CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4 - Measuring the success of strategic initiatives

1.      Define metrics and describe the relationship between efficiency IT metrics and effectiveness IT metrics.

Metrics are the detailed measures that feed those key performance indicators (KPI). Efficiency and effectiveness metrics are two primary types of IT metrics. Efficiency IT metrics measure the performance of the IT system itself including throughput, speed and availability. Effectiveness IT metrics measure the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and sell-through increases. Peter Drucker offers a helpful distinction between efficiency and effectiveness. Drucker states that managers “Do things right” and / or “Do the right things”. Doing things right addresses efficiency (getting the most from each resources) while doing the right things addresses effectiveness (setting the right goals and objectives and ensuring they are accomplished). Effectiveness focuses on how well an organization is achieving its goals and objectives while efficiency focuses on the extent to which an organization is using its resources in an optimal ways.

2.      Explain why a business would use metrics to measure and success of strategic initiatives.

A business uses metrics to measure and success of strategic initiatives because business leaders want to monitor key metrics in real time to actively track the health of their business. Different financial ratios are used to evaluate a company’s performance. Companies can gain additional insight into their performance by comparing financial ratios against other companies in their industry. A few of the common financial ratios include internal rate of return, return on investment, payback method and break-even analysis. 

CHAPTER 3

strategic initiatives

• Introduces high-profile strategic initiatives that an organization can undertake to help it gain competitive advantages and business efficiences- supply  chain management.

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

• Invovle the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability. the four component of supply ;

1. Supply chain strategy
2. Supply chain partners
3. Supply chain operation
4. Supply chain logistic

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS MANAGEMENT

Involve managing all aspects of a customers relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization profitability.

BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING 

• Is a standardized set of activities that accomplish a specific task , such as processing a customers order.
• is an analysis redesign of workflow.

ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING

Integrates all department and function throughtout an organization into a single IT system so that employees can make decision by viewing enterprisewide information in all business operation.

ERP

CHAPTER 2

 

Identifying Competitive Advantages

• A competitive advantage is a feature of a doctor or service on which customers place a greater value than they do on similar offering from competitors.
• competitive advantages provide the same product or services either at lower price or with addition value that can fetch premium prices.

THE FIVE FORCES MODEL- EVALUATING INDUSTRY ATTRACTIVENESS

1.  Knowledgeable customers can force down prices by pitting rivals againts each other.
2. influential suppliers can drive down profits by charging higher prices for supplies.
3. competition can steal customers.
4. new market entrants can steal potential investment capital.
5. substitute products can steal customers.

BUYER POWER

• Buyer power is the ability of buyers to affect the price they must pay for an item.
• factors used to asses buyer power include number of customers, their sensitivity to price siza of orders, differences between competitors , and availability of subtitute products

SUPPLIER POWER

• Is suppliers ability to influence the prices they charge for supplies ( including materials, labor, and services).
• if supplier power is high, the supplier can influence the industry by :

1. Charging higher prices.
2. limiting quality or services.
3. shifting costs to industry participants.

THEREAT OF SUBTITUTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES

• The threat of subtitute products or services is high when there are many alternatives to a product of services and low when there are few alternatives from which to choose.

THEREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS

• Is high when it is easy for new competitors to enter a market and low when there are significant entry barriers to joining a market.

RIVALRY AMONG EXISTING COMPETITOR

• is high when competition is fierce in a market and low when competitors are more complacent.

THE THREE GENERIC STRATEGIES- CHOOSING A BUSINESS FOCUS

                  

THE GENERIC STRATEGIES

VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS - EXECUTING BUSINESS STRATEGIES

THE VALUE CHAIN

chapter 1

BUSINESS DRIVEN TECHNOLOGY

COMPETING IN THE INFORMATION AGE

- We live in the information age, when infinite quantities of fact are widely available to anyone who can use a computer.

- The impact of information technology on the global environment is equivalent to the printdent startups were mostly unheard of before the information age.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY'S ROLE IN BUSINESS

-Information technology is everywhere in business

-Understanding information technology provides great insight to anyone learning about business.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BASICS

-IT is a field concerned with the use of technology in managing processing information.

- Management information systems is a business function just as marketing, finance operation and human resources are business function. for example, data, information and business intelligence.

THE SOLUTION; MANAGEMENT INFORMANTION

- A system is collection of parts that link to achieve a common purpose,

-System thinking is a way of monitoring the entire system by viewing multiple inputs being processed or transformed tor produce outputs while continuously gathering feedback on each part.