Session #2-3 – IT and Your Career – In-Class Discussion Questions

Published December 23, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

What’s “jobless recovery”? Why is this happening?
Why has the median family income not been rising while GDP was growing rapidly for the past 20 years?
What’s “skill mismatch”? Why is this happening?
What kind of jobs are vulnerable to technology development?
What kind of jobs are immune to technology development?
What would you say to your children about the impact of technology on jobs?
What would you say to your kid’s school principal about it?
What would you say to President-Elect Trump about it?
What would you say to yourself about it?

Session #2-2 – IT-Driven Competitive Strategies – In-Class Discussion Questions

Published December 23, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

What bottleneck do Amazon.com and Netflix eliminate?
What is a Long Tail?
Why could Betterment and Wealthfront be disruptive?
Why are Uber and Airbnb disruptive?
What are the examples of one-sided network effects?
What are the examples of two-sided network effects?
Why do men pay more at a night club than women?
What happend to EJ? How serious is this incident to Airbnb?
What are the examples of online reputation systems in other platforms?
What are the policies in Uber to manage the pool of drivers?
Should Airbnb actually find out hosts who racially discriminate and ban them from participating the platform?

Published December 23, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

If you were Mr. Barton, how would you explain the situation in Chapter 10 to your CEO, Mr. Carl Williams, in English?
If you were Mr. Barton, how would you explain the situation in Chapter 10 to Wall Street analysts you’re scheduled to meet today?
What do we know for sure? What are the things that we are not sure?
Did an attacker or attackers intrude inside of IVK’s systems?
Why do you think this happened? If the security upgrade project was funded and completed, could IVK have prevented this completely?
What are the roles of board of directors in a business?
What would happen if a CIO or IT managers receive no adult supervision or control? What if he/she can handle IT in any way he/she wants?
What should be among the preventative policies and procedures for a failure due to personal devices?
What are the three recovery options that IVK IT group is considering?
What are the reasons to disclose the security incidents? What would be the reasons not to disclose?
Why has Mr. Williams decided to do nothing and not to disclose the incident? What was his thinking?

Published December 23, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

How much do you think Otis has spent in Otisline and e*Logistics? How can we justify such a large amount of investments?
What are the business benefits of Otisline?
Who provides the IT budget at IVK? On what basis do the business units at IVK pay for IT?
Why had Mr. Davies, the former CIO, have to set up “slush funds”? How did he secure the slash funds?
Why is Mr. John Cho requesting an immediate funding on IT security? Why has the request for IT security funding kept being denied?
Do you know why there is no group assignment in this course?
What does Maggie, Mr. Barton’s girlfriend/consultant, mean by “one neck in the noose”?
How would you evaluate the IT funding process at VWoA? Is it better than the current process at IVK? How?

Published December 23, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

What is a competitive strategy?
What is a sustainable competitive advantage?
What does it mean by a bargaining power of buyers?
If there are so many competitors in your industry or your market, what would you do to better compete with them?
According to the case, which business is more profitable? Elevator manufacturing or service? Why?
How often do you change your doctor? Why?
Can you think of an example of bundle around us? Why do firms sell a bundle?
What are the improvements in customer service from OTISLINE?
What is BHAG (p. 5)? Why is this “quantum leap improvement” (p. 5) necessary?
How were things going before e*Logistics? How now are things going after e*Logistics? What are the improvements from e*Logistics?
What do they mean by “the management of information flows” (p. 8)? Why is it important?

Published December 23, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

Why do you think MIS 5402 is a required course for Fox PMBA?
Amazon.com used to be an online retailer that sells stuff. Why did it start to make “stuff” in 2009?
What happened to Target in Dec 2013?
How likely is it that an IT disruption would happen to your company?
Which industry or company can operate without functioning IT in 2017?
Why do you hate your CIO or IT group at your company?
If you were Mr. Jim Barton, would you take the CIO offer from Mr. Williams?
Why did Mr. Davies warn Mr. Barton that he will not last more than a year?
Should a CIO be chosen among technically-trained managers or business-background managers?
Which skill is easier to learn? IT or Management?
What does it mean by “IT management is about management”?
What does it mean by “IT department is positioned to understand how the business works better than any other department”?
Why does a business need a CIO? What are the roles of a CIO in business? What are the qualifications of a CIO?