BUS2206 Information Systems Management 2022/2023 First Term

Question 1 (15 marks)

a)   There are three kinds of workers: secretaries, scientists and architects.

Which principal level of business organizations does each kind of workers usually belong to? (3 marks)

b)  What are computers and computer programs? (2 marks) What is the relationship between computers/computer programs and information system? (2 marks)

c)  What is a data warehouse and what are its two main characteristics? Describe the main difference between a data mart and a data warehouse. (8 marks)

Question 2 (20 marks)

From Chapter 2 of your textbook, you learned that a business process involves the flow of

information, materials and money. You also learned that a business process can be an asset or a liability to a business organization. You are a new hire as business manager of a company, and you are eager to improve the company's performance. You have investigated the order

fulfilment process, which is manually operated (e.g. the company operates on a traditional file environment where each department keeps its own set of files such as excel file, MS    word file, or even on printed papers). You found the process is a liability to the company

because it takes too long to handle an order. You would like to shorten the process time in order to save operation costs. The following table depicts the current customer order

fulfilment process:

From the above table, the total time for a customer to receive a product is 10 days. You want to replace the sequential steps with parallel steps by using information technology (IT).

a)    What are the IT tools you can use to make the business activities run in parallel? List

FOUR IT tools and estimate the time saved by each of these IT tools. (10 marks)

b)   Illustrate the new business process by filling the table provided below. Keep the original event numbers and put the parallel events in the same row. If the parallel events are

performed by the same department, put them in the same cell. You are required to give justifications to your new design and estimate the total time required under this new

design. The estimation will be used in a management proposal for you to secure funding to implement the required IT infrastructure. (10 marks)

Question 3 (10 marks)

Figure 1. The Bullwhip Effect

a)  What is the bullwhip effect (4 marks)?

b)  What are A, B and C in Figure 1, respectively (3 marks)?

c)  What is D in Figure 1? What are consisted of D (3 marks)?

Question 4 (5 marks)

a)  What model is also known as the “build-to-order” model? (2 marks)

b)  What tools does Customer Relationship Management (CRM) packages typically include? (3 marks)

Question 5 (8 marks)

Figure 2. The Disintermediation to the Consumer

a)  According to Figure 2, please identify which ways (among A, B, and C) is the most

expensive for delivering the products to customers? Please also explain the reason for your choice. (3 marks)

b)  According to Figure 2, please compare the product prices among three ways (among A, B and C). Please also explain the reason for your answer. (5 marks)

Question 6 (12 marks)

The Internet and e-commerce technologies are widely used in our daily life.

a)  What are three major types and their abbreviations of business of e-commerce? (4 marks)

b)  What are the e-commerce revenue models? Please name FOUR e-commerce revenue models. (4 marks)

c)  How has e-commerce transformed marketing? Please name FOUR ways. (4 marks)

Question 7 (20 marks)

Class Table

Student Table

Instructor Table

Enrollment Table

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6

a)   Consider the database shown in Figure 3, what is the result of executing the query in Figure 4? Show your answer in the form of a table as below.                                            (4 marks)

(Note: The answers may/may not have the same size as the above table.)

b)  Consider the database shown in Figure 3, design a query that displays the Student ID of the unpaid students (i.e., students that didn’t pay for their courses) and their total unpaid amount.  The  query  should  display  the  Student  ID  and the  Total  Unpaid  Amount  in descending order of the Total Unpaid Amount (Figure 5). Depict the query as in Figure 7. (8 marks)

c)   Consider the database shown in Figure 3, design a query that displays the total students taught by each instructor, the instructor’s ID, their names and the average student age of their taught courses. The query should show the result in Figure 6. Depict the query as in Figure 8. (8 marks)

Figure 7

Figure 8

Question 8 (10 marks)

a)   Consider the following Microsoft Excel worksheet that models an Income and Cash Flow Statement for a company, the worksheet has the known components:

.    C7: It is the type of the company. The value can be either “A” or “B” .

.    C2: It is the Tax Rate for Type A Company

.    C3: It is the Tax Rate for Type B Company

.    B8: It is the Tax Exemption of Year 2021.

.    C10: It contains the Maximum Tax Refund.

.    C11: The Minimum Cash on Hand.

.    C14: It contains a formula to find the Beginning-of-year Cash on Hand

.    C15: It contains the Sales of this year.

.    C16: It contains the Cost of Goods Sold

.    C18: It contains the formula to find Income before Taxes

.    C21: It contains the formula to find Net Income after Taxes

.    C22: It contains the formula to find Net Cash Position (NCP).

.    C25: It contains the formula to find End-of-year Cash on Hand

.    C28: It contains the Beginning-of-year debt owed.