Assignment By: Fatima Shahzad

Roll Number: KC- 1291

BBA 4th Semester
Lecturer: Sir Ehtasham Uddin
Department Of Management Sciences
Karachi Campus.

Assignment # 3
Date of Submission: 27th November, 2022.

Q: How to achieve competitive advantage by using information systems?

Explain with the help of two practical example of real business world.
Competitive Advantage:
After having achieved your place in the market businesses need to have an upper hand over
their competitors. Competitive advantage is basically being more innovative and creative
with your business than your competitor. It helps you gain greater market share, so that the
customer chooses your business over another one.
Management Information Systems:
Information systems are one of the major tools available to business managers for achieving
operational excellence, developing new products and services, improving decision making
and achieving competitive advantage.

Competitive advantage using Information systems:

Doing things better than your competitors, charging less for superior products, and
responding to customers and suppliers in real time all add up to higher sales and higher
profits that your competitors cannot match. Apple Inc., Walmart, and UPS are industry
leaders because they know how to use information systems for this purpose.

There are four generic strategies, each of which often is enabled by using information
technology and systems: low-cost leadership, product differentiation, focus on market niche,
and strengthening customer and supplier intimacy.

The business must align their IT with their business objectives by determining how the
systems can help them to achieve goals and measure performance.

Aim: A Competitive edge

ERP SYSTEM:

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a type of software system that helps organizations
automate and manage core business processes for optimal performance. ERP system helps in
finance, commerce, human resource, manufacturing and supply chain functions. One
example is of:

Toyota
Toyota Industries Corporation is Toyota’s head company. It wanted to expand its reach
globally to offer high-quality services like improved operational management accuracy, a
paperless system, reduction of work hours, and increase in overall efficiency.

So, Toyota chose Microsoft Dynamics 365 for the job. Dynamics helps manage the after-
sales service skills and operations for distributors offering services to their products to
customers all over the world.

Decision Support System (DSS):

DSS supports the management, operations, and planning levels of an organization in making
better decisions by assessing the significance of uncertainties and the tradeoffs involved in
making one decision over another.

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GPS route planning. A DSS can be used to plan the fastest and best routes between two
points by analyzing the available options. These systems often include the capability to
monitor traffic in real-time to route around congestion.

Clinical DSS. These systems help clinicians diagnose their patients. Penn Medicine has
created a clinical DSS that helps it get ICU patients off ventilators faster.

Some other examples:

General Electric rebuilt its Erie locomotive facility as a large-scale yet flexible factory using
computers to store all design and manufacturing data. Ten types of motor frames can be
accommodated without manual adjustments to the machines. After installation of a “smart”
manufacturing system. BMW can build customized cars (each with its own tailored gearbox,
transmission system, interior, and other features) on the normal assembly line. Automation
and flexibility are achieved simultaneously, a pairing that changes the pattern of rivalry
among competitors.

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