In-Class Discussion Questions
Session #6 – In-Class Discussion Questions
- 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 more vulnerable to technology development?
- What kind of jobs are relatively 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 Trump about it?
- What would you say to yourself about it?
Session #5 – In-Class Discussion Questions
- 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?
Session #4 – In-Class Discussion Questions
- 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?
Session #3 – In-Class Discussion Questions
- 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 are the examples of Prisoner’s Dilemma in our daily or business life?
- 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?
Session #2 – In-Class Discussion Questions
- 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?
Session #1 – Introduction – In-Class Discussion Questions
I am posting in-class discussion questions to help you prepare for class discussions and debates. The class slides will be posted after classes.
- Why do you think MIS 5302 is a required course for Fox GMBA?
- 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?