Weekly Question #4
Leave your response as a comment on this post by the beginning of class on June 7th, 2016. Your response only needs to be about three or four sentences. For these weekly questions, I’m mainly interested in your understanding of the readings. In your response, indicate from which reading you are pulling your key points and details. You may use the same reading as another class mate, but try to pull out a point or detail that hasn’t been shared yet. As a class, you can use this to build out your Study Guide on the readings for each exam.
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Here is the question:
Select one of the readings from Unit 3.2 and pull out 1 key point of the reading. Provide some detail as to why this is important, based on your understanding of the readings.
“CRM software is a tool that should provide the structure necessary to connect the majority of customer “touch points”, and as such aid in discovering more about business trends and ultimately enabling teams to operate much more efficiently and effectively.”
To be honest I don’t know how my company would conduct business without using a CRM. Our CRM provides a tremendous amount of valuable data that is essential for us to run our business. How would you be able to measure success vs failure, or industry trends, or even revenue growth? I can tell you that we use Salesforce.com and it has provided valuable, meaningful data that has allowed us to focus and refocus efforts where and when needed.
I really enjoyed the article What we Know, About the Internets disruptive power. Daniel Bell who was had Harvard before any technology that we are used to today, envisioned a world where communication was able to be spread through TV, computers, cell phone as a normal means of communication. Bell foreshadowed the world we have all grown used to.
Wikipedia: “Systems Develop Life Cycle” – within a life-cycle of systems development, there are 5 phases: Analysis, Design, Coding, Deploy and Support. Each phase is critical to the making up of an efficient and effective system. In the Analysis phase – analyze solutions, look for alternatives, cost & benefits, provide preliminary recommendations. Design phase – operation and feature details, swimlanes, ERD’s, basically start to put your documentation together about how the system will work, in a nutshell – it’s your “blueprint.” Coding phase- actual development is completed here; testing of the system takes place and all inefficiencies that are found at this time are worked through and corrected and the users begin training. Deploy phase – system goes into production and begins to run the business- this is your “Go Live” point. Support phase – baseline system receives maintenance, updates and added features to keep system current. Although the Support phase is the last phase listed, it’s technically a not. After this, the “life-cycle” repeats itself to ensure a well-maintained system.
The author of the article “Build vs. Buy: How to Know When You Should Build Custom Software Over Canned Solutions” gives several reasons to when it is better to purchase an off-the-shelf software rather than developing your own one. First, if the budget is tight, buying canned software would be the best choice because it is much cheaper. Second, if the company doesn’t have the right people to develop the software, it would be impossible to accomplish. Third, building new software requires great amount on time, so the company should take this into consideration. Fourth, customized software might already be available for the industry the company is in and it would be impractical to waste money on building similar software and spending more money on it. Finally, if technology does not differentiate the business, it is better to spend money on core business operations rather than developing new software.
According to the article CEA’s 5 Tech Trends for 2015, the five trends are big data; robotics; digital health and the quantified self; entertainment and immerse content; and business models in innovation economy. One of the trends that took more my attention was robotics because machines plays a huge role in our day-to-day life since we are surrounded by them. Every day, new products are developed to help humans to have a better and easier life by using this products, but I believe there is a down part in which these products can make us in some future useless.
The reading, “Build vs. Buy: How to Know When You Should Build Custom Software Over Canned Solutions,” the author discusses costs and benefits of buying or building software. For example, smaller businesses would benefit from canned software if they have a limited budget, a lack of time, and technology is not a competitive advantage for that specific company. On the other hand, if a larger business is dynamic and rapidly changing then custom software could help the business with increased productivity, competitive advantage, and faster reaction time. Also, if a business plans to evolve for a long period of time then custom software is the way to go because it can change with the company.
The article “Putting enterprise into enterprise system” illustrates some reasons for the company not to use ERP system:
– Customization can be problematic. Compared to the best-of- breed approach, ERP can be seen as meeting an organization’s lowest common denominator needs, forcing the organization to find workarounds to meet unique demands.
– Re-engineering business processes to fit the ERP system may damage competitiveness or divert focus from other critical activities.
– ERP can cost more than less integrated or less comprehensive solutions
– High ERP switching costs can increase the ERP vendor’s negotiating power, which can increase support, maintenance and upgrade expenses
– Overcoming resistance to sharing sensitive information between departments can divert management attention
– Integration of truly independent businesses can create unnecessary dependencies.
– Extensive training requirements take resources from daily operations
– Harmonization of ERP systems can be a mammoth task (for big companies) and requires a lot of time, planning, and money
This week I chose the article,”Build vs. Buy: How to Know When You Should Build Custom Software Over Canned Solutions”. I believe this is important for self explanatory reasons, thus being because the article tells when its best to buy or build custom software. For example, one should buy canned solution if they have a: limited budget, lack of technical proficiency, lack of time, great canned software is already available, and if technology wouldn’t give them a competitive advantage. Whereas a company will build their own software if: off the shelf software can meet every need, because canned solutions are rigid, and off the shelf software might not be compatible with other programs.
After reading “CEA’s 5 Tech Trends for 2015”, I was able to gain a greater understanding as to where the future of technology is headed. The articles lists the top 5 as big data, robotics, digital health & the quantified self, entertainment & immersive content, and business models in the innovation economy. The first four tech trends are evident in everyday life and would be good industries to get into. Whether it’s investing or career prospects, the article makes it clear this getting involved with these technologies would be smart. Finally, the 5th tech trend mentioned is business models in the innovation economy. Economic and business trends are not usually included in these evaluations, but the articles makes it clear that with the changing innovation economy, creating new and effective business models is becoming essential in today’s world.
In the article, “What We Know About the Internet’s Disruptive Power,” it is confirmed that the Internet sustains or in some cases increases profitability through increasing the size of markets, boosting efficiency, and dampening the power of suppliers by enabling direct contact between a company and its customers. But it also, ultimately, intensifies competition and decreases profit margins. The fast pace of the Internet plays a major role in developing competitive advantages of companies and generating new ways of creating sustainable value. The scale of these changes will continue to grow as innovation of the Internet continues.
The article that was the most interesting for me in section 3.2 was “CEA’s 5 Tech Trends for 2015”. After reading it i realized how much our technology is moving forward and what goals it is trying to reach. The article mentioned the 5 top trends to be Big Data, Robotics, Digital Health & the quantified self, Entertainment & immersive content, and Business models in innovation economy. I can see all of these trends developing around me, my favorite one has to be the immersive part of entertainment. We can see an example of this in the new samsung VR, that makes you virtually get connected to the phone. The important point is that these tech trends will be with us before we know it so we should be able to adopt them and keep up with them until they finally reach us.
As I was reading the article, “CEA’s 5 Tech Trends for 2015”, I found it very interesting to read about the new things our technology has developed. There are many goals and expectations to be met in the next few year and I look forward to see them be accomplished. My favorite of the 5 would be the robotics due to the fact that already so much has become automatic rather than by hand and the fact that things like a car that drives itself is crazy! It is very important to read and learn about the new tech trends so we know what the goals and expectations are.
The article, “Hidden in The Long Tail” deals with information regarding E-Commerce. An interesting fact that i found was that Economist originally thought that prices were going to drop an selection would increase — in regards to e-commerce implementation. This is important because we now know that selection has increased but price still remains the same or increased. Online prices are very diverse and it would be very hard to track them or conduct a study. I believe that this is the most important point because it shows how hard the internet is to predict. The world had no idea how impactful e-commerce would be.
I found the article “Systems development life cycle” on Wikipedia to very important. The System development life cycle or (SDLC) is a term used to describe the process of planning, creating, testing, and developing and information system. The life cycle can be broken down into 5 phases: Planning, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance. The Maintenance stage can be considered the most important stage because this is the stage where the information system spends the majority of its time. It is crucial that the system is continually assessed to ensure that it does not become obsolete.
I decided to summarize the “CEA’s 5 Tech Trends for 2015” The article basically talks about the announcement of 5 technology trends to watch out for 2015. The event brought together start up companies and investors. The first tech trend to watch out for is big data. Companies collect large amounts of data about consumers in order to understand what they like and then improve upon their product. Big companies are now shifting towards gather and interpret data in order to understand trends. The second trend was robotics. Machines will continue to play a role in society. We are to expect more robots that are designed towards helping out around the house and doing chores. Robots to fit consumer wants. The third trend is digital health and the quantified self. Wearable devices will be used to track sleep, mood, blood pressure, and overall health. The fourth trend is entertainment and immersive content, There will be 4D movies, video games and races. People will not only be able to experience the movie like they used to but feel what is going on with movements and special effects. The fifth trend is the business models in the innovation economy. These are not usually introduced in the trends and relate to new technologies and business models in innovation and the economy. The characters of disruption in the second digital era include scale, network effects, compressing diffusion cycles, shift to services and multi-sided platforms.
The article titled “Hidden in the Long Tail” really stood out to me for many different reasons. I was surprised by this article mainly because it is obvious for one predict that with the implementation of Ecommerce, prices would ultimately decrease, but as shown through the article, this was not the case. As commerce has moved online, the selection of products has vastly increased, giving buyers the benefit to be better matched to that specific product. Due to expansion in technology and resources, the buyer is given more of a variety which as a result have caused an increase in prices. Therefore, if a business is selling a unique product that is highly demanded by consumers, it is likely that the price will increase significantly. This type of occurrence does not happen if the product is an easy-to-find commoditized product.
I have the “Hidden in the Long Tail” article to be very interesting. The article examines e-commerce and it’s affect on prices and benefits to both the buyer and the seller. When online shopping started to take off, economists predicted that consumers would gain two big benefits: 1. Prices would become lower and more uniform, and 2. the selection available to consumers would increase. While these economists got the latter correct, their prediction about lower and uniform prices was not the case. Online prices have actually been pretty diverse. Value of certain goods (most of the time niche products) sometimes rises when sold online because without the internet, the consumer may have not found the item. Glenn Ellison and Sara Ellison of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) conducted a study on used books that are sold online. Through their study they found that on average the typical book sold for 50% more online. While most people would think that paying more for an item just because it’s sold online is a rip-off, the Ellison’s argue that “higher prices are a sign that buyers are being better matched to books they want.” I found that conclusion to be very interesting and important for future reference when dealing with e-commerce.
The article I chose to highlight was “Build vs. Buy: How to Know When You Should Build Custom Software Over Canned Solutions.” The main consensus of the article is that custom software is ultimately the better option for a business to maximize their growth potential and market share. With that being said, this is not realistic for all types of businesses especially smaller scale companies that lack technological resources. When technological advancements do not provide a company with a competitive advantage over the competition in the market it is often better to use a canned software over a custom software tailored towards the specific operational needs of your business. Smaller companies with limited time, man power, and resources should stick with canned software, and larger companies that have the resources and capital should create custom software to help differentiate their products from their competitors. This article is extremely important for companies of all sizes to help understand which software would be best for the long term success of their business.
I chose the article “CEA’s 5 Tech Trends for 2015: From Big Entertainment to Small Business”. It is amazing to me to see these trends and to see what really has evolved throughout the more recent years. The craziest trend that I read about in this article was the robotics and how there could be a generation that won’t know how to drive cars. Reading through this article helped to really show how something like a fitbit, which we see as something as such a normal thing and part of a lot of people daily lives, has really evolved into being capable of tracking and doing so much. Overall very interesting article to read.
The article “What is RFID?” I thought was an important article because RFID ( short for Radio Frequency IDentification) has many different uses and increases efficiency in the supply chain immensely. RFID is a technology that uses electromagnetic fields to track and identify objects that have special RF tags. It is used in hospitals for patients, in passports for security, in libraries for books, fast payment of road tolls, container seals, inventory control and more. This technology literally works at the speed of light, because the RFID reader reads the RF tags as electromagnetic energy. This is cool because the RF tag’s information cannot be read by the naked eye and therefor its information is kept secret, and at the same time can be read by an RFID at the speed of light, allowing the supply chain process to go as fast as possible without almost any errors.
In the article titled, “Build vs. Buy: How to Know When You Should Build Custom Software Over Canned Solutions” the author discusses different scenarios in which it may be beneficial for companies to implement custom or canned technological systems. One key point the author makes is that while a company may have the necessary resources to implement a custom system of some sorts, it will not give them a competitive edge over anyone if the company’s line of business does not really rely on high-functioning technological systems to succeed. For example, a furniture may have the resources necessary to implement a custom system, but because of the type of business they are in the implementation of this system will not really give the company any edge over any other competitor in terms of selling furniture.
The article I chose was “How to Choose the Right CRM Software”. The reason I chose this article was for its practicality as it involved links for businesses choosing the right program.
This type of article is something that I see myself using in the future, not for CRM specifically for for any type of department of business that I may be involved in the future. I may know what the definition of Finance, HR, and Operations is, but when I have access to links these I appreciate the type of learning experience I am apart of.
I definitely believe this article should used be in future classes, and the use of involving articles as such for not only this class, but all classes. It makes me feel a little more prepared for the job market.
The article that I am going to focus on is CEA’s 5 Tech Trends: From Big Entertainment to Small Business. I took the most information from the first tech trend which is Big Data. Big Data is information that companies use to get information on their customers. If they use this they can figure out different products, they can tell that, that customer is either pregnant or have someone around them who is pregnant and they are able to market to them their different baby products for them to be able to buy in the future. This is an interesting tool because it makes it easier while trying to shop.
The article I found most interesting was Hidden in The Long Tail. The opening paragraph discussed to the two predictions of ecommerce and how it would affect the way people shop. what is interesting to me is that the predictions for prices to decrease makes the most sense. When comparing in store at Best Buy to online at Amazon, one would most like choose Amazon because of the lower prices. But this article also discussed that this is not always the case, and that prices are not always so predictable. This to me is interesting, but makes sense because as a consumer I still check the online prices to store prices because there is no definite answer to which will be cheaper.
I thought that “Hidden in The Long Tail” was the most interesting assigned article last week. The idea that there is no searching costs is an interesting one to me; especially because the author suggested searching may even be a plus due to consumers enjoying online browsing. Creating value or leisure from searching is an interesting aspect of online shopping. The other is that consumers will pay higher prices for a better matched good to their preferences. Both of these insights to e-commerce were particularly interesting to me.
I really enjoyed Just-in-Time Manufacturing article. I thought it was interesting how the internet impacted the supply chain and how it made the process more efficient. The ways the different organization are able to implement the internet allows them to be more competitive in the industry. The companies are using this both internally to process orders and externally to order parts and materials from suppliers.
I found the Article “Build vs. Buy When You Should Build Custom Software Over Canned” very helpful when studying for the exam. I expected there to be several questions about custom v canned software and this article very plainly told which is best for your company based on certain qualities
I found the article “Build vs. Buy: How to Know When You Should Build Custom Software Over Canned Solutions” is really interesting to me. it should the benefits that both built Custom Software and Canned Solutions is for the company. I have a better understanding of what building custom software can benefit company when the author explains it in three main advantages including increased productivity, competitive advantage and faster reaction time.
In How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A New Business for SAP, the main point was that SAP learned a lot about big data by taking part in the NBA. Typically, the NBA coaches draft players based on their performance in college and other physical tests. However, SAP found that these were not the best basis for drafting. The discovery lead SAP to relate to small mom and pop stores. These stores are usually second or third generations of family who believe that they cannot benefit from big data but SAP proved that their instinctive nature of their decisions are not the best way to run a business. Hence, SAP made a new software for small business.