E-commerce

Over the past decade e-commerce and become a safe and efficient way to do business. With credit card companies backing most fraudulent purchases, and safe data warehouses, there is almost nothing to worry about when it comes to buying merchandise over the internet. Because e-commerce has been around for some time now, strict rules and regulations are enforced by the government keeping tabs on all companies that do business over the internet making it very difficult for scams and fraudulent companies to get away with your money.
I would strongly encourage anyone to purchase things over the internet. In the beginning I was very skeptical about entering card numbers and giving out information to buyers, but after doing research and checking out company’s security policies, I have been put at ease when purchasing books, cloths, electronics, motorcycle parts, and even renting DVD’s.
With the invention of e-commerce has come a variety of benefits for consumers. Greater selection of almost any product is available at the click of the mouse. Prices can be found at a fraction of the cost and shipping costs are many times included.
For producers, and distributers, e-commerce gives a much larger population accessibility to your product and allows you to have a lower overheard allowing you to be located virtually anywhere, avoiding the high prices of malls, and highly populated areas. Advertising can be paid for on a per-use bases being charged only when people click on you add, and even employees can work from anywhere.
Overall, e-commerce has benefitted the economy and helped to expand company’s reach and consumer’s buying capacities. It is safe and easy as well.

Samsung Behold

I've been needing a new phone and here's one that I've been looking at for Tmobil. It's actually a pretty good deal for a touchscreen.

This week I found it very interesting how useful excel and be in pinpointing errors in a companies information. Using filters, pivot tables, and graphs to show how each table or row is related to each other can bring new information to view that can help improve. The key is to maintain correct information in your systems.

Week 5

This week one particular subject that caught my attention were decision support systems. In my personal life I find it hard to make decisions, especially those that have a long lasting affect on my life. Some decisions I have known to be right, and having that knowledge has made such decisions obvious and easy to choose such as the decision to go on a mission. Many other decisions that I am faced with are much more difficult and require research, prayer, time, and weighing of options. I have found that the more information I have, the easier it is to make a good decision.

In the business world the same is very much true. In my marketing class we learned about how valuable gathering data for decision making is. It can be very beneficial if done correctly, helping a business know where to focus and how to be more efficient. One example was given was about a casino called Harrah's. While original thoughts lead managers to believe that "high rollers", or those who spent a lot of money when they came in and gambled, were the main source of revenue, studies done and analysed by decision support systems helped the company to recognize that regular average business men and women accounted for 82 percent of its revenue. This group accounted for only 26 percent of they're customer base (Levy, Grewal).

With the help of this information, the casino began implementing plans to benefit these regular customers to insure their business was made easy and convenient, allowing them to bypass lines, and come and go with ease.

In conclusion as a company or even in one's personal life learns to use such systems it can help decision making to be effective and simple.


Levy, Grewal. (2009) Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin Publishing. Pages 145-146.

Week 3

Data bases have a strong influence on today's business world. There are many aspects in which businesses whether big or small rely on data bases. One that I would like to focus on is how information is transferred.

I work at a corporation owned restaurant chain called Market Street Grill, or Gastronomy Inc. There each shift I am required to clock in and out each shift and report on the money I made. Many items are automatically calculated when I do this. For example, employee meals, at a mandatory cost of $2.99 a shift, are automatically applied to my employee number along with my vacation hours which are directly tied to how many hours I work each day. At the end of my shift, as I am tipped out or payed, credit card payments are automatically recorded on my name for tax and company record purposes. Without such automation, it would take more than hundreds of hours to calculate each of these aspects and many more for the 90 servers that work and my store's location and all 3 other large stores located in Salt Lake. This cuts back on wages, allowing one or just a handful of employees to manage and interpret the data given verses having dozens of employee record, transfer and record the same data.

This is only one of millions of examples in my own life of how data has be transferred and managed facilitation my life and the lives of many.

Learning about and how to create and use data bases is a very important tool and can make an employee very valuable in a business. My father who majored in Information Systems at BYU, and runs a successful law firm stated, "today more than ever, in almost any business, it is vital to be up to date on the latest and easiest way to store and transfer data. This can give a business a competitive advantage and also help to cut back on overhead costs" (Davis, Halston)

References:
Davis, Halston Attorney at Law. Sept. 25, 2009. Intervewer Jordan Davis

Week 2

The subject of competitive advantage really caught my eye this week as we studied and proved how technology can play a key role in this area. Walmart, a company that we spoke a lot about, has many competitive advantages. Many thought for a long time that it was their low prices on such a wide variety of products all in one place. In reality, their supply chain management system has proven to be one of the best in the nation. Such advantages would be nearly impossible without the information systems world in which we now live. For example, when a Walmart product is bought at the store, a signal is directly sent out, on the hour for that product to be restocked from a nearby warehouse. There at the warehouse, a highly developed packaging system highlights which and how many of each product goes into each specified box directed to each store.


Some may look down on Walmart because of this advantage, and the way many small locally owned businesses have gone out of business because of it's unbeatable low prices. I personally look at them as furthering the boundaries of competitive advantage driving small businesses to look for other ways to rise up. Such competition is healthy in the economy and drives innovation and new ideas to a new level.


As far as competitive advantage goes, I think that Professor Andrea Masini of the London Business School makes a very good point when she said, “[...] whatever you do make sure your processes remain unique, otherwise even poor companies will be able to catch you up buying the same processes off the shelf.” [1] True that discovering such advantages and maintaining them may be very time consuming and pricey, it can either make or break any company. Thus, because of it's significant importance, a company would be wise to put this item at the top of a priority list, embedded in mission statements, and constantly implemented and revised when necessary.



[1] Cristian Annesley, "Bank CIOs must help to keep competitive advantage", Journal, http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/10/04/218897/bank-cios-must-help-to-keep-competitive-advantage.htm, Accessed 19 September 2009.

Week 1

I'm new at blogging myself but I think I could really get into it, especially after watching the movie Julie/Julia, a newly released film were a housewife attempts to make all the recipes from a famous cook book by Julia Childs and blogs the results. (Not really a man-flick, but my girlfriend and I enjoyed it).

I recently transferred into the class and missed the first week but I do have a strong opinion about information systems and how technology plays a key roll in today's business world. In almost all of the business classes I've taken so far information systems has been mentioned. Only last week in my statistics class was it was mentioned that technology reinvents itself every four years. It's for that reason that it is so important to stay caught up and in tune especially in today's competitive business world.

With an effficient transfer of information and a strong system to base a company, the sky becomes the limit and growth opportunities becaome endless. In my marketing class we learned about how inportant it is to gather data and find out how your company is doing in terms of strenths, weaknesses, and growth opportunites. This information can be passed and analysed quickly and effectively if done correctly.

I'm excited to learn more in this class and expand my knowlege of how technology and information systems can help in an ever transforming world.