MAN1600 Information Systems for Business Assignment

Task 1 

Q1. Collaborative Information Systems 

Provide screen prints showing:  

1. a) the final version of the ‘Collaboration’ document that you and your  collaboration partner(s) worked on in Google Docs for Tutorial Week 2 Q2 b ) the revision history of the document 
2. c) one or more ‘revision history’ pages (see the Tutorial 2 Google Docs Manual  pages 8/9) to show the version control elements of the document (i.e. what was changed and who changed it).  

Q2. Information Systems and Decision Making  

Scenario: 

Premier Inn is the UK's largest and fastest-growing hotel brand with over 580  budget hotels and more than 40,000 rooms across the UK and Ireland (and 2 in  India and 3 in Dubai). Premier Inn bedrooms feature en-suite bathroom,  Freeview at most hotels, and WiFi internet access. Premier Inn offers customers  a money-back ‘Good Night Guarantee' of a good quality room, comfortable  surroundings and friendly service, which is unique amongst Britain's leading hotel  chains. All Premier Inns feature a bar and restaurant; situated inside the hotel or  adjacent, offering a wide range of food choices.  

Decision: Premier Inn has to determine how much money to allocate to room  refurbishing at the Premier Inn Kensington in next year’s expenditure budget. 

1.  What type of decision would this be (operational, managerial or strategic)  and explain the decision-making process involved in this specific scenario 
2.  What type of information systems could be used in making the decisions (e.g. automated or augmentation IS or both) and why you think that type of IS can/should be used 
3.  Provide an example of the system software or application (state the name of  the application, the vendor and provide the URL or the citation/reference). [You  may obtain information from the Internet or printed resources]  

For the above, which is a strategic decision, an automated IS could/should be used as the decision making process is unstructured because…...... . An example of an application that can be used is the Finance Planning module of Oracle Financial  Services software http://www.oracle.com/us/industries/financial services/index.html  

Task 2 

Q1. Read page 62 of the text - Case Study; Competitive Advantage at National  Australia Bank). 

Also visit National Australia Bank at https://www.nab.com.au/ 

(I would suggest you navigate around the website thoroughly. In addition to the  information gathered from the website, use other resources including your own  experiences as a customer and what you hear/have heard/seen/read about NAB). This task is a follow-on question from the tutorial question we did during the lecture.  

Q2. Edith Cowan University (ECU) operates within a highly competitive global tertiary  education market. Who are ECU’s competitors? In what way(s) do you think ECU  can use IS to gain a competitive advantage? (You MUST provide  reasonable justification for your answers)  

Task 3 

Q1. After you created the database for Ron, he realised that he would also like to  keep track of the customers for whom the jobs were performed as well as those  who are potential customers.  

He needs the following information about customers in the database:  customer name, mailing address, e-mail address and phone number.  

The following business rules apply: 

• A customer can have many jobs done for him/her but each job must be assigned  to only one customer.  
• Ron may need to keep a record of a customer who may not currently have signed  up for any jobs yet.  

Extend the ERD created in the lecture for the entities for Ron’s business based  on the additional information above.  

Show the complete ERD i.e. draw/model it (I don’t want a screen print of the  relationship in MS Access as I want you to manually model the extended  conceptual database design first using the ERD in your assignment document  (for entities in the ERD you need to also indicate attributes [just the name of the  headings, not the actual data] and primary/foreign key).  

Your answer should show cardinalities and the type of relationship (mandatory  OR optional). Link entities using foreign keys, if necessary. State assumptions,  if any, you make about business rules.  

Q2. Implement the extended ERD (i.e. any new or amended entities and/or  relationships) created in Q1 above into the existing database created in the Week  4 Tutorial task in MS Access. Do screen prints (when you have the proper screen  in front of you, press the Print Screen button on your keyboard, go to where you  want to put it in your assignment document and click ‘paste’) of the following and  paste them in your assignment document :  

• Each new or amended table in data sheet view (populated) and in design view  (showing meta data) i.e. two (2) screen prints for each table. I want you to have  a couple of customers with more than one job assigned to them and at least one  with no jobs yet. 

• Create the relationships between any new and existing tables and implement  referential integrity and show the screen print of the new relationship from MS  Access (from the relationship canvas) in your assignment document.   
• Create a Form to input (enter) or change details of customers and jobs assigned  to them. Do a screen print of the Form in Form view and paste it in your  assignment document.  
• Create a query to show jobs assigned to a particular customer when the user  is asked to input the customer ID. Do screen prints of the query in design view  and the result of the query and paste them in your assignment document. 

• Create a report of a listing of jobs by customer showing their details and relevant  details of the jobs assigned to them (i.e. Job ID, Sub Contractor Name, Job Type,  Contract Price and actual finish date. Do a screen print of the report and paste it  in your assignment document. The report has to be properly formatted (imagine  you are going to use it as a ‘user’)   

For data types, if it is a mixture of numbers & text, use ‘text’ data type.  

Remember also:  

• In order to ‘link’ tables (i.e. where the primary key of one table is a foreign key  in another table), data types of both fields have to be the same and have the  same field size. (However, the one exception is, if a primary key in the one  table has the data type of ‘AutoNumber’ when you create the field in the many  table, it will have a data type of ‘Number’). Think also about the primary keys  you use.  

(You wouldn’t have the same ones for different entities i.e. not a customer ID,  Job ID and Contractor ID all with the primary key value of 1) 

• In linked tables, you cannot add a field entry as a foreign key in a many table  unless it exists as a primary key field entry in the one table first (as per the  tutorial, you couldn’t add a Sub Contractor ID in the JOB table [the ‘many’  table] unless it already existed in the SUB CONTRACTOR table [the ‘one’  table] first). 

Task 4

For this task, you are to choose one (1) example of WEB 2.0 technology (e.g.  Software as a Service [SaaS], Google Adwords, Google Adsense, Social  Networking, User Generated Content (UGC), Crowdsourcing). Find one (1)  peer-reviewed academic journal article of at least 4 pages in length and write  an essay (minimum 1.5 pages, maximum 2 pages) about the article using the  following as a guide (N.B.: if you are not sure about the suitability of the article,  speak to me):  

Introduction – What is Web 2.0 (also give the various technologies above  and say in your own words what they mean e.g. Software as a Service (where companies.....), UGC (this is where....). Why you have selected that  particular technology to research (e.g. related to the major you intend to do,  it interests you, you use it, etc.)  

Main Body – A summary of the article in your own words (2-6 paragraphs).  This would include things like the purpose of the article (or the research), how  the data was gathered, what the authors found.  

Conclusion - The conclusion of the essay will be your views on the article (do  you agree with the authors – why or why not; do you think it is a good article)   

Task 5 

Q1. At Gourmet Pizzas the process in place when receiving goods ordered from  suppliers is as follows: 

The inventory clerk will check the ordered goods against the delivery order and a  copy of the original invoice which was filed when the order was made. If there is a  discrepancy or error in the goods delivered compared to what was ordered, the  inventory clerk will advise the purchasing clerk by issuing an ‘error in order’ form.  The inventory clerk will return the goods to the supplier and the purchasing clerk  will send the supplier an error notification. If there are no errors in the delivered  order, the inventory clerk will advise the purchasing clerk by sending him a signed  copy of the delivery order. The inventory clerk will then update the stock on hand  card. When the purchasing clerk receives the signed copy of the delivery order, he  will update the purchase register. Then he/she will make a copy of the signed  delivery order and of the original invoice that was in the purchasing file and send  them to the payment clerk for payment to be made. The payment clerk will then  make the payment to the supplier. 

1. Model the Inventory Maintenance Process using BPMN notations and swim lanes. Show activities, data and process flows. 
2. Explain briefly how an information system can be used to improve the process. 

Q2. The ECU FB&L Library staff have prepared a document to help with this task. It is  under the Assignment section of Blackboard (Assessment>Assignment) titled  Task 5Q2 

Select any one of the following (it may be a good idea to select one from an area  which you are interested in or are choosing to major in) to research a relevant  software package (an application):  

• Sales and Marketing 
• Operations (e.g. retail, hospitality & tourism, education, etc.)
• Manufacturing 
• Human Resources Management (HRM) 
• Accounting 
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 

Using the Internet and/or other sources (you MUST provide referencing i.e. cite URL  [i.e. web address] and/or other details of the publications you use) find a vendor (seller)  of the application you have chosen and do the following: 

• State the name of the vendor and what the software/application is called. 
• Describe the features of the application (you must compare it to what the text says should be the features/functions of these types of applications). 
• State the cost if any. What is the implication(s) of this? 
• State the advantages and disadvantages of the application or problems/issues associated with it (use the text book to help you, if necessary.