ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD

(Commonwealth MBA / MPA Program)

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (5567)
SEMESTER: AUTUMN, 2017
Question No. 2
Enlist and explain the approaches of information system. Also highlight the challenges of
information system with special reference to developing world. (20)

Answer:

Contemporary Approaches to Information Systems:

Information systems are sociotechnical systems. Although they are composed of machines, devices, and
"hard" physical technology, they require substantial social, organizational, and intellectual investments to
make them work properly. Since problems with information systems—and their solutions—are rarely all
technical or behavioral, a multidisciplinary approach is needed.

The study of information systems deals with issues and insights contributed from technical and behavioral
disciplines.

The technical approach emphasizes mathematically based, normative models to study information
systems, as well as the physical technology and formal capabilities of these systems. The behavioral
approach, a growing part of the information systems field, does not ignore technology, but tends to focus
on non-technical solutions concentrating instead on changes in attitudes, management and organizational
policy, and behavior.

MIS combines the work of computer science, management science, and operations research with a
practical orientation toward developing system solutions to real-world problems and managing
information technology resources. It is also concerned with behavioral issues surrounding the
development, use, and impact of information systems, which are typically discussed in the fields of
sociology, economics, and psychology.

In the sociotechnical view of systems, optimal organizational performance is achieved by jointly

optimizing both the social and technical systems used in production. Adopting a sociotechnical systems
perspective helps to avoid a purely technological approach to information systems.

Technology must be changed and designed, sometimes even "de-optimized," to fit organizational and
individual needs. Organizations and individuals must also be changed through training, learning, and
planned organizational change to allow technology to operate and prosper.

The Challenge of Information Systems:

Although information technology is advancing at a blinding pace, there is nothing easy or mechanical
about building and using information systems. There are five major challenges confronting managers:

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1. The information systems investment challenge: How can organizations obtain business value from
their information systems? We showed that not all companies realize good returns from
information systems investments. It is obvious that one of the greatest challenges facing
managers today is ensuring that their companies do indeed obtain meaningful returns on the
money they spend on information systems. It’s one thing to use information technology to design,
produce, deliver, and maintain new products. It’s another thing to make money doing it. How can
organizations obtain a sizable payoff from their investment in information systems? How can
management ensure that information systems contribute to corporate value? Senior
management can be expected to ask these questions: How can we evaluate our information
systems investments as we do other investments? Are we receiving the return on investment
from our systems that we should? Do our competitors get more? Far too many firms still cannot
answer these questions. Their executives are likely to have trouble determining how much they
actually spend on technology or how to measure the returns on their technology investments.
Most companies lack a clear-cut decision-making process for deciding which technology
investments to pursue and for managing those investments (Hartman, 2002).

2. The strategic business challenge: What complementary assets are needed to use information
technology effectively? Despite heavy information technology investments, many organizations
are not realizing significant business value from their systems, because they lack—or fail to
appreciate—the complementary assets required to make their technology assets work. The
power of computer hardware and software has grown much more rapidly than the ability of
organizations to apply and use this technology. To benefit fully from information technology,
realize genuine productivity, and become competitive and effective, many organizations actually
need to be redesigned. They will have to make fundamental changes in employee and
management behavior, develop new business models, retire obsolete work rules, and eliminate
the inefficiencies of outmoded business processes and organizational structures. New technology
alone will not produce meaningful business benefits.

3. The globalization challenge: How can firms understand the business and system requirements of
a global economic environment? The rapid growth in international trade and the emergence of a
global economy call for information systems that can support both producing and selling goods in
many different countries. In the past, each regional office of a multinational corporation focused
on solving its own unique information problems. Given language, cultural, and political
differences among countries, this focus frequently resulted in chaos and the failure of central
management controls. To develop integrated, multinational, information systems, businesses
must develop global hardware, software, and communications standards; create cross-cultural
accounting and reporting structures; and design transnational business processes.

4. The information technology infrastructure challenge: How can organizations develop an

information technology infrastructure that can support their goals when business conditions and
technologies are changing so rapidly? Many companies are saddled with expensive and unwieldy
information technology platforms that cannot adapt to innovation and change. Their information
systems are so complex and brittle that they act as constraints on business strategy and execution.

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 Meeting new business and technology challenges may require redesigning the organization and
building a new information technology (IT) infrastructure.

5. Ethics and security: The responsibility and control challenge: How can organizations ensure that
their information systems are used in an ethically and socially responsible manner? How can we
design information systems that people can control and understand? Although information
systems have provided enormous benefits and efficiencies, they have also created new ethical
and social problems and challenges. Chapter 5 is devoted entirely to ethical and social issues
raised by information systems, such as threats to individual privacy and intellectual property
rights, computer-related health problems, computer crimes, and elimination of jobs. A major
management challenge is to make informed decisions that are sensitive to the negative
consequences of information systems as well to the positive ones.

Question No. 4
Discuss various models of industry transformations. Also highlight the role of employee
empowerment and e-book readiness of customer and suppliers in relation with effective e-
business transformation. (20)

Answer:

Various Models of Industry Transformations:

We selected the 40 new business models we analyzed on the basis of how many mentions they received
in the high-quality, high-circulation business press. All of them seemed to have the potential to transform
their industries, but only a subset had succeeded in doing so. We looked for recurring features in the
models and found six. No company displayed all of them, but as we shall see, a higher number of these
features usually correlated with a higher chance of success at transformation.

1. A more personalized product or service.

Many new models offer products or services that are better tailored than the dominant models to
customers’ individual and immediate needs. Companies often leverage technology to achieve this at
competitive prices.

2. A closed-loop process.

Many models replace a linear consumption process (in which products are made, used, and then disposed
of) with a closed loop, in which used products are recycled. This shift reduces overall resource costs.

3. Asset sharing.

Some innovations succeed because they enable the sharing of costly assets—Airbnb allows home owners
to share them with travelers, and Uber shares assets with car owners. Sometimes assets may be shared
across a supply chain. The sharing typically happens by means of two-sided online marketplaces that
unlock value for both sides: I get money from renting my spare room, and you get a cheaper and perhaps

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nicer place to stay. Sharing also reduces entry barriers to many industries, because an entrant need not
own the assets in question; it can merely act as an intermediary.

4. Usage-based pricing.

Some models charge customers when they use the product or service, rather than requiring them to buy
something outright. The customers benefit because they incur costs only as offerings generate value; the
company benefits because the number of customers is likely to grow.

5. A more collaborative ecosystem.

Some innovations are successful because a new technology improves collaboration with supply chain
partners and helps allocate business risks more appropriately, making cost reductions possible.

6. An agile and adaptive organization.

Innovators sometimes use technology to move away from traditional hierarchical models of decision
making in order to make decisions that better reflect market needs and allow real-time adaptation to
changes in those needs. The result is often greater value for the customer at less cost to the company.

Role of employee empowerment:

Organizations today understand that in a knowledge-driven economy, speed in taking decisions, efficient
methods of functioning and innovative ideas help them gain an edge over competitors. It is with this view
point that organizations are adopting a strategy of employee empowerment. The important factors that
drive organizations towards employee empowerment are to:

 Encourage creativity and innovation: By empowering their employees, organizations

value their contribution. This encourages employees to work towards meeting organizational
objectives. They develop creative and innovative ideas that might improve the systems and
processes. Employee initiation and creativity helps organizations to innovate and improve their
processes.
 Increase productivity: It is true that empowered employees are more productive as they
are free to make decisions, act quickly without wasting time and work as a part of self-managed
teams. Naturally, a team of empowered employees working collectively are more successful in
improving the productivity of the organization.
 Align goals of employees with those of the organization: Empowerment provides
employees a clearer view of organizational goals and strategies. They understand their role and
value the autonomy given to them. Employees are satisfied and display enthusiasm towards their
jobs and align their goals with organizational goals.
 Help in employee retention: Being part of an organization, where employees are given
autonomy in the way they work and function, is fulfilling. It also helps them in developing their
skills and knowledge as they need to shoulder increased responsibilities. Employees see value in
being part of such an organization and remain loyal towards it.

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Organizations need employees who take initiatives and function as partners working towards achieving
organizational goals. Employee empowerment is one of the ways for organizations to ensure employee
engagement and commitment towards meeting mutual objectives.

E-book readiness of customer

E-Business Readiness: A Customer-Focused Framework provides the structure you need to understand
the complexities of e-business and initiate a profitable and competitive e-business solution. Every
company must take on the challenge of transforming itself into an e-business enterprise in order to be a
serious player in today's commercial arena. Featured in this book is the eBiz Readiness!™ assessment
framework, a comprehensive, proven, and customer-driven approach for analyzing e-business needs,
setting goals, determining an effective strategy, and monitoring change. It allows you to incorporate your
business's own unique industry components and metrics, whether it is a small start-up or a Fortune 500
company.

The book presents each facet of the framework involving key e-business stakeholders and their processes:

 Customer: Engage, order, fulfill, and support.

 Business community: Engage, interact, govern, and provide service.
 Operational partner: Manage contracts, relationships, transactions, content, and
intellectual assets; add security, assurance, and dispute resolution.
 Strategic partner: Manage new alliances, account planning, new market research, macro-
resource planning, and product and service development.
 Governance: Manage workforce, localization, clusters, accessibility, e-business education,
jurisdiction, liability, intellectual property, dispute settlement, taxation, privacy, trust, and e-
business architecture.
 Agents: Conduct research and analysis, content management, sales, marketing and service,
community, education, and entertainment.
 Employees: Examine productivity, e-culture, and information systems infrastructure and
services.

The need for business transformation may be caused by external changes in the market such as an
organization’s products or services being out of date, funding or income streams being changed, new
regulations coming into force or market competition becoming more intense. This management approach
also incorporates Business Process Reengineering and is widely used

Business transformation is achieved by one or more of: realigning the way staff work, how the
organization is structured and the core product or service portfolio of the business and how technology is
used. Typically organizations go through several stages in transforming themselves.

 Recognizing the need to change and gaining consensus amongst stakeholders that change is
necessary
 Agreeing what form the change should take, the objectives of the change and a vision that
describes a better future
 Understanding what the organization is changing from and what needs to change in detail

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  Designing the new organizational way of working and its support and management
 Testing and implementing changes, usually in waves, typically over a number of years
 Bedding in the change so that the organization cannot move back to how it was and achieves the
intended benefits

Question No. 5
Write short notes on the following:

 Expert System
 E-business Change Management
 Dot-com Strategies

Answer:

1. Expert System:
Expert systems are designed to provide “expert quality” performance on domain-specific
problems. In this chapter we look at the structure of expert systems focusing on the classical rule-
based system. We then look at the process of developing an expert system.

Definitions and Examples

“An automated reasoning system that attempts to mimic the performance of the human expert”.

This, of course, poses the question of what exactly is an expert. Michie avoided the comparison with the
human:

Expert System = Knowledge Base + Inference Engine

They have been successful in many fields. In general there are two types of problems:

(A) Select one of several hypotheses (e.g. diagnosis and advice)

(B) Make a solution that meets requirements (e.g. design and planning).

MYCIN was used for medical diagnosis (for a specific group of diseases). PROSPECTOR evaluated geological
sites for commercial development. DENDRAL helped to infer a molecule’s structure given its chemical
formula and other data. XCON was developed to customize a network system to meet the customer’s
needs.

Design of An Expert System

Like a human expert, an expert system is expected to

 Be specialist: known facts and procedural rules

 Use heuristics: interpolate from known facts
 Justify its conclusions: to establish credibility and confidence. The user can ask: how do
you know a particular fact? Why do you ask a particular question?
 Be able to learn: be able to absorb new knowledge and apply it

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  Estimate the reliability of its answer.

2. E-business Change Management

Change management (sometimes abbreviated as CM) is a collective term for all approaches to
preparing and supporting individuals, teams, and organizations in making organizational change.
It includes methods that redirect or redefine the use of resources, business process, budget
allocations, or other modes of operation that significantly change a company or organization.
Organizational change management (OCM) considers the full organization and what needs to
change,[1] while change management may be used solely to refer to how people and teams are
affected by such organizational transition. It deals with many different disciplines, from behavioral
and social sciences to information technology and business solutions.

Installation of a new system always causes change-management issues, but e-business systems
can involve total Cultural Revolution. Effective leadership is necessary so that staff see the
changes in a positive light. Managers of employees who have been used to hoarding information
must encourage those employees to share data with external business partners. Contrary to
popular belief, it's productive to an e-company to encourage employees to play computer games,
surf the Web, and use chat rooms and discussion groups, so that they're not paralyzed by techno
fear when they receive the new e-business system. This strategy also encourages employees to
"think out of the box" about new ways in which technologies can be exploited to improve the
business. They need to be taught that in the competitive, ever-changing e-business world, change
must become a way of life. This can be done by encouraging employees to think of new and
innovative ways of beating the competition—or to think of new and innovative ways in which the
competition might beat them!

3. Dot-com Strategies

Here are 5 business strategies:

1. Always Make The BIG Bet.

Picture this: Your business has no major problems. It’s making a significant business
profit. One day you say to yourself: I’m willing to take a bigger bet on my business. I’m willing to
put the chips down and roll the dice. I can take this BIG bet because I can afford to. I’ll hire
another person or two for the sales team. Expand the business. Update the company website
and revamp the marketing plan. Sounds great! Exciting! Doesn’t it? It certainly can be a boom to
your business when you take a risk on a big bet. But remember… Never to the point when you
literally put the company’s fate and future at risk. If your BIG bet on the business fails, you will
ultimately lose BIG. Take calculated, well thought through risks. If it doesn’t work out quite as
planned the business can take the hit, learn from it and manage it into other avenues of success
down the road. If you don’t go for the BIG bet on your business at the appropriate time, you’ll
never build a stronger company.

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2. Build A Solid Foundation.

To build a stronger company, as a CEO, founder or business owner, you need to start
with and continuously build upon a solid foundation. Just as a house or the structure your
company is headquartered at must have a strong, solid foundation to safely and adequately
provide space to you, your family or employees and customers for many years to come. To build
a solid business foundation, you can’t have a job where you just happen to have a title such as
CEO, president, founder or business owner. Yet many companies operate on this premise. You
need to be a leader. As I always say:

3. Leaders lead.

True business people don’t consider what they do a job. They don’t just run from one
thing to the other and then do something else all day long on a continual basis. If you are doing
this and not able to give your company role the thought and time necessary to create the
strategy and maintain the vision, then reconsider what you are doing. The foundation of your
company will eventually begin to crumble. You don’t want your company to fall into a sinkhole
figuratively speaking like you sometimes hear about in the news with houses. Think about how
you can organize your company, so you can hire and place people to take charge of aspects. Do
you have an assistant? Hiring an assistant can prove invaluable to help you build a stronger
company and help manage your business days more efficiently.

4. Share Your Company Vision.

Your employees, customers, and business associates need to know where you see the
company going. What direction you’re taking the company and why. People need to know what
you are thinking and visualizing. Then you need to allow for questions, feedback, ideas, advice as
to how other people can assist you in achieving your company vision with strategies to build a
stronger company. Welcome and encourage participation from others. Yet respect your role as
leader and final decision maker of the company. Finding the right balance is key. You can’t just
say, “Do what I say”, and expect total cooperation in today’s workplace. It creates resentment
not progress towards goals, both individually and collectively. Get people to believe in what you
are wanting to accomplish with your company vision, so everyone will be on board and want to
work with you, not against you.

5. Surround Yourself With The Best Possible People.

To build a stronger company includes having the best possible people – employees, advisors,
attorneys, accountants, etc. Hire for attitude first then talent, skill, education, and experience. If the
attitude isn’t in alignment with yours and the company culture, then it’s probably not the right match
to get you where you want to be. Don’t settle for less. Don’t hire in desperation. If you do, you may
regret later. Remember: Business is about thought. How you think is vastly important to your success.
Everyone you work with is an opportunity to tap into other thoughts, other ways of thinking to lead
the business forward. For example, if you have the best marketing people, you have the opportunity
to be presented with ideas you never thought about. Same is true with sales. Salespeople can help
you understand how the company can better present the product or service to prospects and

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 customers. This can lead to phenomenal results for the company! So always work with the best people
possible to build a stronger company.

Question No. 1
Information technology has pervasive influence on all areas of business. What impact you
see information technology has on public organization of Pakistan? (20)

Answer:

Information technology in Pakistan

Information technology in Pakistan is a growing and rising industry that has a lot of potential.
Matters relating to the IT industry are overseen and regulated by the Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting of the Government of Pakistan. The IT industry is regarded as a successful sector of Pakistan
economically, even in financial crisis... The first IT policy and implementation strategy was approved under
the leadership of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman FRS, then Federal Minister of Science & technology, in August 2000
which laid the foundations of the development of this sector A 15 year tax holiday was approved to
promote the IT industry in 2001 which has the grown from $ 30 million to over $ 3 billion during the last
16 years. A nationwide programme to train teachers was initiated by Intel in March 2002 in Pakistan on
the request of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman which has resulted in the training of 220,000 teachers across 70
districts at no cost to the government The government of Pakistan has given numerous incentives to IT
investors in the country during the last decade, this resulted in the development of the IT sector. In the
years 2003-2005 the country's IT exports saw a rise of about fifty percent and amounted a total of about
48.5 million USD. The World Economic Forum, assessing the development of Information and
Communication Technology in the country ranked Pakistan 111th among 144 countries in the Global
Information Technology report of 2014.

As of 2011, Pakistan has over 20 million internet users and is ranked as one of the top countries that have
registered a high growth rate in internet penetration. Overall, it has the 27th largest population of internet
users in the world. In the fiscal year 2012-2013, the Government of Pakistan aims to spend Rs. 4.6 billion
on information technology projects, with emphasis on e-government, human resource and infrastructure
development.

E-government:

The Government of Pakistan has attached great importance to information technology, as part of its
efforts to develop an "information age" in the country. In this regard, an elaborate national IT policy was
formulated under the leadership of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman FRS in 2000, then Federal Minister of Science &
technology. Through a focus on the technological development of information technology, the
government aims to increase productivity in the public sector, improve the standards of IT infrastructure
in the country and use it as a management tool for the promotion of good governance in general. There
has been remarkable progress in creating effective computerized e-government systems in Pakistan for
major departments such as police, law enforcement agencies and district administration. The National
Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has also introduced computerized registration systems for
issuing important documents such as national identity cards, passports, and permanent residency cards.
IT has also been critically important in improving work procedures of the civil service and other
government-related fields.

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According to a study published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
(ESCAP), Pakistan has been highly exposed to information technology while pursuing the concepts of e-
governance and e-commerce:

Pakistan's communication system is also reliable. This has now fully graduated into the email, Internet and
IT culture parse. The country is fast exploring the brave new world of information technology and keenly
assimilating the requirements of e-government and e-commerce. Information technology has opened a
new business frontier for Pakistan. The government is assigning high priority to information technology
both in terms of policy limelight and resource allocation.

— United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 2002

Local-language computing

There is a growing demand for software and programme development in local languages.
Computer software such as In Page were amongst the first computer programmes developed in Pakistan
that specifically catered to creating pages in various local languages using local scripts and fonts.

1. Urdu
The Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing conducts research and development in
linguistic and computational aspects of Urdu, as well as other languages of Pakistan, in areas such
as speech processing, computational linguistics and script processing.

2. Sindhi
Sindhi has also been digitized to make it easier to publish Sindhi newspapers, magazines and
books. In Page also offers support for Sindhi with the proper fonts and ligatures which makes it
easier for people to type in the Sindhi language without any difficulty.

Software development in Pakistan

Software development is one of the fastest growing fields in Pakistan. The government has
initiated numerous programs to encourage software development and exports. Pakistani IT companies
are developing software for use in different types of businesses and services. Locally made software
packages are cheaply available for implementation in schools, hospitals, supermarkets and other
businesses. Large control systems such as ERPs are also developed for use in large organizations which
manufacture textiles, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, etc. Also, the increasing use of Android
smartphones, tablets and Apple iPads has given a great boost to the mobile applications development
industry. Experts can easily develop these applications at home, with very low capital investment, as a
personal computer and an Internet connection are the only things required to begin. Educational
institutes have also begun offering diplomas and short-courses in software and applications development
for young people.

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Question No. 3
Strategic Information Systems (SIS) are intended to give competitive advantage to the
organization by delivering a product or service at lower cost and focusing at a
particular market segment. Strategic information systems help to achieve organizational
objectives and provide better customer value. Discuss the implication of planning theory
with the help of examples. (20)

Answer:

Theories of Planning:
Planning theory is the body of scientific concepts, definitions, behavioral relationships, and assumptions
that define the body of knowledge of urban planning. There are eight procedural theories of planning that
remain the principal theories of planning procedure today: the rational-comprehensive approach, the
incremental approach, the trans active approach, the communicative approach, the advocacy approach,
the equity approach, the radical approach, and the humanist or phenomenological approach.

Background:
The modern origins of urban planning lie in the movement for urban reform that arose as a reaction
against the disorder of the industrial city in the mid-19th century. Urban planning exists in various forms
and it addresses many different issues.[2] Urban planning can include urban renewal, by adapting urban
planning methods to existing cities suffering from decline. Alternatively, it can concern the massive
challenges associated with urban growth, particularly in the Global South.

Blueprint planning:
Following the rise of empiricism during the industrial revolution, the rational planning movement (1890–
1960) emphasized the improvement of the built environment based on key spatial factors. Examples of
these factors include: exposure to direct sunlight, movement of vehicular traffic, standardized housing
units, and proximity to green-space. To identify and design for these spatial factors, rational planning
relied on a small group of highly specialized technicians, including architects, urban designers, and
engineers. Other, less common, but nonetheless influential groups included governmental officials,
private developers, and landscape architects. Through the strategies associated with these professions,
the rational planning movement developed a collection of techniques for quantitative assessment,
predictive modeling, and design. Due to the high level of training required to grasp these methods,
however, rational planning fails to provide an avenue for public participation. In both theory and practice,
this shortcoming opened rational planning to claims of elitism and social insensitivity.

Synoptic planning:
After, the “fall” of blueprint planning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the synoptic model began to
emerge as a dominant force in planning. Lane (2005) describes synoptic planning as having four central
elements:

1. An enhanced emphasis on the specification of goals and targets

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 2. An emphasis on quantitative analysis and predication of the environment
3. A concern to identify and evaluation alternative policy options
4. The evaluation of means against ends

Participatory planning:
Participatory planning is an urban planning paradigm that emphasizes involving the entire community in
the strategic and management processes of urban planning; or, community-level planning processes,
urban or rural. It is often considered as part of community development. Participatory planning aims to
harmonize views among all of its participants as well as prevent conflict between opposing parties. In
addition, marginalized groups have an opportunity to participate in the planning process.

Transactive planning:
Transactive planning was a radical break from previous models. Instead of considering public participation
as method that would be used in addition to the normal training planning process, participation was a
central goal. For the first time, the public was encouraged to take on an active role in the policy setting
process, while the planner took on the role of a distributor of information and a feedback source.
Transactive planning focuses on interpersonal dialogue that develops ideas, which will be turned into
action. One of the central goals is mutual learning where the planner gets more information on the
community and citizens become more educated about planning issues

Advocacy planning:
Formulated in the 1960s by lawyer and planning scholar Paul Davidoff, the advocacy planning model takes
the perspective that there are large inequalities in the political system and in the bargaining process
between groups that result in large numbers of people unorganized and unrepresented in the process. It
concerns itself with ensuring that all people are equally represented in the planning process by advocating
for the interests of the underprivileged and seeking social change. Again, public participation is a central
tenet of this model. A plurality of public interests is assumed, and the role of planner is essentially the one
as a facilitator who either advocates directly for underrepresented groups directly or encourages them to
become part of the process.

Bargaining model:
The bargaining model views planning as the result of give and take on the part of a number of interests
who are all involved in the process. It argues that this bargaining is the best way to conduct planning
within the bounds of legal and political institutions. The most interesting part of this theory of planning is
that makes public participation the central dynamic in the decision-making process. Decisions are made
first and foremost by the public, and the planner plays a more minor role.

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