An international consulting firm from Spain has succeeded in convincing its consultants that shar- ing their knowledge online is key to the company’s survival. Cluster Competitiveness of Barcelona recently instituted a policy whereby all paper left on desks each evening was collected and de- stroyed. The policy underscored the company’s belief that all consultants’ work should be shared through their online knowledge management system. Within four months after paper was banned from the office, the collection process was no longer needed.
Because the company can’t afford to hire highly experienced staff, or train bright new hires, it has set up this central repository of company knowledge so that even brand new hires get instant access to all of the company’s files and intellectual capital. As a result, new hires can get to work quickly and productively.
The company is very pleased with the system and offsets its use with regular meetings at which war stories are traded and client relationships are analyzed. Staff members don’t need elaborate of- fices, nor do they store large amounts of data on their own computers. Instead, they have access to everything they might need on the company’s intranet, which is accessible any time and any place they might be working. The company is a model of the paperless office. The strategy must be work- ing, as the company is growing and its clients are very satisfied with their products.
Source:Gary Abramson, “Operation Brain-Trap” CIO Enterprise Magazine(Vol. 13, Issue 4, November 15, 1999), p. 78–82.
What are the three steps in decision making?
What factors distinguish the types of information required by strategic level man- agers, by tactical level managers, and by operational level managers?
In your own words, explain structure as it relates to decisions.
Describe the components of an expert system.
What factors distinguish a BI system from an ES? What factors distinguish ES from NN?
Describe the purpose of a knowledge management system.
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RQ5-2 RQ5-3 RQ5-4 RQ5-5 RQ5-6
Describe a few structured decisions and a few unstructured decisions. Discuss the relative amount of structure in each decision.
“To be of any value, an Information System must assist all levels of management.”
Discuss.
“All managers should be willing to invest the time to learn to use the organization’s BI system.” Discuss.
Describe an example of an organization changing in reaction to pressures in the environment. Compare your example to another example of an organization changing in anticipation of environmental opportunities. Discuss the Information System implications of these two examples.
Describe how an expert system might have helped you to choose which colleges and universities might be best suited for you.
Explain how a Business Intelligence system (BI), an expert system (ES), and a neural network (NN) can assist a decision maker in performing the three steps in decision making. Can these systems perform any of these steps independent of the human decision maker? Discuss your answer.
Use two different Web search engines (such as Yahoo, Altavista, Lycos, AskJeeves, Google, or others) to look up a term you learned in this chapter. Why do you think each search engine produces a different list of links? Shouldn’t they be the same?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
DQ5-1 DQ5-2 DQ5-3 DQ5-4
DQ5-5 DQ5-6
DQ5-7
REVIEW QUESTIONS
RQ5-1
Select a software package to which you have access that incorporates an intelligent agent. Describe the actions of the intelligent agent and how these actions assist in the use of this package.
Assume that you are the owner of a small local business of your choosing. Assume further that you are trying to decide if you want to extend your business by adding an e-business component. For each of the decision-making steps—intelligence, de- sign, and choice—describe the information that you will need and the source of that information.
For their maintenance and repair division, Otis Elevator had a goal of not being noticed. That is, the company wanted its elevators to work all the time. They wanted to anticipate when any elevator would need repair and to get the right per- son, with the right parts and knowledge, to fix any elevator that is having, or may have, a problem. Describe how the company could accomplish this objective by ap- plying the technology introduced in this chapter. For each technology application, describe how it will be used to help achieve the objective.
While studying for your open-book final exam in biology, you daydream about having access to an expert system during the exam that would help you get all the correct answers. Based on the ES components described in Technology Insight 5.3 (page 152), describe the contents of the ES. Describe where each of the following would be found:
a) Contents of the textbook b) Your lecture notes
c) Problem background provided on the exam d) Your personal experience with nature e) Your common sense
f) Answers to questions you have about the objective of a problem
Which kinds of questions (e.g., multiple choice, true/false, short essay, problem solving) would the expert system best help you to answer? For which kinds would a neural net be better?
Many full-time students aim to complete their college education in a four-year pe- riod. Often, students join clubs, fraternities or sororities, or other campus organi- zations while in school. Since membership in these organizations changes radically each year, it would be very useful for the membership to create and use a knowl- edge management system to record the “organizational memory” of its prior offi- cers, members, and event planners. Describe the contents of such a knowledge management system for an organization to which you belong. Discuss how your organization might design, create, use and control access to the system.
Search the Web to locate the home page of an OLAP or business intelligence soft- ware vendor. Download a demo version of the software and try it. Is it easy to use?
Does it provide a good level of flexibility? Overall, how would you evaluate the software?
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