1 Melissa Hinton CINS 3050 Ch.

7 Review Questions

1. What are core business processes? a. Order to cash b. Procure to pay c. Make to stock/Make to order 2. Describe and contrast order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, make-to-stock, and make-to-order business processes. a. Order to cashprocess associated with selling a product or service b. Procure to payprocess of procuring goods from external vendors c. Make to stock/make to orderprocess of the production of goods 3. What are the core and support activities of a value chain? a. Core activitiesfunctional areas that process inputs and produce outputs. b. Support activitiesenable core activities to take place 4. Give an example of upstream and downstream information flows in a value system a. Upstreaminfo received from another company b. Downstreaminfo produced by a company and sent to another organization I. Ex: Company B receives information from its upstream supplier, processes the information through its internal value chain, and subsequently passes information downstream to its distributors and/or customers. 5. Describe what enterprise systems are and how they have evolved. Enterprise systems are information systems that span the entire organization and can be used to integrate business processes, activities, and information across all functional areas of a firm. a. Integrated suite of business applications b. Internally focused systems c. Externally focused systems 6. Contrast internally and externally focused systems. a. Internally focused systemssupport functional areas, business processes, and decisions within an organization. New information is added at every step. b. Externally focused systems-- An information system that coordinates business activities with customers, suppliers, business partners, and others who operate outside an organizations boundaries. 7. Compare and contrast customized and packaged software as well as vanilla versions versus best practicesbased software. a. Custom, Packaged Software i. Custom softwareapplications designed and developed exclusively for specific organizations ii. Packaged software-- are applications written by third-party vendors for the needs of many different users and organizations b. Vanilla vs best practices based software

2 i. Vanillathe features and modules that an enterprise system comes with out of the box. ii. Best practicesSpecific software for the better of a company or a person. 8. What are the core components of an ERP system? Support the important internal activities of the organization for producing their products and services. These components support internal operations, such as the following: a. Financial management b. Operations management c. Human resources management 9. What are the keys to successfully implementing an ERP system? a. Secure executive sponsorship b. Get help from outside experts c. Thoroughly train users d. Take a multidisciplinary approach e. Look beyond ERP