural forces that affect how

organizations operate or are managed

The External Organizational Environment
IT allows information to move faster, thus increasing
the speed at which events take place and the pace at
which individuals and organizations respond to events.
Main forces
The Internet Economy
Global Market Place
Business Ecosystems
Decapitalization
Faster Business Cycles
Accountability and transparency
Rising social risks of IT

The External Organizational Environment …
The Internet Economy
The Internet economy began with B2C, retailing
over the Web-Amazon.com, then moved to B2B
where buyers and sellers use Internet exchanges
(e-marketplaces) to find and consummate
business deals-ebay
Main trend, encompass both old and new ways
and IT is a major underpinning of the way the
‘old’ and ‘new’ worlds interface

Global Marketplace
The entire world has become the marketplace, to succeed large
companies believe they be global, huge and everywhere
The Internet allows companies to work globally with three

main operating arenas, Asia/Pacific, the Americas, Europe and
the Middle East and Africa
Global marketplace is a ‘two way street-

 firmly established companies find unexpected competitors from half
way around the world
 The Internet allows small firms to have a global reach
Business environment is now global, but local tastes still matter

Business Ecosystems
A web of relationship surrounding one of few
companies
Microsoft and Intel are center of the Wintel ecosystem
that has dominated the PC world. Although they
dominate the PC ecosystem, they are less dominant in
the Internet ecosystem as well as the wireless ecosystem
The point about ecosystems is that they appear to follow

the biological ecosystem rule rather than the industrial
age machine-like rules. They require more flexibility as
relationships change frequently, such need a different
corporate mindset from the command and control
mindset of the past
Decapitalization
 Tangible items, such as capital, equipment and buildings were
the principle of power in the industrial age
 Today = power of ‘intangibles’ such as ideas and knowledge,
intellectual capital have become the scarce desirable items

 The trend in the business world is moving from tangible to
intangible capital
 Managing talent = as important as e.g. managing finance
 Without talent, ideas dwindle, the new-product pipeline
shrivels up and the company becomes less competitive

 Increasingly, talk focuses on managing intellectual capital
09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide-24

Faster Business Cycles
The pace of business has accelerated appreciably
that companies do not have time develop new
products and services and move them to the
market places
Once on the market, their useful life tend to be
shorter, speed matters
Efforts to accelerate time to market or to reduce
cycle time often depend on innovative uses of IT

Accountability and Transparency
 Rise and fall of dot-coms probably should have been
expected
 Some of their business plans could not make money
 Debacle in the overbuilt Telecommunications industry
and the corporate business shenanigans have shaken
investor confidence and call for greater transparency of
corporate operations and greater accountability of corporate officers
 These events are likely to increase the pressure for corporate ethics
 IT will play a significant role in implementing the ensuing regulations
and fostering transparency

 Discussion of IT ethics might also increase
09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide-26

Rising Societal Risks of IT
IT has negatively affected millions of people:
Network shutdowns, Computer viruses, Identity theft,
Email scams, Movement of white collar jobs to low cost
countries
These all led to increasing calls for Government
regulation and for vendors and corporations to
take action
Now, more than the past, CIOs need to address
the dark side of IT
The Internal Organizational Environment
The work environment is also changing, and the art
of managing people is undergoing significant shifts
Supply-Push to Demand-Pull (Customer –centricity )
Self Services: ATM/POS/
Real time working
Team-Based Working
Anytime, Anyplace Information Work
Outsourcing and Strategic Alliances
The Demise of Hierarchy

The Internal Organizational Environment…
From Supply-Push to Demand-Pull (Customer –centricity )
 In the information age the Internet allows much closer and ‘one-to-
one’ contact between customer and seller is moving the business
model to demand pull
 Companies offer customers the components of a product/service

then the customer creates their own version by ‘pulling’ what
they want
 Suppliers and customers co-creating products and services

Self- Service
ATMs = early example
Online shopping
package tracking: FedEx was one of the first companies to
leverage the Web by allowing people to access its
when customers serve themselves, employees can do other
kind of work

 Real-Time Working
Real time transaction processing: real time

positing and updating business records
Ease of reaching customers/employees

local/global: Instant messaging?

Team-Based Working
Many organizations emphasize teams to accomplish major
tasks and projects
Groupware provides IT support for meeting, collaborative
work and communications among far-flung team members
Anytime, Anyplace Information Work

Advances in wireless
Information workers are increasingly mobile
Communication capabilities of computers are seen more

important than their computing capabilities
Outsourcing and Strategic Alliances
Identifying jobs to be executed internally or outsourced
Focus on core competency: what a company do

Outsource the other functions to people who specialize in
them
The result becomes known as extended enterprise;
 IT provides the means to manage the complexity
Note = not ‘new’ (especially in non-IT)
Also = some ‘backlash’

The Demise of Hierarchy
Traditional hierarchical structure turned to flat and

network types
Hierarchical structures cannot cope with rapid change

 Communications up and down the chain of command takes too
much time for today’s environment
 IT enables team-based organizational structures by facilitating

rapid and far-flung communication
 Still traditional organizations are living with it

Goals of the New Work Environment
1. Leverage Knowledge Globally
Tap tacit knowledge by fostering sharing and
supporting sharing through technology
2.Organize for Complexity

The world has become interconnected that simple
solutions no longer solve a problem
Alliances increase complexity

Goals of the New Work Environment …
3. Work Electronically
Virtual work environment become the new normal
4. Handle Continuous and Discontinuous Change
 Finally, to keep up companies need to innovate continually

Innovation occurs in fits and starts

The Technology Environment
IT enables advances in organizational performance.
Hardware Trends
’50s – ’60s + - Batch processing predominant; on-line
systems emerged later
Mid ’70s processing power began to move out of the central
site (at the insistence of users!)
1980s: Advent of personal computers
Client-Server computing: “Client” machine user interfaces
with “Server” on the network holding the data and
applications
Major current development = hand-held devices, wireless
Cloud computing and Grid computing

The Technology Environment …
• Software Trends
1. In 1960s = Improve the productivity of in-house
programmers who created transaction processing
systems
– ‘Problem’ = memory cost
2. Later, programming issues:
• First = Modular and structured programming
techniques
• Then = Life cycle development methodologies and
software engineering
– Goal = Introduction of rigorous project
management techniques
• Software Trends cont.
3. Prototyping: quick development of a mock-up
4. Purchasing software became viable alternative
to in-house development
5. Paying attention to applications other than
transaction processing
• Decision support systems (DSS), report
generation, database inquiry
6. End users develop their own systems
7. Software as a service
7. Push for ‘open systems’
• Purchasers were tired of being “locked in” to proprietary
software (or hardware)
8. 1990s – trend towards Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) e.g. SAP, PeopleSoft
• Some firms implement ERP to replace legacy systems
• Involves integrating components rather than application dev
• Expensive and troublesome, especially for companies wanting
to modify the ERP software to fit their ‘unique’ processes
• A fundamental organizational change!

9. Like hardware, software is migrating to be network
centric.
• Web front ends to empower employees rather than replacing
legacy systems
• Looming change = move to Web Services – packages of code
that each perform a specific function and have a URL
- e.g MacAfee's’ virus updates
• The significance of Web Services is that it moves software and
programming to being truly network centric – the network
becomes the heart of the system, linking all Web Services

The Technology Environment…
• Data Trends
• At first = File management

• Organizational techniques for files that served
individual applications
• Then = Corporate databases

• Serving several applications
• Led to concept of establishing a data
administration function

• Data Trends cont.
• ’70s = focus on Technical solutions
• Database management systems
• Dictionary/directory
• Specification and format
• “Now” = Data definitions: information about
relationships among systems, sources and uses of
data, and time cycle requirements
• First 20 years: techniques to manage data in
a centralized environment

• shift from data resources to information
resources
• Data warehousing
• Stores huge amounts of historical (not ‘live’) data from systems such as
retailers Point-Of-Sale systems
• Data mining
• Uses advanced statistical techniques to explore data warehouses
looking for previously unknown relationships in data e.g which
customers are the most profitable
• Knowledge management (intellectual capital)


• Two major data issues are now facing CIOs:
1. Security – protecting data from those who should

not see it
2. Privacy – safeguarding the personal data of
employees, customers etc.
• Privacy and security regulations emerged

• Communications Trends
• Final core technology = Telecommunications.

• Internet = changed everything!
• Today the Internet’s protocol has become the
worldwide standard for LANs and WANs
- Will also soon be the ‘standard’ for voice

• Communications Trends cont.
• Telecom opened up new uses of IS so it became an
integral component of IS management
– Communications-based information systems link

organizations to their suppliers and customers
• Explosion of wireless
• 2nd generation, instant messaging, Wi-Fi, 3rd generation (3G,

4G/5G)
• changed how people communicate, how they live and how

they work

The Mission of Information Systems
Early days: “paperwork factories” to pay employees, bill
customers, ship products etc.
 Objectives of information systems defined by productivity measures
Later = MIS era: produced reports for “management by
exception” for all levels of management
Today = Improve the performance of people in organizations
through the use of information technology
Improving organizational performance is accomplished by
the people and groups that comprise the organization
 One resource for this improvement is IT

The Mission of Information Systems
The mission is to improve the

performance of people in
organizations through the use of
information technology

A Simple Model (Fig. 1-2)
In the early days of Information

Systems, the ‘translation’ between IT
and users was performed almost
entirely by systems analysts

Systems Professionals Bridging the Technology Gap (Fig. 1-3)
Over the last 50 years technology has become increasingly

complex and powerful
Users have become increasingly sophisticated
Information systems are now viewed as ‘products’ and users
have become ‘customers’
More specialization is required of systems

professionals to bridge this wider gap

Users Bridging the Technology Gap (Fig. 1-4)
Technology has become sophisticated enough to be

used by many employees and consumers
Today, some of the technology is truly user-friendly,
and some applications such as Web page
development, database mining and spreadsheet
manipulation, are handled by non-IT staff
Transaction systems, however, are still ‘developed’
by professional developers, either inside or outside
the firm

Why talk about the ‘Technology Gap’?
The main point of this discussion is that
technology is getting more complex, applications
are becoming more sophisticated, and users are
participating more heavily in the development of
applications
The net result is that management of the process
is becoming more complex and difficult as its
importance increases

A Better Model (Fig 1-6)
 Expanding the simple model gives us more guidance
into managerial principles and tasks
 The better model with four principal elements:
1. A set of technologies that represent the IT infrastructure
installed and managed by the IS department
2. A set of users who need to use IT to improve their job
performance
3. A delivery mechanism for developing , delivering and
installing applications
4. Executive leadership to manage the entire process of
applying the technology to achieve organizational
objectives and goals
A Framework for IS Management

1. The Technologies
 Several forces contribute to the increased importance
and complexity of IT:
1. Growth in capacity + reduction in cost & size
2. Merging of previously separate technologies of computers,
telephones/telecom/cable TV, office equipment and consumer
electronics
3. Ability to store and handle multiple forms of data
 Information systems now fill major roles in management

reporting, problem solving and analysis, office support,
customer service and communications

2. The Users
Clerical? Managerial?
Note: the distinction between manager and worker is blurring!

3. System Development and Delivery
 Systems development and delivery bridge the gap
between technology and users
 Systems for procedure-based (clerical) activities differ
from systems for knowledge based information work
(managerial)
 Systems are built based on technology resources.
Three main categories (essential technologies):
1. Hardware and software
2. Telecommunications
3. Information resources
 Management of these is called infrastructure

management
4. ISChief
Management
Information Officer (CIO)
 Must be high enough in the enterprise to influence
organizational goals
 Must have enough credibility to lead the harnessing
of technology to pursue those goals
 Must work with all the other CXOs

 IT has become too important to be left to one
individual
 Executive team must work together to govern it

and leverage it well
ABetter Model - Summary
This model has four major components:
1. The technology – which provides the electronic
and information infrastructure
2. Information workers who use IT to accomplish

their work goals
3. System development and delivery – which brings

the technology and users together
4. The management of the IS function

 Overall responsibility = to harness IT to improve the
performance of the people and the organization
A ‘Final Thought’
“It is not the strongest species that

survive, nor the most intelligent,
but the ones responsive to change”
- Charles Darwin

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Management of Information Systems and

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide2

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide3

12-14 Ch11-13 Supporting Work

15 Ch14 Contemporary issues

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide4

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide6

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Ch7

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide8

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide9

Organizational and operational uses of IT GO,

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide10

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Ch11

2. Role of IS shifting from application delivery to system

3. Outsourcing – total / selective -becoming the life of

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide13

Technology is configured into systems

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide14

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide

Typewriters, fax, ‘smaller’ computers

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide18

Simultaneously, technological advances affect the way

1. The external forces that are causing executives to

2. The internal structural forces that affect how

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide19

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide20

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Ch21

The Internet allows companies to work globally with three

Global marketplace is a ‘two way street-

Business environment is now global, but local tastes still matter

The point about ecosystems is that they appear to follow

intellectual capital have become the scarce desirable items

 Without talent, ideas dwindle, the new-product pipeline

shrivels up and the company becomes less competitive

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide-24

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide25

and fostering transparency

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide-26

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide28

 Companies offer customers the components of a product/service

 Suppliers and customers co-creating products and services

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Ch29

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide30

Real time transaction processing: real time

Ease of reaching customers/employees

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide31

Anytime, Anyplace Information Work

Communication capabilities of computers are seen more

Identifying jobs to be executed internally or outsourced

Focus on core competency: what a company do

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide33

Traditional hierarchical structure turned to flat and

Hierarchical structures cannot cope with rapid change

 IT enables team-based organizational structures by facilitating

 Still traditional organizations are living with it

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide34

2.Organize for Complexity

09/15/2021 INSY 4101 Lecture Slide Slide35

4. Handle Continuous and Discontinuous Change

 Finally, to keep up companies need to innovate continually