Final Question # 5

As a topic before KBS, DSS and VO, identify and describe one company that adopts an MIS. Include in your discussion, how MIS help and support the company, its managers and other employees, in their problem solving and decision-making.
---------------------------------------------------------------

GREENWOOD PUBLISHING GROUP

Based on a longitudinal, small-sample study of Midwest companies, Thierauf's work develops a number of interesting and potentially useful approaches to management information systems (MIS) practice. The author presents a number of techniques (some well known, others more recent) that practicing MIS managers may adopt to facilitate effective MIS planning for the 1990's by focusing on problem finding rather than on problem solving. A primary recommendation of Thierauf's is the restructuring of the MIS organization using a functional (end-user) departmental approach. Discussed at length are various issues relevant to this restructuring, such as staffing, motivating MIS personnel and end users, and MIS `soft' controls. Recommended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students as well as practicing managers and MIS specialists. With new developments in hardware and software, MIS managers are increasingly faced with the need to develop more sophisticated managerial--as opposed to purely technical--skills. Here, an acknowledged expert in the field of information systems draws on his own original research and experience to develop a set of workable strategies and techniques that MIS managers can use to function more effectively as we move into the next decade. Thierauf identifies probable trends in the field in coming years and outlines ways in which MIS managers can anticipate predictable problems, apply improved management skills to the end-user interface, and effectively motivate MIS personnel. Thierauf concentrates particularly on four major areas of managerial responsibility: planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling. In planning, he shows how to use problem-finding techniques to anticipate and solve potential problems between MIS personnel and end-users. To help reduce this conflict, Thierauf argues, there is a need for a new direction in organizing MIS departments. He proposes bringing MIS and end-use departments together by using a functional departmental approach. In motivating MIS personnel, there is need to go beyond self-actualization by emphasizing mutual actualization as well as self donation. Finally, in the area of control, Thierauf advocates the use of soft controls to replace stringent controls that have had a tendency to restrict personal freedom on the job. A common thread througout the discussion is a focus on effective guidelines for the MIS manager to follow in order to come to grips with the changing realities of the 1990s.(WWW.YAHOO.COM)

Final Question # 4

TOPIC: THE KNOWLEDGE - BASED SYSTEMS (KBS)Question # 3: 1. Describe or define KBS.2. Distinguish KBS from MIS.3. Illustrate (give examples) how KBS can improve company's competitive advantage and organizational performance.
---------------------------------------------------------------
1.)Knowledge-based system are systems based on the methods and techniques of [[Artificial Intelligence]] (http://www.wikipedia.com/)
2.)Management Information Systems are distinct from regular information systems in that theysystems are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization while knowledge-based system are interactive computer program that helps a user solve a problem.
3.)Information overload is a critical problem in both military and commercial decision-making processes. Knowledge based systems provide a flexible, user definable and highly scalable solution to these problems by wedding intelligent multi-agent software with a user-focused graphical interface to provide improved decision making in dynamic environments and improved situational awareness. This approach lends itself to many potential applications in both the military and commercial sectors. The use of easily adaptive model processing enables the system to implement evolving policies and technological capabilities. The WCI intelligent agents 'understand' the cyber defense concepts they implement through an advanced internal language system utilizing highly evolved artificial intelligence. This will give the company to gathered information and to have communication easily.

Final Question # 3

TOPIC: THE VIRTUAL OFFICE (VO)Question # 3: 1. Describe or define VO.2. Distinguish VO from MIS.3. Illustrate (give examples) how VO can improve company's competitive advantage and organizational performance.
-------------------------------------------------------------
1.)Virtual office is a shared office services, which normally includes business address, mail & courier services, phone services, fax services, answering services, web-hosting services, and meeting & conference facilities.

2.) MIS reporting was made manually and only periodically, as a by-product of the accounting system and with some additional statistics, and gave limited and delayed information on management performances. While Virtual office are providers of services that provide the in-house or outsourced services such as corporate secretarial services, accounting services, or legal services. Professional firms such as law firms and accounting firms often provide registered address services as part of their service offerings.
3.)Virtual office can improve companys competitive advantage and organizational performance it enables a network of co-workers to run a business efficiently by using nothing other than online communication technologies,this will help the employees to do the operation easily.

Final Question # 2

TOPIC: THE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM (DSS)Question # 3: 1. Describe or define DSS.2. Distinguish DSS from MIS.3. Illustrate (give examples) how DSS can improve company's competitive advantage and organizational performance.Cite your reference.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

1.) Decision Support Systems (DSS)- are a specific class of computerized information system that supports business and organizational decision-making activities. A properly-designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from raw data, documents, personal knowledge, and/or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.(www.wikipedia.com)

2.)Management Information System (MIS) is a subset of the overall internal controls of a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies, and procedures by management accountants to solving business problems such as costing a product, service or a business-wide strategy. Management Information Systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization while Decision Support System are Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would bean inventory of all of your current information assets including legacy, relational data sourcescomparative sales figures between one week and the next, projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions; the consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience in a context that is described.

3.)DSS can improve company's competitive advantage and organizational performance in away that DSS belong to an environment with multidisciplinary foundations, including (but not exclusively) database research, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, simulation methods, software engineering, and telecommunications.(http://www.wikipedia.com/)

Final question # 1

Research one company from the Internet and describe their MIS strategic plan in 1-2 paragraphs. Discuss too the impact of this strategic plan on the company's management, competitors, customers and the company as a whole.Evaluate how can this strategic plan be applied to any local company in the Philippines. Discuss too the possible effect on the company.Include your reference.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
EDSG- Environmental Data Solution group LLC

Developing a strategic EHS MIS direction allows companies to move forward with EHS MIS projects that support overall management system objectives. A strategic planning effort can identify and prioritize near and long-term EHS MIS initiatives based on need, as well as develop high level scheduling and budgetary estimates. The EHS MIS strategic planning process is intended to define high level business needs, assess current systems for their ability to meet these needs, and develop a strategic framework for moving forward.
EDSG has developed numerous proprietary tools and processes that facilitate strategic planning including the following: SPF, KMR, and Legacy Review
Project Summary: Continental Airlines operates greater than 200 facilities worldwide ranging for aircraft maintenance facilities to major hubs to remote stations. Environmental Affairs are centralized in Houston, Texas and a staff of 5 is responsible for environmental compliance and management at each of these facilities. This very lean group was overwhelmed with data about sites but had very little available information for day-to-day use. EDSG was contracted to develop a strategic plan for management of a wide variety of environmental information. Functional requirements considered in the strategic plan and solution design were:
Compliance management ,Facilities information ,Environmental cost tracking,Remediation project tracking ,Document management ,Air permits ,Wastewater permits ,Waste management
Chemical inventory ,Spill reporting For each functional area, EDSG assessed current work practices, applications in place (if any), requirements for future solutions, integration points with other business applications, and output requirements. In addition to addressing functional requirements, EDSG addressed technical requirements and the framework required by Continental IT staff for new applications. Based on the analysis of processes, current and future, EDSG recommended an EHS MIS strategy and solution design for Continental. This design consisted of the use of existing applications, new COTS applications, integration with existing systems, and development of a web interface tying all components together.After completing the strategic plan and establishing EHS MIS priorities, the priority topics are typically addressed in detail. The detailed design involves defining requirements, assessing solution options, further defining economics, and documenting the design.This will allow companies to quickly address priority topics in sufficient design to immediately and rapidly begin building the system. EDSG detailed designs address and incorporate both COTS and custom components as needed.EDSG incorporates the following proprietary tools and methods into the detailed design process: ARD Templates and ARD Workshops, COTS Specification, and Architect Specification.An additional element often included in the detailed design is EDSG's cost/benefit analysis. EDSG has developed proprietary methods to quantify both direct and INDIRECT benefits.Indirect benefits include risk and liability avoidance and are estimated by considering the company history, forecasting possible future scenarios by running probabilistic simulations using Monte Carlo simulations.EDSG is the only company who has specific proven methods to address indirect benefits in a systematic and defensible manner. Genentech, El Paso Corporation, Petro-Canada
Goodrich Corporation. This strategic plan could be apply in different company, if the assign person will use the right and proper way of spending the money for the development and improvement of its operation the inside and outside activities to achieve excellent project and mission for the progress.

midterm # 3

For those who are working, interview your IT in-charge and ask him/her to describe the computer database systems used in the company. Write your answer in 1-2 paragraphs. Further, ask also the benefits and/or disadvantages derived from these database systems.For those who are not working, research one company in the net who is using computerized database systems. Describe the use and/or nature of these systems and describe too the benefits/disadvantages from these systems. Include your reference.

_______________________________________________________

• HLS SYSTEM INC. HOME

We originally started our company to provide a business entity through which to develop and commercialize database products. Our first product was a patient tracking system for a local hospital using Ashton Tate's dBASE software as the foundation. We continue to develop custom database applications using Microsoft's FoxPro, Microsoft’s Visual FoxPro, or Microsoft’s Access to meet our customer's specific needs.
After hearing one horror story after another from friends and acquaintances about quality and performance issues relating to PCs they've purchased either from some local "white box" supplier or from some "big box" company, we decided to also build PCs for our customers, and to build them using only quality components suited to their specified needs. We do NOT use OEM* hardware parts manufactured specifically to increase our profit margin, but use only quality components having their original "full-up" capabilities and warrantees as provided by the original product's manufacturers. These are "off-the-shelf" manufactured parts with manufacturer's original warranties and specifications.
What Can HLS Systems, Inc. Do For You?
HLS Systems, Inc. purchases genuine manufacturer's brand-name parts having their full-up manufacture's stated capabilities through our distributors and uses them to build customized personal computers, PCs, each uniquely different and suited to our customer’s specific computing needs. HLS Systems, Inc. purchases and installs only the latest, state-of-the-art brand name components having full manufacturer's warrantees. In part what this means is that you can go to the product manufacturer's web site directly to download the latest drivers for their products installed in your HLS Systems built PC, as opposed to having to go to the company from whom you purchased your computer (Gateway, Dell, etc.) to download custom drivers for the degraded products (having OEM-sourced brand names attached to them) they provide in their systems. We use quality, recognized products from Intel (motherboards, CPUs, Chip Sets, etc.); memory from Crucial, Kingston, and other quality suppliers of RAM; Creative Labs audio products; Promise Technology RAID controllers; ATI, Matrox, and other brand name video cards utilizing nVidia chipsets; Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital hard drives along with KingWin removable hard drive systems; IOMEGA ZIP Drive products; Plextor CD-ROM drives; Pioneer DVD, DVD- R/RW combo Reader/Players; and cases from many sources including Antec (from which we also purchase our upgraded power supplies), Kingwin, and CoolerMaster to name just a few. Our case selection considers the new Intel Thermally Advantaged Case (TAC) specifications to ensure adequate cooling of the PC's internal components. As a result of using these as well as other select quality components, it is rare to have our PCs come back to us for repair as a result of hardware failures! We want our products to spend their time on your computer desk...not our workbench! That's why we choose to use quality components from name-brand manufacturers, and that's what makes our custom computing platform products "worth their price!"
Forget about paying others to do simple tasks such as the periodic updating of your web site fresh content, and having to work with their timelines instead of yours! Consulting services SOHO Support Custom Digital Graphics Video/Slide ShowProductions (Web, CD, or DVD-based) Bubble Imaging (2D or 3D Panoramics) Independent (Personal)Weather Station Setups Hard Drive Data Recovery *OEM: "Original Equipment Manufacturer" parts. "An OEM (original equipment manufacturer) is a company that uses product components from one or more other companies to build a product that it sells under its own company name and brand. (The term is sometimes mistakenly used to refer to the company that supplies the components.) IBM is an example of a supplier to the OEM market (and IBM is also an OEM itself since it uses other companies' parts in some of its products). Many computer hardware manufacturers [Intel, ATI, etc.] that have their own brand-name products derive considerable revenue by reselling the product or key parts of it to OEM companies that seem to be competing in the same market. Many OEM companies are selling a "solution" tailored to a particular vertical market."
the same modHere's the issue: A large PC manufacturer XYZ advertises, for example, that an "ATI All-In-Wonder" video card is installed in their PCs. What company XYZ does is to contract with ATI to build thousands of these video cards for their PCs. However, to hold their cost down in order to maximize their profits, there may be features that are disabled, are of lesser quality, diminished in terms of performance, or not even included...as opposed to the ATI card of the SAME name that you would buy off-the-shelf or directly from the manufacturer (supplier) of the card. Bottom line, that "mouse port" included with the video card may not be there on the OEM version of the card! Or, the OEM-version sound chip on your audio card may not implement all of the synthesized features you had expected to be there! A way to know whether or not your installed components are OEM parts in this sense is to find out who warrants the product and where you need to go to download updated drivers should you upgrade your operating system. If company XYZ warrants the parts (and/or provides the driver updates)...then these parts are more than likely "OEM." IF, on the other hand, ATI warrants your video card as well as provides the drivers for their product, then you know for sure you have an "original" version of that particular manufacturer's video card. If Gateway, for example, warrants el number card and provides the drivers then it is an "OEM" product.

Midterm Question # 2

Research 1 company and describe how they protect their company from internet risks.Also, research for possible risks or dangers and/or impacts of internet - related crimes to a company.
---------------------------------------------

Health U Care Company
Right now, someone within your company may be accessing confidential corporate information either dishonestly or by accident.
In the news virtually every week, you read about large, well-known companies suffering from the loss of sensitive corporate information at the hands of employees. Given that Human Resource departments often hold the key to valuable corporate and employee information, the risk of data breaches presents unique challenges for HR.
Fortunately, through simple and effective internal threat management procedures, HR can help prevent employee information leaks from happening to their company. These procedures will protect employees' most confidential and valuable information from being exposed to unauthorized parties.
Be aware of where critical employee information and corporate data are located and who has access to them.
Develop an acceptable use policy for all employees that outlines appropriate use of corporate assets and employee information. The policy should also outline the company procedures when a violation takes place.
Consistently enforce policies and procedures.
Regularly review and revise existing policies to ensure all necessary policy changes and additions have been addressed.
Ensure your company has an internal incident response plan and the appropriate resources in-house to handle an incident of employee information or corporate data loss or access by unauthorized employees or outsiders.
What Not to Do if a Data Breach OccursIf the worst should happen and your company does experience a situation where sensitive data is leaked or lost, don't fall prey to common mistakes such as turning on an employee's computer to check around. Turning on the computer or any electronic device involved may destroy potential evidence.
Here are ten common ways a computer forensics investigation is compromised. Company employees:
Boot up the computer. Turning on a computer that's relevant to a case can overwrite sensitive files that may be important to your company's case and change important time stamps. Compromised computers should not be used at all and should be stored in a secure location until it can be handed over to a computer forensics expert.
Turn off a relevant computer. If a computer is running at the time it is discovered to be relevant to a data breach or investigation, it should be powered down in a way that will be least damaging to potential evidence. The only person that should turn off a suspected computer is a certified computer forensics expert, or an IT employee under the supervision of such an expert.
Browse through the files on a computer. Resist the temptation to snoop, even with the best intentions. HR may know exactly where to look, but it's the act of looking that causes problems for retrieving untainted evidence. Browsing through files may cause file times to change which may make it impossible to tell exactly when an important file was deleted or copied from your company's network.
Fail to use a computer forensics expert. Your company's IT department is not a computer forensics department. In fact, asking the IT staff to conduct even routine checks into a system's files can destroy potential evidence. A professionally trained computer forensics expert should be retained for the handling of all sensitive data.
Fail to involve all parties. In-house counsel, IT staff, and every business player involved with the case should be included when conducting electronic discovery. Failure to involve all parties can result in overlooked or lost data.
Fail to learn the lingo. Even tech-savvy support professionals may become confused by the expanded vocabulary used by computer forensics experts. It pays to become familiar with the new language.
Don't make a forensics image of the computer(s) involved. Imaging is the process in which you create a complete duplicate of a hard drive. This is done for the purposes of copying a complete and accurate duplicate of the original materials, with no risk of flawed or overlooked data.
Copy data in "cut and paste" or "drag and drop" methods. It is true that you can buy an $80 external USB hard drive and copy your data to it. However, this process does not preserve the unallocated space (where deleted files reside) and will change the file times and other data on the files that have been copied out.
Wait to preserve the evidence. The longer a computer is in operation without any preservation, the more likely that the data that is relevant to your company's situation may be permanently altered or overwritten. Always preserve your electronic data the moment you believe that litigation is possible.
Fail to maintain a proper Chain of Custody at the time of collection. Not documenting who had access to the electronic evidence after the alleged incident can lead to problems down the road. Opposing parties can poke holes in the collection and preservation process. They can argue that the data could have been altered on the device while the computer was not securely stored and unused.You can protect the integrity of your corporate data and employee information for purposes of litigation and restoring and protecting against data loss. Just follow the rules shared here to maintain the integrity and not compromise the usability of your electronic devices and their stored data.