Mgmt 221 Module 2 Review

Module 2 Review

What strategic role can information technology play in business process reengineering?

IT is a key ingredient in reengineering business operations because it enables radical changes to business processes that dramatically improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Internet technologies can play a major role in supporting innovative changes in the design of workflows, job requirements, and organizational structures in a company. (O’Brien and Marakas, 2010)

How could an organization use Internet technologies to from a virtual company or become an agile competitor? (Use agile competition in the right context; check your textbook glossary.)

A business can use information technology to help it become an agile company. Then it can prosper in rapidly changing markets with broad product ranges and short mode lifetimes in which it must process orders in arbitrary lot sizes; it can also offer its customers customized products while it maintains high volumes of production. An agile company depends heavily on Internet technologies to help it respond to its customers with customized solutions, and to cooperate with its customers, suppliers, and other businesses to bring products to market as rapidly and cost-effectively as possible. (O’Brien and Marakas, 2010)

Forming virtual companies has become an important competitive strategy in today’s dynamic global markets. Internet and other information technologies play a key role in providing computing and telecommunications resources to support the communications, coordination, and information flows needed. Managers of a virtual company depend on IT to help them manage a network of people, knowledge, financial, and physical resources provided by many business partners to take advantage of rapidly changing market opportunities. (O’Brien and Marakas, 2010)

How could an organization use information technology to lock in its customers and suppliers and increase switching costs? Use business examples to support...