The CEO and CIO in your company wants to propose a new information system that m

Question

The CEO and CIO in your company wants to propose a new information system that may have a strategic impact on the business. They believe that by gathering data on competitors' customers, the business will gain a significant competitive advantage. You are the primary lead when applying technology to the business and you have been asked for your opinion about this new opportunity. In a 1,500–1,750-word e-mail response, provide your opinions about an information system such as this. Be sure to answer the following questions: What would the advantages and disadvantages of the information system be? Identify the type of information system this would represent. What ethical problems might this type of system introduce? Provide at least 2 examples of potential problems. Address this type of information system with respect to how organizational decision making might be impacted. Does it matter whether the customers are individuals or businesses? Why or why not?

Explanation / Answer

* Opinion about the information system built on competitors' customers data to apply the technology to the business to gain a significant competitive advantage and to have strategic impact on the business.

This kind of information system is possible and can be built. This is a system of computer database and information system which would give a lot of data about the existing customers and any potential customers gained in the future. This also gives a lot of analytics, facts, figures, information, products, features, services, solutions, consumptions by the customers, their usages, requirements, use cases, testimonials, feedbacks, advices, suggestions, complaints and surveys. Based on these details the company can manufacture, create, develop products and services and provide the same to those already existing customers of the competitors, market and sell the products and services to them thereby increasing the revenue by creating profits in figures, build customer relationships and bring more portential customers into business. This is a good idea as the company does not have to experiment on their discoveries or inventions where they simply come to know about the business strategy by just knowing on how other companies are doing business in the market and how thier customer's are in business relationship with those companies. It has changed the roles of the customers, consumers and end-users due to accessiblity of the Internet and Web where they can directly make businesses with the companies on the products and services by actively participating in the manufacturing of the products, development of games, software and applications with developers, employees, customer Service and Technical Support Engineers to find bugs, provide ideas, develop, feedbacks, suggestions, complaints and advices. The customers can also create and contrinute in the blogs, communities on the company's websites. They can make or even break products for re-consideration.

There are many types of Information Systems which can be implemented depending on the specific business requirement they are designed to meet. This Information system can be developed within the organization or can be outsourced to a service based company to develop it providing them their business requirements.

* What would the advantages and disadvantages of the information system be?

Advantages:

1) This information system would give large amounts of data.
2) The data are reliable as these would be facts and figures.
3) The system can be created with a database system with collection of data in an organized way.
4) These collection or set of data inturn make a lot of information gathered to be used for the business strategy.
5) These data and information could be used to answer the company's relevant questions and solve problems related the business.
6) These data can be analyzed, done research on them using this information system software and can distinguish and determine about the facts and can even be predicted on the future behaviour of the business, products and the services.
7) The data can be used to make decisions and is considered as a business strategy.
8) It supports the operations of the business.
9) It is used for management of data and business.
10) It helps a lot in controlling, managing, administering, monitoring, processing, predicting, analyzing the data to inturn better the business processes' performance.
11) Business owners can take necessaty and appropriate actions based on the data they have in the system.
12) It reduces cost, time energy in gathering and manipulating data in other ways.

Disadvantages:

1) However, this gathering of data on competitors' customers will need to be done ethically, professionally, officialy and legally as the company may be dealing with the csatomer's personal and other sensitive information.
2) There are chances the customer's data can be compromised or the database server holding these data can be hacked or taken over by intruders. The attackers would misuse the customers' data by editing, appending with wrong data, deleting them and could even make ransom money if those financial related data such as SSN, Credit Card details, login credentails, etc. are stolen.
3) The company gathering the customers data may even intentionally or unintentionally publish the data to the public on any inappropriate media without customers' consent disclosing their infromation which would put the customers in awkward situations.
4) The company may reproduce, use or replicate copyright or patented customers' data for the company's commercial purposes to make revenue which is unethical and illegal.
5) Such a system can have data management issue which are basically data related issues such as in internet and cloud management, information retrieval, data science, data mining, etc.

* Identify the type of information system this would represent.

Depending on the use case and business requirement at different levels and in different functions below are the different Information Systems that can be derived.

From general perspective, basically this would be a DBMS (Data Base Management System) of data in the general information system perspective.
If specifically used this can be designed and built as an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system making it a specialized information system to implement a particular process and project within an organization to do specific analysis, research and predictions. This particular system is used to process, organize and integrate all the internal and external information of data across an any organization if the customers are enterprises, businesses or companies.

As in this case the focus is more on the customers's data and to do business with them, this would require a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) which can be considered as an enterprise system deployed in the company which primary deals and is implemented to be used for the company's customers in marketing, sales, customer service, production, inventory and product development.

Hence this is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Information System.

* What ethical problems might this type of system introduce?

1) However, this gathering of data on competitors' customers will need to be done ethically, professionally, officialy and legally as the company may be dealing with the customer's personal and other sensitive information.
2) There are chances the customer's data can be compromised or the database server holding these data can be hacked or taken over by intruders. The attackers would misuse the customers' data by editing, appending with wrong data, deleting them and could even make ransom money if those financial related data such as SSN, Credit Card details, login credentials, etc., are stolen.
3) The company gathering the customers data may even intentionally or unintentionally publish the data to the public on any inappropriate media without customers' consent disclosing their infromation which would put the customers in awkward situations.
4) The company may reproduce, use or replicate copyright or patented customers data for the company's commercial purposes to make revenue which is unethical and illegal.

* Provide at least 2 examples of potential problems.

1) Customers' data privacy or security issue. (Ex. The employees in the company misusing the customers' financial information). Basically it is information security issue.
2) A simple human error can cause a devastating transaction, financial misrepresentation of data and processing of such data in a wrong way causing losses for one or many customers or the company itself.
3) Other problems could also occur due to the Information System affected with viruses, malware, phishing attacks, causing identity-theft, complete break down of the system, loss of data or corruption of data, etc.

* Address this type of information system with respect to how organizational decision making might be impacted.

Mostly this type of information system will have a positive impact on the organizational decision making on how they do business in the way the system works both on web and on mobile technologies. The organization's capabilities are enhanced. Using the system the employees, customers, individuals and groups can make decisions on the business operations collaboratively for betterment of the products and services, innovation in the projects, processes, it helps building relationship between the companies and the custosmers in a productive way. This system has almost gone making businesses virtual rather than physical and in real in the web and Internet world. The partners, customers, employees, stake-holders and other can work together from any part of the world, anytime and using any Internet connected device irrespective of the deevices architecture and operating system to connect among themselves virtaully and do business successfully.

On the other to safeguard the customer' and companies' data, assets, resources in the Information System, the companies have considered and implemented Information System audits where it audits the control, process and operations of the system. This audit is both for the data in rest and in transmit. The audit keeps a track of the financial transactions been made through the system. This is to trace the financial transaction occurence and how the same was processed.

Also, the company should perform operational audit on the system to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the systems operations so they can use the system in the future as well. There is also technology audit to check if the system is configured and implemented properly meeting all the Standards on data, identity, security, integrity in the system. This is usually done through Standard or Non-Standard penetration testing on the hosting platform where the Information System application is deployed and hosted.

* Does it matter whether the customers are individuals or businesses?

Why not?

No. It does not matter whether the customers are individuals or businesses. However, different types of Information System can be used for either individuals or businesses based for efficient use of the system and produce a successful outcome.

* Why?

IT may matter on the type, seats or subscription, plan, package of the Information System the company is using based on who its users are if they are businesses or customers for the system to be specific in its functionality, the options, features and the services the system provides and processes.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.