System architecture design
Each of these topics will be the subject of class lecture and discussion, out of class assignments, and the course project.272 Critical IT Decisions for Business Executives [ITM Course]
Focuses on developing frameworks for helping management make critical IT decisions. These issues include how much to invest in IT, how to align IT strategy and business strategy, understanding which management practices enable high return on IT investment, developing sourcing strategies for IT-enabled services including business process outsourcing and information systems services, coordinating with partners, suppliers and customers in value networks, and determining product and operational strategies in increasingly digital environments.
274 Database Management and Applications
Examines contemporary business applications of databases. Also covers the database design process with a focus on enabling business decision making and business intelligence. Business applications include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), customer segmentation, data warehousing, and knowledge management. Database design topics include collecting and capturing data and the linkages among data to enable data mining, querying and manipulating of data, and data administration.
275 Strategic Information Systems [ITM Course]
Focuses on the strategic and competitive implications of IT, the Internet and e-business for firms, industries and countries. Topics include: globalization, strategy and time-based competition; strategy and IT, information systems planning; alignment of IT with business strategy; assessing the value of IT; business transformation and IT; IT as a strategic industry; country strategies and national IT policy; strategy and IT in the network era.
276 Networks and Telecommunications [ITM Course]
This course is designed for MBA students who would like to gain a better
understanding of the fundamentals of networking technology and applications.
Topics will include:
1. The OSI Model
2. Network operating systems
3. Network architectures
4. Network management
5. IP Telephony
6. Network security
7. How to create a strategic advantage by building a global networked business model
No technology background is assumed.
277 Managing Electronic Business [ITM Course]
Focusing on the intersection of business and technology, this course helps business managers to understand the strategic issues and managerial implications of doing business in the information age. Studies how new technologies such as the Internet can be used to enhance strategic advantage in established companies as well as opportunities for new ventures. Central issues are business models, electronic markets, information flows in supply chains, business-technology integration, diagnosis of project failures, technology finance, real options applied to e-business projects, ROI analysis of technology investments, and new venture opportunities of emerging technologies (such as Wi-Fi, wireless). These issues are illustrated with case studies, selective readings, and lively executive speakers.
This course has a distinctive focus on transforming traditional businesses to the networked environment, while keeping an eye on emerging new business opportunities. The dot.com hype is gone, but real business on the Web is just getting started (that’s what we define e-business). Companies have spent the past 3~4 years figuring out what really works and what delivers a return. Business and consumers alike are now far better positioned than they were in the late 90’s to profit from e-business. It is the best time to re-examine what are the real opportunities for the years to come.
It would be short-sighted to ignore the changes: the business environment has become more connected, more digital, and more information intensive. Forward-looking managers will find it advantageous to get a sophisticated understanding about the rewards and risks of a business world that is increasingly networked and information intensive. These changes are fundamentally transforming the business landscape. “Adjusting to e-business is often a wrenching process, and we're still in the early days” (Dell President Kevin Rollins). Despite the up and down of the economy, e-business still represents the future. New technologies and innovative business models will continue to be an engine driving economic growth.
This course is a major ITM elective. Linking e-business to an organization's strategy and process improvement, the course makes use of lectures, readings, cases, videos, and industry speakers. Specific topics include:
• Post-bubble strategies for managers in a changing climate
• Business and technology alignment: how to close the gap
• Diagnosis: Why some e-businesses fail; Lessons learned; How to make it work?
• Doing business in electronic markets
• Managing channel conflict
• Information flow in supply chains: How e-business will change supply chain management
• Technology finance and Real Options: How to evaluate technology investment projects
• Technology-based new ventures
• Emerging technologies (wireless…): How to make Wi-Fi work for your business
PREREQUISITES: Mgmt. 207.
278 Information Systems Project Management [ITM Course]
Concentrates on project management techniques in the context of information systems projects: organizing, planning, budgeting, scheduling, management, leadership, and control. Special emphasis is placed on issues of system implementation and management of organizational change.
290 Digital Strategy&Markets
This course will examine how digital technologies such as the Internet and Web 2.0 are impacting organizations and markets. Using case studies and guest speakers drawn from three different industries retail, financial services, and entertainment the course will systematically examine the transformation of value creation and delivery by networked businesses. Topics to be covered include:
• Organizational and market impact of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networks
• Platform competition (such as between video game consoles Xbox and PS2), and Winner-Take-All dynamics in network markets
• Long Tail effects in electronic markets (e.g., 30% of book sales on Amazon are for books ranked above 150,000)
• Open source development and business models
• Standards setting and standards battles
• Digital convergence, such as in the entertainment industry
• Pricing and competitive strategies in network markets
The target audience for this course are general managers with interests spanning one or more of IT consulting, competitive strategy, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
290 Managing Innovation: The Intersection of Business and Technology
To manage in a global and increasingly “flat” world, business leaders must become effective business architects; they must be able to fuse business and technology concepts to deliver differentiation, competitive advantage, and relevant innovation. This class will introduce students to an broader business definition of Innovation, which extends beyond product invention. The class will explore the impact of innovation to business practices, and will introduce business architecture concepts such as component business modeling, application architectures and business case writing. The class will have a mixture of lectures, teamwork exercises, guest speakers and case studies.
5 week course/2 units
290 IT Enabled Process Improvement
The course seeks to develop a process-oriented perspective to analyzing opportunities for innovation in organizations, created by new information technologies. We will examine contemporary IT trends and understand the pathways that lead to improvements in operational effectiveness and strategic positioning. We will also examine how technologies may implicitly embed processes that enable or constrain business performance. The course will help to assess how IT can be used to reshape information flows, harness collective competence, and impact value creation processes. It will introduce structured process redesign frameworks, process redesign heuristics, as well as process mapping, analysis, and simulation tools to help improve key internal,
customer- and supplier-facing business processes. A team project will focus on applying key concepts, tools, and methods from the course to an IT-enabled process improvement effort in a business setting.
290 IT Under the Hood [ITM Course]
This course will cover the technology concepts and trends underlying current and future developments in information technology, enabling students to talk to technical people with confidence. Topics will include hardware, software, operating systems, platforms, communication networks, relational databases, security and cryptography, enterprise applications and emerging technologies (wireless, voice over IP). The emphasis will be on understanding the basic concepts and buzzwords for each of these topics in their historical context.
Hands-on exposure to web, database and GUI tools will be provided.
290 Technologies for ECommerce [ITM Course]
A special topics course.
290 Leveraging Data for Business Intelligence
This course introduces methods to mine large data repositories for business intelligence. The goal of business intelligence is to assist managers in recognizing patterns and making intelligent use of massive amounts of electronic data collected via the internet, e-commerce, electronic banking, point-of-sale devices, bar-code readers, and intelligent machines. Topics include clustering for market segmentation, association rules for collaborative filtering, tree-structured classification and regression, subset selection in regression, and neural network methods. Examples of successful applications in areas such as credit ratings, fraud detection, database marketing, customer relationship management, investments, and logistics are covered. The course is practically-oriented and includes many hands-on exercises in Excel.
290 Business Intelligence for Analytical Decisions [ITM Course]
This course introduces methods to mine large data repositories for business intelligence. The goal of business intelligence is to assist managers in recognizing patterns and making intelligent use of massive amounts of electronic data collected via the internet, e-commerce, electronic banking, point-of-sale devices, bar-code readers, and intelligent machines. Topics include clustering for market segmentation, association rules for collaborative filtering, tree-structured classification and regression, subset selection in regression, and neural network methods. Examples of successful applications in areas such as credit ratings, fraud detection, database marketing, customer relationship management, investments, and logistics are covered. The course is practically-oriented and includes many hands-on exercises in Excel.
290 Managing Technological Innovations [ITM Course]
This course explores the fundamentals of managing technology-intensive businesses. Many firms develop great technologies but fail to reap the benefits of their innovations as competitors imitate them or new technologies emerge. Technology businesses are frequently associated with large sunk costs in R&D and negligible marginal costs of production, giving rise to a unique set of challenges that are most often seen in information technology-based industries. These challenges include: Which technologies should a firm invest resources in? How can firms capture the value from their technological innovations? How can they sustain value and prevent commoditization? What business models and development processes are successful in the rapidly-changing environments that characterize these industries? This course tackles these issues directly, providing a series of frameworks that can be applied to a wide range of decisions.
The primary focus will be on computer hardware and software, consumer electronics, communications, Internet, and other information-intensive businesses.
Specific topics will include:
- How to prepare for and manage technological disruption. Can one predict technological change?
- Network effects and increasing returns to scale: why the cost structures of information-technology intensive businesses are so dramatically different from other manufacturing and service industries and how companies can exploit these differences.
- Agile product development methodologies and modularity: what are the best ways to develop information-based products? What role should an understanding of development processes and resource portfolio play in shaping technological investments?
- How to critically evaluate information technology innovations for potential investment? What are the characteristics of a winning technology-based business plan?
- Value capture: what are the different ways in which a firm can make money from technology? What role do technological platforms and standards play in the value capture process? How can bundling, versioning and mass customization be used in pricing and selling information products? What does a firm need to do to move beyond early adopters of the technology and sell to the "pragmatists" of the mainstream?
- Sustaining value: As industries converge and competitors invade your markets, how can firms maintain their competitive positions and transform themselves to take advantage of new technological opportunities?
The course utilizes lectures, case analyses, independent reading, and will have visitors from entrepreneurial and large companies (based on availability). Grades are determined by class participation, short reaction papers, and a final paper or a business plan for a technology-based business.
The course should be of particular interest to those interested in managing a business for which technology is likely to play a major role, and to those interested in consulting, private equity or venture capital.
295G E-Business Lab [ITM Course]
Demonstrates key technologies and tools to build commercial Web sites, intranets and extranets. Students learn the conceptual framework and gain hands-on experience with the software and hardware needed to design, manage, and host e-Business solutions.