E-Business Technology and Management
Units: 12
The rise of Internet and information technologies have changed the way we communicate, work, do business, buy, sell, and socialize: impacting virtually every aspect of our lives. IT systems are integrated in so many things that it is almost impossible to imagine work and life without them. How these systems are rolled out and managed are vital to the success of any enterprise.
As information technology (IT) is used throughout an organisation, its management needs to cover many functions. As shown below, a chief information officer (CIO) is considered by Deloitte to have different roles, from an operator who ensures the systems work; to a technologist who finds and installs necessary tools; to a catalyst who initiates IT innovations that lead to new product and services; to a strategist who is involved in the organisational decision making and how IT is a source of competitive advantage.
With the growing understanding of data and information as organisation assets, the role of IT management has evolved. Whereas in early days the focus was “technology”, “information” has now come to dominate the focus of the role. A CIO role is now best defined by what its core is: Information. This approach has added importance when one considers that information (or data) is arguably the most important asset of any organisation.
Further, IT Leadership is increasingly defined as strategic in contributing to increasing revenue and reducing cost as well as driving operational efficiency, thus fulfilling the pinnacle of Deloitte’s four faces model. Accordingly, this course examines how the role is evolving by focusing on different aspects of the role, both functional and strategic. The learning outcome is focused on how “information” technology leadership can result in competitive advantage.
In addition, the role is finding a particular importance when dealing with analysis and utilization of information (data) the organization collects from its partners and customers. We define the functions of the role as a four step process of dealing with information. We call this an Information Flow Model and define the role of IT leadership is to ensure integrity and efficiency of this flow.
The course is a capstone course as it brings several different threads taught in the MSIT course:
The course objectives are to enable students to:
To achieve these objectives we will use a combination of lectures, cases, class discussion, debates, and exercises.
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