EXAM PREP

EXAM PREP

1. Porter's 5 Forces

   • Threat of new entrants: How easy is the market to enter? Do you require capital? Customer Loyalty will make it difficult for new entrants.
   • Threat of substitutes: What is an alternative to the product? Could it take market share? By creating a product differenciator the company can reduce the threat of substitutes.
   • Competitor Rivalry: How are the existing competitors in the market? Is it complacent or is there tension being companies? By building customer relationships and loyalty and offering a niche product the company can avoid rivalry
   • Supplier Power: Can the supplier change the cost of the goods, without you flowing that through to the customer? How many suppliers are there to service the market? Supplier rivalry can be reduced by creating contacts and building strong relationships.
   • Buyer power: The buyer has the ability to influence pricing. Creating a niche product can avoid this.

2. Competitive Advantage

   • Can be achieved by using Porter's value chain:
     • Inbound: Receiving resources/materials
       • Operations: How the goods/services are processed
         • Outbound: How the service is delivered
           • Marketing and sales: How the product is communicated
             • Service: The after-care
     • Firm infrastructure: The way the business/people are set up
       • Human resources: Key employees, training
         • Procurement: Where to source resources?
           • Technology development: How the systems use MIS to support each other.
   • Means a company is offering a product of service that the consumer feels is more valuable than the competitor. This can be achieved through a product differenciator.
   • Always temp

3. Website issues

   • Measure success: Reach % of visitors - Frequency: Average number of times site accessed by unique visitor - Duration - Average time spent on site per visit. This will determine the reliability (if the site is functioning), scalability (can handle the amount of users), usability (easy to use).
   • Planning a good website will include using teh systems development lifecycle: 1. Planning: creating the idea - 2. Analysing: determining what the user needs - 3. Designing: Determining the look and functionality of the site. - 4. Develop: Create the site. - 5. Test: Does it meet the needs. - 6. Implement: Go live! - 7. - Maintainance: Update. This relies on COMMUNICATION. Steps can't be missed and requirements need to be clear
   • Users, general managers and IS managers need to agree on the site. Is it easy to use? Does it produce business? Does it function well?
   • Multilingual with unique domain by country
   • The website should be insourced to use company expertise to maximise revenue.

4. Data and information

   • Data: Raw facts
     • Information: Data put into context that can be used for decision- making
   • Data should remain free from inconsistancies in order to be valuable. These include: Accuracy: Correct information. Complete: Everything there. Consistent: The same format. Timely: Available on time. Unique: No duplicates.

5. Databases

   • Databases hold all relevant information to the business. Is editable.
     • Using a DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM as the go-between. This handles: Security, integrity (uniqueness), and user permissions
   • Data warehousing works to combine data from multiple location into one database. This allows for a greater depth of information and interprise wide business intelligence. Reports and analysis. Not editable.
   • Data marts are specific aras, or departments of the data warehouse that can be used to create sepecific business intelligence. For example HR or IT services.
   • Data mining is the ability to search data marts to find trends, reationships and patterns that you didn't know exsisted.