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Which of the following is a correct statement about these technologies? ) Which of the following statements is correct in describing e-business and e- commerce? 1 ) All e-business must use EDI for data interchange. Electronic funds transfer is a subset of EDI. Internet commerce is a subset of e-commerce. E-service stands for selling services rather than goods on the Internet. Developing an IT strategic plan involves which of the following activities? 1) E-commerce server software is designed to support BBC only. Hobnobbing is used to store data collected about web site visitors.
Collaborative filtering software supports collaborations be;en several online customers. Web performance monitor tools are used to monitor the performance of merchandise sold online. Determine which tool or methodology will be used to structure the planning process. Outline a detailed IT infrastructure with systems design. Prepare process and data models. Identify applications to be implemented. Page 2 of 6 8 Question 2 The company that you work for employs a large number of local sales people in various cities across the country. The company is considering buying a wireless laptop computer for each sales person.
The sales department has argued strongly that funds should be made available for the sales people to ay their preferred brand and model, especially because many of them have already been using laptop computers. The IT department agrees that it is a workable strategy and is ready to make the recommendation to the UP- If nuance. Required Write a memo on behalf of the IT manager to the UP-Finance, with a copy to the manager of the sales department. Explain the factors that should be considered in making a hardware purchase and the role of setting standards in IT implementation. Restrict your memo to approximately 300 words.
The memo should be professionally composed without using jargon. Make sure that your real name is not shown in any part of the memo. 12 Question 3 You work for a consulting firm that specializes in implementing enterprise systems. Your role on the team is to explain to the clients the importance of change management in this process. Required Prepare a slide presentation that addresses the following points: I) Why change management is important The change process Potential resistance to change Successful change management Using the format below, prepare up to 6 presentation slides, including title and summary slides and related speaker’s notes.
Slide # Speaker’s notes related to each slide Slide content 0 Question 4 In the following parts, state whether you agree or disagree with the statement and provide an explanation to support your position. Answer each part independently. In negotiating a contract with a computer hardware or software vendor, it is not desirable to have an arbitration clause because arbitration only contains general rules and lacks legal rigor. B. Many online content providers adopt the advertising pricing model because the advertising model is very effective for most vendors, and readers prefer this mode of advertising. . Groupware technologies play an important role in knowledge management. . Outsourcing IT operations to firms specializing in systems development and design allows a company to enjoy very flexible systems that are quickly developed. COCA-Canada, 2005 Page 3 of 6 Question 5 Sunny Travel is a Vancouver-based travel agency. Its main business is selling packaged tours to travelers in Canada. For each package sold, the process is as follows. The customer either calls or visits Sunny Travel to inquire about available packages. Sunny Travel provides the information with a quotation to the customer.
When a customer decides to purchase a package, the customer omelets a booking form with personal information and pre-pays the package. Upon receipt of the completed booking form, Sunny Travel either deposits the queue or obtains approval from the credit card company. Sunny Travel sends a booking confirmation to the customer when the payment is cleared. Five days before departure, Sunny Travel contacts the destination sites and hotels to inform them of the names of the tourists. The hotels confirm the reservations with Sunny Travel.
Required 6 Construct a level O context diagram for this scenario. 4 b. Suppose you want to create an information system to track the customers reference of various packages. Create 2 entities with at least 3 attributes for each entity and show their relationship in an RE diagram. Question 6 Flexible Solutions is a company that provides temporary staff to large corporations, small businesses, and individuals. It started 15 years ago when Heather, a stay-home mom with two young children, was asked to help out at a retail store in her neighborhood during holiday seasons.
Being kept busy by her children, Heather referred her best friend to the store owner instead. One thing led to another, and 15 years later, Heather owns an employment agency with more than 30 staff, a pool of hundreds of people with various qualifications available for part-time work at flexible hours (known as associates), and a long list of companies and individuals (known as clients) hiring temporary workers through Flexible Solutions. Heather believes that her success can be best explained by three key concepts: quality, flexibility, and variety.
Flexible Solutions always aims to provide the best services in a wide variety of areas to meet its clients’ needs. The Organization The operations at Flexible Solutions are divided into functional departments: accounting, marketing, and administration. Heather manages the entire company and is in charge of all HRS decisions. There are 5 staff members in the accounting department. One person handles internal accounts, including staff payroll. Three staff members handle collections from the clients and payments to the associates based on the submitted time sheets.
The manager oversees the operations and reports to Heather. The marketing department has 4 people. Their main responsibilities are recruiting new associates to be added to the pool and maintaining good relationships with the clients. They are also responsible for analyzing the trends in the industry and forecasting future needs of their clients so that Flexible Solutions is better prepared for the market. The administration department is the largest department. It assigns associates to clients, completes worksheets, and conducts training workshops.
The department is further divided into areas based on types of services provided: manufacturing for labor-intensive jobs, retail for in-store sales, office administration for clerical support, technology for IT-related jobs, skilled trade for certified trades, and domestic essence for household and office cleaning. In addition, 3 staff members are responsible for interviewing potential associates and training registered associates in the pool. Page 4 Of 6 The Processes The process at Flexible Solutions can be described as simple in principle, but complicated in practice.
When a request from a client is received either by e- mail or by phone, the person who answered the phone or checked the e-mail determines to which area the request should be transferred. An administration staff member matches the qualifications and the availability of the associates to the client’s request. The matching process has two steps. First, key words are used to search the associate file to find possible matches. Then, the employee manually selects the most suitable person who is available for the job. The associates are required to complete a timeshare upon completion of an assignment and submit it to the office.
The timeshares are input into the accounting system and payments are issued on a bi-weekly basis. Flexible Solutions relies heavily on the judgment, knowledge, and experience of its office staff in finding a good match and assigning associates in a most efficient and effective manner. Associate recruiting involves aggressive advertising in the public media to invite people to register with Flexible Solutions, searching on the Internet for resumes, and through word of mouth. Skilled workers need to pass a relevant test before being added to the pool.
All associates are required to attend an orientation workshop when they first register with Flexible Solutions. Those who are interested can sign up for additional workshops on different topics by paying a nominal fee. Information Technology Similar to many companies, there is no IT strategy at Flexible Solutions although computers are used extensively to support most office functions. One technical person supports and maintains all systems. Each employee has a desktop computer connected to a local area network (CAN) for file and printer sharing. The LANA runs on a Microsoft Windows 2000 platform.
Microsoft Office Suite is installed on the server. All employees have access to the Internet. E-mail is set up for communications internally and with the associates and clients. The accounting department uses Space for all accounting and payroll functions. The vendor customized Space to meet Flexible Solutions’ need in entering the time sheet information and generating payments to the associates. Time sheets are input as a batch job on a weekly basis. A database using Microsoft Access was created by Flexible Solutions to store information about the associates’ qualifications, availability, and work history.
All employees can access and update the database. For example, the interviewing and training member usually creates a record for each new person recruited and updates the additional training information, while the administrative staff will record the assignments of each individual. In addition to the database, hard copies of applicants’ forms and resumes are torte in a massive file cabinet. Similarly, a hard copy of information pertaining to past, present, and possible clients is also kept. Client information is saved in an Excel spreadsheet file.
This file was first created many years ago as file-merging information kept by marketing, accounting, and administrative staff. As the client list has grown, the file has become extremely large with much duplicated, out-dated, and inaccurate information. All employees have access to this file but no one is responsible for keeping it up-to-date and accurate. Many employees cut and paste from the master file ND create their own files containing up-to-date information about the companies that they deal with frequently. Heather realizes that something has to be done about this file.
However, with many companies and individual clients who either no longer exist or have moved and changed ownership, it is almost impossible to bring the file completely up-to-date. Besides, Heather believes that according to the “80/20 rule”, 80% of the company’s business is being provided by the 20% of the clients that they are keeping good records of. @CA-Canada, 2005 page 5 of 6 The Challenges and Opportunities Opportunities increase for Flexible Solutions as more and more companies either outsource aspects of their operations or opt to hire short-term contractual workers.
The marketing department is predicting at least a 15% growth rate in the next 2 years. Heather knows that this will present an additional load on her staff already operating at their extreme capacities. Upon reviewing the processes and the technology currently used at Flexible Solutions, Heather wonders if the processes could be re-engineered for better efficiency to cope with the predicted growth. As an IT consultant, you are asked by Heather to prepare a report outlining Seibel IT strategies for Flexible Solutions to support its future growth.