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 character-istics of the virus. Fears of a major public health crisis are greater now than ever before, and govern¬ments 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 implementa¬tion 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 telecom¬munications 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 "mas¬sive 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.
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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?
