Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
1. Though the types of technology used by businesses have changed over the last several
decades, the role of business technology has remained remarkably constant.
2. In the 1970s business technology was known as data processing.
3. Data and information are two different names for essentially the same thing.
4. Information is data that has been processed and organized so that it can be used for
managerial decision-making.
5. During the 1970s, the purpose of data processing was to support the existing business by
improving the flow of financial information.
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6. During the 1970s business technology employees often dealt directly with customers.
7. During the 1980s, the role of business technology changed from supporting business to
doing business.
8. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, businesses began to emphasize finding ways to employ
new technologies to improve existing methods of doing business.
9. During the 1980s business technology began to emphasize the use of technology to
change how business was conducted by introducing new methods.
10. Today the role of the chief information officer is to help the business use technology to
communicate better with others while offering better service and lower costs.
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11. In today’s technological environment, the typical chief information officer (CIO) spends
the majority of his or her time overcoming glitches and making sure the organization’s
information system is up and running.
12. Information technology brings work to people instead of requiring people to go to work.
13. Business Intelligence (BI) changes the traditional flow of information so that the database
goes to the individual rather than the individual going to the database.
14.
Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
In the coming years, successful information management will be more concerned with
achieving and maintaining stability and predictability, and less concerned with adapting
to change.
15. Data mining is included in business intelligence.
16. Information technology has changed the staffing and customer relations of businesses.
17. Business intelligence is any variety of software applications that analyze an
organization’s raw data and take useful insights from it.
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18. Katie Prescott’s assistant just handed her a report that summarizes and organizes many
raw facts and figures into a few key measures that will help her judge whether her
department is meeting its key objectives. The summary measures included in the report
are information, while the raw facts and figures used to compute these measures are data.
Feedback: Data refers to raw, unanalyzed, and unorganized facts and figures. Information is
the processed and organized data that can be used for managerial decision making. Since the
measures in the report have been summarized into a form Katie finds useful, they are
examples of information.
19. Over time, business technology has become much more sophisticated, but its basic
application has remained to support the existing operations of businesses by providing
key financial information.
Feedback: During the 1970s, business technology was used primarily to support business by
improving the flow of financial information. In the 1980s the emphasis switched from using
technology to support business to using technology to do business. In the late 1980s and into
the 1990s the emphasis switched again, to using technology to change business methods.
20.
Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
The experiences of the past several decades show that, while improvements in technology
frequently enhance the efficiency of basic business operations, such improvements never
actually change the fundamental way that businesses operate.
Feedback: Beginning in the 1990s businesses began using new technologies to actually
change the ways they did business. The text cites examples of how computers and the Internet
now allow customers to buy goods and services whenever and wherever they choose, and how
cellular phones, laptop computers, and PDAs have helped create virtual offices.
21. As businesses begin using business intelligence, managers will spend less time finding
information and more time using it to make decisions.
Feedback: Business intelligence filters information to make sure it is relevant, and provides
that information to decision makers when it is needed. Knowledge technology thus reduces
the time mangers spend searching for relevant information, giving them more time for
decision-making.
22. Kent Uchi is the CIO for a major corporation. Kent’s job will require him to have an
extensive knowledge of the hardware and software his company uses, but he will seldom
be concerned about the methods and procedures used by specific departments.
Feedback: Today’s CIO will be concerned with finding ways to boost business by using
technology to change the way the organization operates. Thus the CIO will be concerned with
finding ways to implement new technologies that will boost performance in purchasing,
operations, marketing and sales. These new technologies will obviously affect the methods
and procedures of a variety of departments within the organization.
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42. Manager Minnie Hope is overwhelmed by information overload. Unfortunately, in this
day of the Internet, cell phones, and instant messaging, there is little she can do to control
this problem.
Feedback: There are strategies that can help managers control the flow of information.
Perhaps the most effective first step in dealing with information overload is to identify four or
five key goals and eliminate information that is not relevant to those goals. This strategy can
eliminate much of the information that flows into the manager’s office.
43. Penny Pinchers Discount is a major discount store chain in the Southwest. The company
wants to do a better job of finding sales patterns and trends that will help it customize the
product offerings for different stores. Data mining is one technique that would help
Penny Pinchers achieve this goal.
Feedback: Data mining looks for hidden patterns and relationships in data. Retailers such as
Wal-Mart have used data mining to track sales and identify local trends and patterns. They
use this information to customize product offerings for individual stores.
44.
Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
Hunter Mixon is an information management specialist for a large corporation. He
believes that his company could benefit from data mining techniques, and is looking for
ways to implement data mining in his company. One key to Hunter’s success will be
finding ways to integrate and access data from different divisions and departments of his
company.
Feedback: The success of data mining depends on the ability to access data. In many large
organizations, data is stored in a multitude of systems running on different platforms that are
incompatible. Even though it is possible to integrate these systems, it is still sometimes a
challenge to get people in different departments and divisions to “buy in” to the need for such
integration and data sharing.
45. An intranet is a company-wide network that is based on Internet technology, but closed to
public access.
46. Intranets use a different, less sophisticated, type of technology than the Internet.
47. The software or hardware barrier that a business uses to prevent unauthorized users from
gaining access to their intranet is known as a tripware.
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58. A virtual private network allows information managers to simulate a real intranet in order
to identify possible security problems and technical glitches before the company sets up
the actual private network.
59. Enterprise portals are simply web pages with links to company-specific products and
services.
60. Enterprise portals have the ability to identify users and give them access to specific areas
of an organization’s intranet depending on their relationship to the organization.
61. Widebeam is the term used to refer to technologies that give users continuous access to
the Internet and greatly increase the speed at which data flows to and from their Internet
connection.
62.
Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
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Bandwidth is the term used to describe the rate at which data flows through the Internet.
63. Internet2 runs more than 22,000 times faster than today’s public infrastructure.
64. Initially, the very-high-speed backbone network service was set up to connect
government supercomputer centers with a select group of universities.
65. Users of Internet2 each pay the same fee for their connection and share bandwidth
equally.
66.
Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
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The main purpose of an intranet is to allow a company to keep in close contact with its
customers.
Feedback: An intranet is a company-wide network that is closed to public access. Customers
do not normally have access to the information on an intranet. If customers are allowed into
the company network, they do so through a semiprivate network system called an extranet or
by setting up a virtual private network (VPN).
67. Bluprintz, a company that publishes home design software for personal computers, wants
to set up a temporary link with another firm with which it wants to collaborate and share
data on a short-term basis. Bluprintz wants to keep the cost of setting up this connection
reasonable, but is concerned about hackers and wants to make sure its link is secure. The
best way for Bluprintz to achieve its goal is to set up an extranet with dedicated lines.
Feedback: Using dedicated lines for extranet linkages can offer protection from hackers, but
the cost is so high that it would be difficult to justify this type of solution for a temporary link.
A better solution would be to set up a virtual private network (VPN) that creates secure
connections over regular Internet lines. A VPN is simpler and less expensive than a network
that uses dedicated lines, but still offers significant protection against hackers.
68.
Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
The On-The-Green Golf Company currently has an intranet, and is considering making
use of an extranet. One of the main reasons On-The-Green may want an extranet is to
allow a select group of outside customers to have access to information on its intranet.
Feedback: Intranets are company-wide networks that are closed to public access. Extranets
are semiprivate networks that allow a selected group of organizations to share information. A
common use of extranets is to allow outside customers to gain access to an intranet.
69. The fact that electronic data interchange technology is so expensive that only large firms
can afford to use it puts small firms at a severe disadvantage when it comes to sharing
information.
Feedback: Now the Internet allows almost all firms to share information, process orders,
specifications, and invoices. A common way of doing this is by setting up an extranet, which
uses Internet technology to allow people on different servers to collaborate. Thus the
advantages of EDI technology are no longer available only to large firms.
70. The main reason for setting up an enterprise portal is to ensure that only employees of an
organization have access to the information on its intranet.
Feedback: Enterprise portals identify various types of users and allow them access to the
intranet based on their roles. These portals often allow customers and suppliers to have access
to certain areas of the intranet.
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71. Information managers at Sezhu Industries want to provide a single, seamless interface
that will make it easier for customers, suppliers, and employees to gain access to the parts
of its intranet that they need. Sezhu could achieve this result by setting up an enterprise
portal.
Feedback: Enterprise portals serve as entry points to an organization’s intranet. They identify
users as employees, customers, suppliers, etc., and allow them access to the areas of the
intranet relevant to their role. Portals generally are convenient to use because they provide
access to all the information various users need through one interface.
72. A major reason for the creation of Internet2 was that private businesses wanted to
establish a network that was free from government regulation.
Feedback: A major reason for the development of Internet2 was that the existing Internet was
becoming so crowded that scientists and scholars were having an increasingly difficult time
gaining access to the network and transmitting data over it. Internet2 was designed to operate
at much faster speeds than today’s network and to have the capacity to support heavy-duty
applications.
73.
Chapter Bonus B – Using Technology to Manage Information
Highbrow University just obtained a link to Internet2. Researchers at Highbrow intend to
make very heavy use of their new link for various forms of collaboration, for
videoconferencing and for running complex simulations. Unlike the regular Internet, the
more bandwidth Highbrow’s researchers use on Internet2, the more the University will
have to pay.
Feedback: Unlike the public Internet where bandwidth is divided evenly among users,
Internet2 allows users willing to pay more to use more bandwidth.
74. Moore’s Law says that the capacity of computer chips doubles every year or so.
75. A major trend today is a move away from desktop PCs to increasing reliance on laptop
computers and wireless handheld devices.
76. Wi-Fi refers to a new type of computer processor technology that enables more than one
instruction to be processed at the same time.