Discussion Question

You are a fresh graduate and have been promoted as a manager of IT department 

at Micronet International College. Your team department comprises majorly from 
middle age and more experienced than you are.  Recently, you noticed that your 
team member is attitude is changing in terms of their work and effort. This has an 
an effect  on the company productivity, therefore you want to improve the 
situation and performance of your team members in the IT department.
From your observation, you have identified two distinct groups of attitudes and 
behaviors. The following are brief profiles of the two groups:

Group A
This group is the “happy go lucky fellas”, where most of them view work as a 
means to earn enough for a simple lifestyle and satisfaction of basic needs. Most 
of these people in this group have poor attendance records. They tend to exert 
the minimum effort and do not show any initiative in doing their work.
Group B

This group of employees is the least problematic. However, employee in this group 
has no hesitation in leaving the company. Their personal records seem to indicate 
that they are prepared to job-hop to find the ideal job. This group tends to look for 
challenges in work and dislike routine tasks.
As the manager of IT department you are responsible for the performance of your 
team member. Apply any known conventional work-motivation theories in order 
to:

i. Identify the motivation problems of Group A and indicate which theory you are 
using.

·       Laid back during working hours

·       Poor attendance records

·       Put minimum effort doing their work

·       Lack of initiative

ii. The motivation problems of Group B, Your answer should indicate which theory you are using.

·       Might to find an ideal job for them

·       Dislike routine tasks

b. i. Suggest a number of workable solutions to deal with the motivation problems identified in Part a(i) above.

·       Give them more tasks, where gives them more responsibilities

·       Cut down their salaries if they didn’t meet the job stratifications.

·       Give more trainings

·       Interact with them more and tell what the company wants

·       Firm discipline

·       Payment motivation

ii. Suggest a number of workable solutions to deal with the motivation problems identified in Part a(ii) above.

• ·       Give new tasks and new challenges
• ·       Change into department to change the working environment that they get used to it
• ·       give the chance of promotion
• ·       Increase the salary
• ·       Outfield job and office work
• ·       Provide allowance

Discussion 3 - Question 3

What functions do decision support systems support in business organizations? How does a DSS differ from a TPS and an MIS

Decision support system assists organization in a company to compose decisions for the upcoming long term course of the company as well as their services and products.

Meanwhile transaction processing system is providing information for the practical information system of operations. The computer will act in response right away to the user requirements where it collects the entire data store and reclaim the transactions in the business organization. It provide all the data for strategic system and tactical to insure the accuracy of the information for well-organized and successful way.

ü  Store record of the business organization

ü  Practice business influence the report

ü  Generate output that reports on operation

Management information system it monitors and controls an inner operations and records. Management is a major task where it helps in making decisions in the business and for the future in the business organization. Management information system (MIS) also helps the people in the business in variety of operational areas. By this the most constituent of this system are the employees itself.

Decision support system (DSS) ·       Provide decisions for the member of staff for their everyday jobs ·       Concentrate on the decision making

Transaction processing system (TPS) ·       Provide practical information for operations

Management information system (MIS) ·       Handle the inner operations as well as business documents. ·       Have a middle level and high level of management

Discussion 3 - Question 2

Select an important problem you had to solve during the last two years. Describe how you used the decision-making and problem-solving steps discussed in this chapter to solve the problem.

In last two years I had important problem that will relate with my future life. That is making a decision what career or further studies should I take after finish my sixth form or A level exam. Prefer to decision-making and problem-solving, I will discuss how it works on choosing the decision for the problem.
Intelligence stage means potential problems or opportunities are identified and defined. In this stage I identified my problem which is what career or further studies should I take after finish my sixth form or A level exam. 

Design stage is alternative solutions to the problem are developed. In this stage I had to attend many talks about the further studies, exhibition and meeting my career teacher at college for giving me confident to choose what career or course should I take. Choice stage requires selecting a course of action.

Discussion 3 - Question 1

Do you think that it is possible for a TPS to provide a firm with a competitive advantage? Why or why not?

I think TPS won't give much competitive advantage. Though it is good for the database stability and data hiding data. Other systems can just avoid with the system crashes by taking precautious steps.

The reason why TPS can't give a decent advantage is because of these reason:

there are a lot of small-scale business compared to successful ones. When the business goes well, large transactions of the system needs better ways to handle them. TPS can't efficiently coordinate all transactions simultaneously.

With large amount of business and customer data, the system is prone to viral security breach which might disrupt important information in the system. Advanced security and backups are required to safely store the data, although it would prove costly. This problem can worsen with online transactions where hackers are good at what they do best, taking advantage for themselves by messing with the data kept in the system.

Another problem is too much consolidation. Technicians are needed to maintain the system at all times. And more departments(eg.IT department) are needed for this system to run. No all businesses can afford the changes.

Online transactions includes shipping. Products can take weeks to send the goods. Not many consumers have the patience to wait. Especially when the sent product is defective and the buyer needs to wait more. This shows a bad impression to potential customers.

Discussion 2 - Question 2

Virtual Organization is actually an organization filled with members that works geographically away from each other, communicating through online to share their resources in order to achieve their own goals.

Theres a lot of benefits to this practise, where some of them are listed below.

•            Efficient use of office space since not all employees are required to attend to their office thus, diminishing utilities expenses and reduction of the consumption of consumable materials.

•            Low expenses for salary, as the virtual team members are paid for their task and not for their time spent at work. And it matters less when an employee is absent in the office.

•            Possibility to have a cheaper labour cost in an area compared to other places, and chances of getting better experts in that particular area to handle a specific task.

•            Productivity and performance boost as workers can focus on their work anywhere comfortable as they want without getting pressure and stress from co-workers.

•            Job opportunities for rural areas.

However, such practise will have its drawbacks as listed below.

•                  Information and data are kept by the employees. Less security for the files, especially important documents crucial for the company.

•                  Risks of communication failure. Even with the same resources, different people will definitely have different understanding.

•                  Working at home unsupervised, workers might take the time to goof around doing their work last minute. Mistakes will surely occur and productivity drops.

Discussion 2 - Question 1

Assume you are the manager of a retail store and need to hire a CIO to run your new computer system. What characteristics would you want in a new CIO

Chief Information Officer (CIO) is a job title for the head of information and commonly given to the person in a company for the information technology and computer system that support company goals, and becoming more important to view in many organizations as a main key provider in creating strategic goals.

Characteristics I would want in a new CIO;-

·       Able to run the organization’s information technology operations

·       Ability to employ, develop and make a high-quality information technology professionals

·       Have an experience in international state for the use to company knowledge.

·       Able to make changes to company status.

·       Have a leadership knowledge or experience to become a good leader and giving a good responsibility for the company.

·       Good in communicating with the customers even though with underling

·       Committed with work and making a good progress for this position’s work.

·       Creative person and have a management skill.

·       Able to upgrade company’s information technology processes.

·       Good personality