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Global Business Strategy
Products are developed for the global market. Slow to react to local markets.
Data flows from subsidiaries to the home location.
One product for all markets
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Transnational Business Strategy
Various parts are kept at home and various parts are decentralised.
This is the most difficult strategy.
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Multidomestic Business Strategy
Suited for operations in markets that differ widely where cultural differences are big. Very responsive to the needs and demands of local markets.
Very little data flow between home and subisidiary locations.
Lower economies of scale.
Flexible to local markests.
No centralised information.
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Give me the two emerging opportunities for companies operating in the digital world.
New markets - the fall of the Berlin wall increased the size of the German market to 80m.
Global workforce - with the decrease in communications costs companies can now draw on a large pool of professionals from all over the globe. Companies can draw on cheap but highly educated labour resources in other countries.
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What is the definition of Supply Chain Management
SCM is the combination of business and science that goes into improving the way your company finds the reaw components it needs to make a product or service and deliver it to customers.
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What does supply chain refer to?
The term supply chain refers to the entire network of companies that work together to design, produce, deliver and service products.
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Give me the key drivers of globalisation.
Fall of Berlin Wall.
1995 - Release of Netscape Web Browser
Ability of individuals and companies to actively participate in content generation on the web.
Outsourcing
Off-shoring
Supply chaining
Insourceing
Informing - the ability of individuals to utilise search engines on the internet to build their own supply chains of information.
The steroids - increases in PCs & storage capacity.
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Give me the 4 stages of the SDLC
Think PADI
Planning
Analysis
Design
Implementation - This is development / testing and putting into production.
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What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence refers to computer based techniques used in spotting, digging out and analysing business data such as sales revenue by products and or departments.
- Key terms here:
- Data warehouseing.
- Data mining
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What does pre-processing mean in terms of data mining?
- Pre-processing is used to create a target data set.
- You would analyse your data warehouse to get the taget data. The dataset must be large enough to contain the patterns you want to find.
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Explain clustering and classification in terms of data mining.
Clustering - this is the task of discovering groups and structures in the data that are in some way similar.
Classification - this is the task of generalising known structures to apply to new data.
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Why use data mining?
Data mining in CRM applications can contribute to the bottom line. Rather than randomly contacting a prospect or customer through a call center or sending mail a company can concentrate its efforts on prospects that are predicated to have a high likelihood of responding to an offer.
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There are 3 advantages of CRM. What are they?
Widen - attract new customers.
Lengthen - keep current customers satisfied.
Deepen - transform minor customers into profitable customers.
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What are the 10 key drivers of globalisation?
1989 - Fall of Berlin Wall
1995 - Release of Netscape browser
Work flow software
Uploading - the ability of individuals and companies to participate actively with Wikis / Bloggs
Outsourcing
Offshoring
Supply chaining
Insourcing
Informing - allows individuals to create their own personal supply chain of information.
The steroids - growth of PC power, storage space, skype etc.
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What are the 3 primary components of a CRM systems?
CAO
Collaboration - systems for providing effective and efficient communication with the customer from the entire organisation.
Analysis - systems for analysing customer behavior and perceptions in order to provide business intelligence.
Operational - front office. Systems for automating the fundamental business processes (marketing, sales and support) for interacting with the customer.
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What are the 4 stages of the SDLC?
Think PADI
Planning - working out requirements
Analysis
Design
Implementation - development / testing and putting into production.
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Giving me the differences between outourcing and offshore outsourcing.
Outsourcing - business processes performed by another company.
Offshore outsourcing - business processes performed by another company in a different country.
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What are the emerging opportunities for companies operating in the digital world?
Reaching new markets (East Germany, Easter Bloc, Asia).
Global workforce - professionals all over the globe.
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What are the factors companies have to consider when operating in the digital world?
Governmental - political climate
Geoeconomoic - time zone challenges, infrastructure.
Demographic - Expertise
Cultural - power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, concept of time, work culture etc.
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Describe the different business strategies companies can use while globalising.
Home Replication - international operations are secondary to home operations.
Global - Centralized systems. Products developed for the global market. Slow to react to local markets.
Multidomestic - Operations are replicated for various markets. Very quick to react to local market changes but very little data flow between home and subsidiary.
Transnational - Some parts of the operations are kept at home and various parts are decentralised.
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How can organisations use information systems for automation, organisational learning and strategic advantage?
- IS can be used in 3 ways to add value.
- Automating
- Informing - learn and improve. Doing things better.
- Strategising - find ways to use IS to achieve the organisations chosen strategy.
- There are five types of organisational strategy
- Low cost leadership - best prices for an industry
- Focused low cost - best prices for a product
- Broad differentiation - Better products.
- Focused differentiation - Better products than competitors while focusing on niche.
- Best cost provider - reasonably good products of reasonably good quality.
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What problems can we see when we're giving a business case for a new information system?
Productivity paradox - where the benefits of IS can be outweighed by the cons (governmental regulation, employees wasting time etc.)
Measurement problems - efficiency measured rather than effectiveness.
Time lags - It can take years before IS investments start to pay back.
Redistribution - IS systems may help one firm to increase its market share at the expense of another company.
Mismanagement - if bad systems are built and implemented poorly the IS may merely be a temporary bandage.
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When presenting a business case arguments are based under 3 main headings. Describe them.
Faith - organisational strategy, competitive advantage, industry forces, customer perception.
Fear - company loses out to a competitor, going out of business.
Fact - data, quantitative analysis.
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When presenting a business case what do we do?
Persuade decision makers in the firm.
Convert benefits to monetary values.
Devise proxy variables (insert your own data as examples).
Assess values for IS infrastructure.
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Why are companies continually looking for innovative ways to use IS?
Innovation is
fleeting - sometimes the advantages are short lived
risky - sometimes inferior products become the standard
difficult - how do you determine what the next innovation will be.
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What is required in an organisation for innovation?
Process - the organisation must be willing to do whatever they can to bypass and eliminate bureaucracy.
Resource - they must have the human capital necessary to deploy the new systems.
Risk tolerance - the organisation requires a certain amount of risk tolerance.
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There are 6 basic models for freeconomics. List them.
Advertising -
Freemium - basic services offered for free.
Cross subsidies - get one thing free if you buy another.
Zero marginal cost - products are distributed without an appreciable cost. (YouTube, iTunes)
Labour exchange - service provided to customers and the act of using the services creates value for the company.
Gift economy - environments are created that allow people to participate and collaborate. (Wikipedia / Open Source)
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Define the SDLC?
The process of creating or altering a system and methods and models that people use to alter / create these systems.
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What is Sales Force Automation?
SFA refers to systems that support the day to day sales activities of an organisation.
It supports
- Order processing and tracking
- Account and contact management
- Opportunity management
- Sales management
- Territory management
- Customer history.
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What are the 3 components of an operational CRM system?
- Sales Force Automation
- Customer Service & Support
- Enterprise Marketing Management - used to improve the management of marketing campaigns.
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What is Supply Chain Planning?
SCP involves the development of various resource plans to support the efficient and effective production of goods and services.
It has 4 main steps.
Demand planning & forecasting - we use historical data to develop the most accurate forecasts possible.
Distribution planning - Once demand planning is complete we can work on planning the movement of product to distributors.
Production scheduling - this focuses on the coordination of all activities needed to create the product or service.
Procurement planning - this is the process of development of inventory estimates using simulations.
- There are four plans.
- PPDD
- Procurement - Production - Distribution - Demand
It is important to note that SCP is an ongoing process. As new data is obtained, plans are updated.
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What is Supply Chain Execution?
SCE is the execution of SCP.
There are 3 flows to be aware of.
- Product - flows down from suppliers to customer.
- Information - (e.g. deliver status) flows down from suppliers to customers.
- Financial - primarily the movement of financial assets through the supply chain. Normally flows up from customers.
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What is Supply Chain Strategy?
This is measure of effectiveness against efficiency.
For example we can have lots of product in the shop and only a few customers. This would be effective but not very efficient.
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What is data mining?
Data mining is used to search for hidden patterns, trends or rules that are hidden in the data.
Generally before data mining you'll cluster your data to group related records on the basis of having similar valued for attributes.
Web mining - this is the process of analysing the usage or content of web pages.
Association discovery - used to find associations or correlations amongst sets of items.
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Give me the capabilities of the web in terms of e-commerce (or the advantages of using e-commerce).
Global information dissemination - firms all over the world can access customers information.
Integration - real time access to personalised information (banking).
Mass customisation
Interactive communication.
Collaboration
Transactional support - customers can conduct business on-line without human interaction.
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An organisation has to develop a business model in order to be successful in e-commerce. Describe the different components of a business model
Revenue model - the way the firm generates income.
Value proposition - the utility that the product / service has to offer.
Competitive environment - the existing players in the market and the nature of the competition.
Marketing strategy - the promotion plan of your product / service.
Management team - the background and experience of the company leadership.
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What are the typical revenue models for ecommerce
Affiliate marketing - Amazon sales made via links from other vendors.
Subscription based - pay a fee to use the service (experts exchange).
Transaction fees - Paypal
Traditional sales - iTunes
Web advertising - Facebook
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Whats the difference between an intranet and an extranet?
Extranet - enables two or more firms to do business together.
Intranet - B2E. Private network using web technologies. Employees have personalised intranet pages, information from separate applications, real time information, online entry of information, collaboration.
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What are the main benefits & drawbacks of E-Tailing?
Advantages include.
- Unlimited number and variety of products.
- Easier comparison shopping.
- Anywhere, anytime.
- Global.
- High inventory turnover rate.
- No expenditure for physical retail space.
- Can focus on niche markets.
Disadvantages include.
- Delay between order and delivery.
- Lack of sensory information.
- Lack of the social element.
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In an XML DTD explain the following entries.
+
?
DOCTYPE
#PCDATA
|
- + - There are 1 or more entries of this element.
- ? - There are zero or one entries of this element.
- DOCTYPE - This defines the root element of this document.
- #PCDATA - One text element is allowed.
- | - This is the OR symbol
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Define Supply Chain Management.
SCM is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers.
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List three components of Business Intelligence
Information and Knowledge Discovery
Business Analytics
Information Visualisation
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