Instructor: Steve Gordon Office: Babson Hall, Room 319 Office hrs: M/W 11:15-12:15, Th 3:00-4:00

Office phone: 781-239-4571 Home phone: 617-527-7687 (before 10:00pm) Fax: 781-239-6416

General Course Information [Overview, Objectives, Related Courses, Text and Materials, Grading]
Graded Material [Participation, Functional Area Presentation and Report, Term Project]
Web Resources
Session Agenda [9/7, 9/14, 9/21, 9/28, 10/5, 10/12, 10/19, 10/26, 11/2, 11/9, 11/16, 11/30, 12/7]
Copyright Notice

Overview

This course addresses how information technology powers an eBusiness, a business that depends on information technology to achieve competitive advantage in both internal and external activities.   Students examine every aspect of a company's value chain, the series of interdependent processes required to bring its products and services to its customers.   We focus on how information technology can add as much value as possible to each process within that value chain. We also analyze how information technology helps implement integrative, or cross-functional  processes within a company and between it, its suppliers, and its customers.

Years ago, managers could afford to focus only on the area of their functional expertise. They understood the processes that they supervised and could direct information technology to those processes where appropriate. Increasingly, however, managers need to take a more integrated perspective -- they must understand how IT can add value throughout the value chain and must be able to use IT to enable cross-functional activities.  As the growth of electronic commerce extends the value chain beyond company boundaries, these skills and abilities become even more important.

Objectives

At the conclusion of this course you will:

• Understand the role IT plays in facilitating key business processes
• Understand how IT can add value throughout the value chain
• Be familiar with commercial Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems
• Understand how electronic commerce extends the value chain through IT

MIS7571 is a core course in the e-Business career path.  Click here (Babson ID required) for more information on this career path and career paths in general.  If you choose the e-Business career path, you will likely take one or more of the following courses.  This section is designed to highlight differences that might not be apparent from the titles or descriptions of these courses and to demonstrate that they are complementary rather than overlapping:

• MIS7520, Designing Organizations with Information Technology (DOIT).  While retaining a business orientation, MIS7520 is a more technical course than MIS7571.  Students in MIS7520  learn how to redesign business processes and then actually prototype the redesign using tools such as Microsoft Access and web page development tools.
• MIS7570, E-Commerce.  MIS7570 addresses the strategic application of advanced technologies for electronic commerce.  Whereas we spend only two or three sessions on inter-company information flows, MIS7570 focuses mostly in this area.  MIS7570 also gives you more in-depth coverage of the technologies used for e-commerce.
• MKT7570, Direct Marketing and E-Commerce.  MIS7571 covers customer relationship management and marketing in about 1 1/2 to 2 sessions.  MKT7570 provides a more in-depth look at options and strategies for systems that focus on the customer.
• OPS7520, Supply Chain Management.  OPS7520 focuses on the relationship between material flows and information flows, predominantly between companies.  Although we also address material flows, our focus is on the information flows, and only about 25% of our course sessions relate to inter-company flows.

Texts and Materials

• Required: Case Packet
• Optional: Bradley Hiquet, SAP R/3 Implementation Guide: A Manager's Guide to Understanding SAP (Macmillan Technical Publishing, 1998). SAP

Your grade will be based on your participation in the discussion of cases and readings (25% in class,15% e-campus), your functional area presentation and report (25%) and your term project (35%). There will be no final examination.

Participation

We will be using Babson's Electronic Campus (e-campus) to augment class discussion.  You will receive separate grades for in-class participation and e-campus participation.  You will receive feedback on your participation twice during the term and may ask for additional feedback at any time.

If you never contribute in class or if you miss several classes, you will receive a low grade (C range) for in-class participation. If you contribute occasionally but rarely add value your grade will be in the B range even if you attend every class. Grades of A and A- are reserved for students who participate with insightful comments, experiences, or thoughtful questions in almost every class. If you must miss a class, you can submit a written response to the discussion questions for that class at the beginning of the next class session. Such written responses do not count as much as participation, but they will help if your grade is borderline.

You should participate in e-campus discussion as often as possible and as early in the week as possible.  As with in-class participation, your grade will depend both on the frequency and quality of your contribution.

Functional Area Presentation and Report

Your functional area presentation and report should address how a company (the company you work for, a company that agrees to sponsor your analysis, or a company on the drawing board) uses or should use information technology to improve its processes in a particular functional area.  Your analysis should address such questions as the following:

• How does IT currently enable the processes in the functional area you have analyzed?
• How might IT make these processes better or more efficient?
• What information flows between this functional area, other functional areas, and the company's customers, suppliers, and partners?
• How might IT improve the integration of processes across functions and through the value chain?

Term Project

During the course of the term, you will develop an integrated plan for the development of enterprise-wide information systems at a company (the company you work for, a company that agrees to sponsor your project, or a company on the drawing board). Following class discussion on each topic, you will assess the unique information needs of your company, investigate the options to fill those needs, and make a recommendation to the company on how to proceed. In this way, you will build a portfolio of recommendations that you will eventually integrate into an enterprise-wide plan.  Your final project report is due on November 31.  In lieu of a final examination, be prepared to answer questions about your final report on December 7.

Following are some general resources on the topics covered in this course:

The following agenda describes class topics and identifies the readings and cases that are due for discussion each day.  It is subject to change as the term progresses and should be considered a "living document."  The actual agenda can be found at the electronic campus web site and at http://faculty.babson.edu/gordon/mis7571/mis7571.htm.  The agenda for a given class session will be fixed at least two weeks prior to the class meeting.

Session #1     September 7
Introduction

Session #2     September 14
Integrating across the value chain; The extended value chain

Session #4     September 28
Managing production, engineering, and design

Session #6     October 12
Managing warehousing and transportation

A final exam will be given on December 14.  The case will be posted on eCampus in the Resources section.