MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION SYSTEM
Case I: Morgan
Stanley’s Return on System Non-investment
Morgan Stanley is global
financial services firm with more than 600 offices in 30 countries and over
53,000 employees. It was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in New York City.
The firm operates in four segments: Institutional Securities, Asset Management,
Retails Brokerage, and Discover (which provides Discover Card services.) The
firm acquired the Discover Card business as a result of its merger with retails
brokerage dean Witter discover and Co. in 1997.
The
unification of Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter created a digital, cultural, and
philosophical divide, which was extremely difficult to overcome. One of the
business sectors to suffer the most under this arrangement has been Retail
Brokerage, which manages $616 billion in client assets. Retail Brokerage
provides comprehensive brokerage, investment, and financial services to
individual investors globally, with 9,526 worldwide representatives in more
than 500 retail locations, including 485 in the United States.
Despite
the merger, the Retail Brokerage group was never accepted as an equal partner
by the rest of Morgan Stanley. Former Dean Witter employees have claimed they
felt like disrespected outsiders after the merger. The feeling persisted and
many retail brokers viewed their job security as tenuous at best.
Questions:
1.
Why did Morgan Stanley under invest in information
technology?
2.
Why was the merger with Dean Witter disruptive for the
company?
3.
If you were James Gorman, the new head of Global Wealth
Management Group, What information systems would you invest in ? Why? Do you
think Morgan Stanley's plans for an integrated client information system are
worthwhile? [Hint: Think of the services you would like to receive from your
banker or stock broker.]
4.
Aside from new systems, what changes in management and
organization are required to restore revenue and profit growth at the Global
Wealth Management Group?
CASE II:
If you turn
on the television, read a newspaper, or surf the Web, you're bound to find many
dire predictions about large-scale loss of life from biological or chemical
attacks or an avian influenza pandemic. Computer models estimate that between 2
and 100 million people could die in the event of a flu pandemic, depending on
the characteristics of the virus. Fears of a major public health crisis are greater
now than ever before, and governments throughout the world are trying to
improve their capabilities for identifying biochemical attacks or pandemic
outbreaks more rapidly.
On May 3, 2006, the United States government issued an
Implementation Plan for its National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza to improve
coordination among federal, state, and local authorities and the private sector
for pandemics and other public health emergencies. The implementation plan
calls for improving mechanisms for real-time clinical surveillance in acute
care settings such as hospital emergency rooms, intensive care units, and
laboratories to provide local, state, and federal public health officials with
continuous awareness of the profile of illness in communities.
One such initiative is the BioSense Real-Time Clinical
Connections Program developed by the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC). BioSense sits atop a hospital's existing information
systems, continually gathering and analyzing their data in real time. Custom
software developed by CDC monitors the facility's network traffic and captures
relevant patient records, diagnoses, and prescription information. The data include
patient age, sex, ZIP code of residence, ZIP code of the medical facility
handling the patient, the principal medical complaint, symptoms, onset of
illness, diagnoses, medical procedures, medications prescribed, and laboratory
results. The software converts these data to the HL7 data messaging format,
which is the standard for the health-care industry, encrypts the data, and
transmits them every 15 minutes over the Web to the CDC where they are
maintained in a large data repository.
Questions:
1.
Describe and diagram the existing process for reporting
and identifying major public health problems, such as a flu pandemic.
2.
How does BioSense improve this process? Diagram the
process for reporting and identifying public health problems using BioSense.
3.
Discuss the pros and cons of adopting BioSense for
public health surveillance. Should all hospitals and public health agencies
switch to BioSense? Why or why not?
4.
Put yourself in the role of hospital director at a
large urban hospital. Would you support joining up with the BioSense system?
Why or why not? What factors would you want to take into account before
joining?
CASE III: BLOCKBUSTER
vs. NETFLIX: WHICH WILL WIN OUT?
When Blockbuster entered the
video rental business in 1985, the industry consisted mostly of independent,
mom-and-pop-style stores whose entire reach may have been two towns or a few
city blocks. In its first 20 years of business, the rental giant opened 9, 100
stores in 25 countries, gaining a market share that has been enjoyed by few
companies in any industry.
Blockbuster
equipped each of its video rental stores with custom software it had designed
to simplify rental and sale transactions. An automated point-of-sale system
uses a laser bar code scanner to read data from items being rented or sold and
from a Blockbuster customer's identification card. These data are transmitted
to Blockbuster's corporate computer center. Management uses these data to
monitor sales and to analyze the demographics, and rental and sales patterns
for each store to improve its marketing decisions.
Questions:
1.
What is Blockbuster's
business model? How successful has it
been?
2.
What industry and
technology forces have challenged that business model? What problems have they
created?
3.
Is Blockbuster
developing successful solutions to its problems? Are there other solutions it
should have considered?
4.
How successful is
Netflix and its business model?
5.
Do you think Blockbuster or
Netflix will succeed in the future? Explain your answer.
CASE IV: IS THE TELEPHONE
COMPANY VIOLATING YOUR PRIVACY?
In May
2006, USA Today reported that three of the four major United States
landline telecommunications companies had cooperated with the National
Security Agency (NSA) fight against terrorism by turning over records of
billions of phone calls made by Americans. AT&T, Verizon Communications,
and BellSouth all contributed to the NSA's anti-terrorism program. Qwest
Communications International was the only one of the big four to withhold its
records.
The revelation by USA Today caused a firestorm of
controversy. Media outlets, privacy advocates, and critics of the Bush
administration expressed outrage over the program and questioned its legality.
The Washington Post referred to the program as a "massive
intrusion on personal privacy."
Questions:
1.
Do the increased
surveillance power and capability of the U.S. government present an ethical
dilemma? Explain your answer.
2.
Apply an ethical analysis
to the issue of the U.8 government's use of telecommunications data to fight
terrorism.
3.
What are the ethical,
social, and political issues raised by the U.S. government creating massive
databases to collect the calling data of millions of Americans?
4.
What is the
responsibility of a business such as AT & T or Verizon in this Matter? What
are the ethical, social, and political issues raised by a business, such as a
phone company, working with the government in this fashion?
5.
State your opinion of the agreement
reached by the White House and the Senate Judiciary Committee with regard to
the NSA wiretapping program. Is this an effective solution?
CASE V: Merrill Lynch
Connects Past and Future Technology
Merrill Lynch is a worldwide leader in-;'financial
management and advisory services, employing 50,600 workers 36 countries and
territories. The company and its subsidiaries provide brokerage, investment
banking, financing, wealth management, advisory, asset management, insurance,
lending, and other related products and services to private, institutional and
government clients with assets of $1.6 trillion'' In 2005, Merrill Lynch posted
a record S5.1 billion net earnings, a 15 percent increase over the previous
year, on net revenues of $26 billion.
One of the most critical components of Merrill, Lynch's
operations is its information technology infrastructure. Over the last five
years, that IT infrastructure has played a major role in the company gains.
Like many financial institutions, Merrill Lynch has had to modernize its
technology infrastructure order to remain competitive.
Merrill Lynch considered its IBM mainframe installation,
which was one of the largest in the world, to be a strategic asset. The
mainframe ran in the neighborhood of 23,000 programs to process the firm's 80
million daily online transactions for accessing customer accounts online or
making stock trades.
Questions:
1.
Why did Merrill Lynch
need to update its infrastructure?
2.
What is the
relationship of information technology to Merrill Lynch's business strategy?
How was its Web services initiative related to that strategy?
3.
Evaluate Merrill
Lynch's approach to Web services development. What are the advantages and
disadvantages? Is it a good solution? Explain your answer.
4.
Do you think that Merrill
Lynch's decision to sell off its successful technology initiatives was a good
idea? Why or why not?
Case VI: PANASONIC CREATES A SINGLE VERSION OF THE TRUTH
FROM ITS DATA
Panasonic is one of the world's leading electronics
manufacturers. It operates under the auspices of parent company Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., a conglomeration of over 600 firms that is based
in Kadoma, Japan. Collectively, the businesses of Matsushita manufacture 15,000
products for a global market and employ 330,000 people internationally. In
Europe alone, Panasonic has 15 sales subsidiaries, 14 manufacturing facilities,
five research and development centers, and seven administrative stations. Add
in major presences around the world, including Asia and North America, and it
is clear that Panasonic's operations cover the globe.
.
Questions:
1.
Evaluate Panasonic’s
business strategy using the competitive forces and value chain models.
2.
How did Panasonic’s
information management problems affect its business performance and ability to
execute its strategy? What management, organization and technology factors were
responsible for those problems?
3.
How did master data
management address these problems? How effective was this solution?
4.
What challenges did Panasonic
face in implementing this solution?
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