Question 1.

In a digital firm all of the organization’s significant business relationships with customers,
suppliers, and employees are digitally enabled and mediated. Core business processes are accomplished
through the functional departments. In a digital firm, purchasing department has two functional
departments. Those are :

1. Selecting Suppliers : After completing sales, there is a demand of products. Through the time,
the organization needs to select suppliers from whom products will be purchased. Purchasing
department head should be very careful to select suppliers as good product is the main
component of a digital firm or a business organization which are going to be purchased from the
suppliers.

2. Buying products from suppliers : After selecting suppliers, the firm or organization buys
products from them. Providing good products or services is the precondition of success of an
organization. So the department head needs to buy good products to sell them.

In case study, purchase process includes create and send purchase order. Sales marketing managers give
the statement of demands of products after completing sales. Purchasing managers analyze the
statement or report and create purchase order. They select suppliers and send the purchase order to
them. At last they buy products from the selected suppliers.

Question 2. There are three activities in an information system. These activities are input,
processing and output.

Input : It captures or collects raw data from the organization or from its external environment.
In the case study, warehouse department calculates the stock of products.
According to the demands of products, it creates purchase requisition. The purchase
requisition is the input of purchasing department. It gives the information about how
many products need to be purchased.

Processing : This activity of information systems converts this raw input into a meaningful
formt.
In the case study, after getting the purchase order from warehouse department,
purchasing managers select good suppliers to buy good products. After selecting
suppliers, purchasing department buy products from them.

Output : It transfers the processed information to the people who will use it or to the activities
for which it will be used.
In the case study, sales receipt, quantity of each products, reward points are the
output of purchasing department. Accounting department stores these records. At last,
warehouse stores purchased products which will be sold.
Question 3. Targeted marketing is an important tool in developing advertising and promotion strategies
to strengthen a company’s e-commerce initiatives and its traditional business venues.

In the case study, ABC Pharma ltd. is a leader in the pharmaceutical industry. Recently it has
launched an advance software called Enterprise resource planning (ERP). Targeted marketing
components for developing advertisement and promotion of the software are described below :

1. Community : This component enables pharmaceutical companies giving online advertisement

which helps to see their brand through the eyes of their customers in different market
segments. It is an essential component of success for pharmaceutical companies.

2. Content : This component features a group of customers based on their location, interest and
requirement. Specific customers with similar traits are categorized in one group. The products
are shown to them by selected websites.

3. Context : This component organizes products according to their unique characteristics and
demands in online platform. This process allows pharmaceutical brands to gain a better
knowledge about customer needs.

4. Psychographic : This component includes consumers according to their interests, activities,

lifestyle and opinions.

5. Online Behavior : It defines the difference in consumption patterns within a group of markets.
Customers are divided according to their purchasing habits, business awareness, product
knowledge, usage level, service rating.

Question 4. In organizational dimensions, middle management monitors every operational activities of

an organization which is done by operational management. Middle management gives the report or
statement of the activities to the top management. Analyzing the reports, top management make
effective decisions for the organization.

In the case study, the company uses information system to summarize reports on
monthly sales to the top management. The problems are given below if the top management of the
company does not receive monthly updates on sales:

1. If sales updates are not received by top management, they cannot calculate the total profit of
the organization.
2. They cannot calculate the stock of products in warehouse.
3. Demands of products in the market cannot be defined.
4. They cannot calculate quantity of products that needs to be produced.
5. Operational activities will lose control as the records are not received by top management.
6. Next step of works cannot be declared by them to the middle management.
Thus, whole organizational dimension of the business will lose control of working and will be unable to
make decisions. So, it’s very necessary to provide all the records of the organization to the top
management level to keep the organization active.