Deck 9: IT in 2010

Question 1

There is much debate about whether or not the technology itself generates a competitive advantage for a company.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The IT function has always been valued by the business for its unique perspective on both the corporation and technology and its ability to use this perspective to facilitate strategy development.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

The year 2000 marked the zenith of the dot.com "hype-cycle."

Answer 3

True

Question 4

IT managers know that throwing enough technology and financial resources at a business problem is likely to deliver business results.

Question 5

Prior to 2000, many organizations had developed a significant amount of internal and external connectivity but were not completely aware of the potential of the Web for transforming business.

Question 6

IT represents more than 80 percent of most organizations' current capital expenditures.

Question 7

Information is often not the basis for competitive advantage.

Question 8

In future IT initiatives most organizations will require more emphasis on the use of information, rather than on the use of technology.

Question 9

Many IT managers believe that the IT function will continue to change, gradually morphing into an enterprise wide entity responsible for ensuring the organization's investments in technology and processes.

Question 10

IT can be used to destroy another company's competitive advantage.

Question 11

The IT function automatically delivers competitive advantage.

Question 12

Utility computing and Strategic IT use is dramatically changing how organizations function.

Question 13

Even though IT is recognized as essential to the business's survival, many IT managers
still face some credibility problems around the strategic use of IT.

Question 14

The interoperability provided by the Web has been a huge force driving the development of open standards.

Question 15

The transformative nature of IT can be viewed as a threat to the business, destroying stable markets and undermining current business models.

Question 16

The divisional presidents at RR Communications resisted efforts to create a centralized IT because it meant increased bureaucracy and much less freedom to pursue business opportunities relative to their individual divisions.

Question 17

The biggest customer complaint at RR Communications was the receipt of multiple bills because of the inability of the IT infrastructure to generate one bill for multiple services.

Question 18

The transformative nature of IT is viewed as both an opportunity to save money through streamlining and/or outsourcing traditional business activities and as a threat that new, more nimble competitors.

Question 19

The value of any technology is indivisible from the data it stores, calculates, and transports.

Question 20

IT standard interoperability is driving down the cost of IT and facilitating the development of new business models.

Question 21

The biggest problem at RR Communications was inflexible systems and an unresponsive IT organization.

Question 22

All of the business executives at AgCredit understood how their individual business strategy would fit with each other's business strategy to deliver enterprise value.

Question 23

Which of the following factors have contributed to a flattened, globalized world that has fundamentally changing how organizations operate?

A) Insourcing and outsourcing
B) Connectivity and offshoring
C) Standardized workflow software and supply chaining
D) All of the above

Question 24

In the past five years, three significant new functions have been added to IT's responsibilities:

A) Business continuity management, security architecture and management, and ensuring compliance.
B) Business continuity management, outsourcing, and strategic planning.
C) Business continuity management, security architecture and management, and strategic planning.
D) Business continuity management, and ensuring compliance, and strategic planning.

Question 25

One of AgCredit's competitive advantages over much larger banks was its extensive integrated systems infrastructure.

Question 26

To facilitate a more real time view of the business, IT organizations are being asked to develop:

A) Real-time applications, dashboards and databases
B) Dashboards, workflows, and databases
C) Data mining capabilities, dashboards and workflows
D) Workflows, real-time applications, and data mining capabilities

Question 27

The technology trend that involves provisioning computing power to the rest of the organization much like a public utility is called:

A) Strategic IT use.
B) Utility computing.
C) Knowledge Management.
D) Information Framework.

Question 28

Deregulation of the telecommunications industry had dramatically affected RR Communications market value.

Question 29

All of the business executives at AgCredit wanted much better systems integration; however, not one of them had any idea where to start.

Question 30

Change is a constant for IT.

Question 31

Which of the following could be considered part of the mission of IT?

A) Technology management
B) Corporate change
C) Business transformation
D) Intelligent business
E) All of the above

Question 32

The following are some examples of technology implementation that illustrate ways that technology generates a competitive advantage for a company EXCEPT:

A) IT innovations in specialized areas where competitors will have difficulty copying.
B) Use of technology in consumer products and in emerging markets.
C) Superior ability to execute strategy.
D) Design and implementation of IT architecture.
E) Technology road maps.

Question 33

IT functions will soon be tasked with providing their organizations the ________ necessary to achieve process transformation.

A) information architecture
B) knowledge management
C) systems infrastructure
D) data mining

Question 34

The technology trend that implements technology to generate a competitive advantage
For a company is known as:

A) Strategic IT use.
B) Utility computing.
C) Knowledge Management.
D) Information Framework.

Question 35

AgCredit's IT infrastructure was a mess because systems could not "talk" to each other and common data standards were non-existent.

Question 36

The IT organization of today has become less complex, sophisticated, and heterogeneous than that of the past.

Question 37

The biggest problem with AgCredit's IT function was there was no IT governance and architecture, and each business unit owned and governed its own IT projects.

Question 38

The most critical issue for the new Executive VP of IT at RR Communications was redesigning the company's internal computer infrastructure to use one set of standard technologies.

Question 39

________ are dramatically changing how organizations function.

A) Connectivity and IT architecture
B) Collaboration and IT architecture
C) Utility computing and Strategic IT use
D) Connectivity and Collaboration
E) Strategic IT use and Collaboration

Question 40

All of the following are considered part of the IT function EXCEPT:

A) Technology management
B) System automation
C) Corporate reengineering
D) Strategy mobilization
E) Strategy collaboration

Question 41

Increasing integration outside an organization increases its:

A) market competitiveness.
B) security vulnerability.
C) business exposure
D) cost structure.

Question 42

A key problem with AgCredit's approach to IT was:

A) the application centric approach the organization took to its work.
B) the unsupportive corporate business processes in place.
C) the significant lack of technical skills in certain areas.
D) business unit leaders making IT decisions based on their current needs.

Question 43

The biggest challenge for RR Communications new Executive VP of IT was:

A) stopping the falling market value of the company.
B) firing the regional CIO team.
C) transforming IT to allow the introduction of new products more quickly.
D) Both A and B
E) All the above

Question 44

Which of the following contributes most to business value?

A) people, technologies, and information
B) technologies, capabilities, and culture
C) information, people, and management
D) capabilities, culture, and management

Question 45

What was required to fix AgCredit's IT infrastructure problems?

A) A new IT organization structure.
B) A new IT governance.
C) Agreement from the business.
D) Supportive corporate processes.
E) All the above

Question 46

One of the reasons for the slow adoption of mobile computing and home based work by organizations is:

A) lack of hardware standards.
B) HR and managerial practices.
C) cost economics.
D) lack of management support.
E) All of the above.

Question 47

Most current IT systems development activity is based on the concept of:

A) system assembly.
B) package integration.
C) systems services.
D) system object architectures.

Question 48

AgCredit's approach to solving IT problems was throwing ________ at the problem.

A) money
B) people
C) hardware and software
D) money and people
E) people, hardware and software

Question 49

Companies are beginning to realize that the ability to leverage ________ more effectively also delivers value.

A) people, technologies, and information
B) technologies, strategy, and markets
C) information, people, and strategy
D) information, markets, and people

Question 50

The top IT infrastructure priority at RR Communications was:

A) to provide bundled billing and customer responsiveness.
B) to provide rapid time to market for new products and unified customer care.
C) to provide customer responsiveness and rapid time to market for new products.
D) to provide bundled billing and rapid time to market for new products.
E) All the above

Question 51

Vince Patton, CIO at RR Communications stressed that IT decisions were first and foremost ________ decisions.

A) business
B) governance
C) executive
D) All the above

Question 52

Which of the following were RR Communications lines of business?

A) Cable TV, mobile and landline services.
B) Internet, landline and on-demand services.
C) Internet, landline and mobile services.
D) Cable TV, mobile, landline and Internet services.

Question 53

The move to virtual work is being driven by:

A) hardware standards.
B) HR and managerial practices.
C) cost economics.
D) management support.
E) All of the above.

Question 54

Business value is now the key measure of ________.

A) strategy success
B) management success
C) IT success
D) market success
E) All of the above

Question 55

Which of the following requires businesses to interoperate?

A) Insourcing and outsourcing
B) Connectivity and offshoring
C) Standardized workflow software and supply chaining
D) All of the above

Question 56

________ mean that traditional hardware and software purchase decisions have become much less risky and cheaper for individual companies.

A) International standards
B) Industry standards
C) Domestic standards
D) Internet standards
E) All of the above

Question 57

None of the business executives at AgCredit understood the organization's ________ and how they worked together.

A) IT functions
B) strategic goals
C) business processes
D) marketing strategy
E) new product development processes

Question 58

The measure most likely to be used to determine the success of IT in the future will be based on:

A) competitive advantage.
B) business value.
C) strategy collaboration.
D) strategy mobilization.
E) technology management.

Question 59

Which of the following was the single most critical problem created by the decentralized IT organization at RR Communications?

A) High IT costs due to system duplication.
B) Testing new systems to make sure changes didn't affect anything else that was operational.
C) Creation of duplicate data and files leading to "bad" data.
D) Loss of integrated information leading to organizational inefficiencies.
E) All the above

Question 60

To help AgCredit integrate different technologies and platforms without completely replacing them, the IT group suggested adopting ________ technology.

A) SOA
B) ASP
C) HTML
D) JAVA

Question 61

Considering organizational IT management, what is the goal of an IT architecture?

Question 62

What are some examples of technology implementation that illustrate ways that technology generates a competitive advantage for a company?

Question 63

What is business value? How is business value and IT success interrelated?

Question 64

How was the IT organization structured at RR Communications? How did the structure of the IT organization contribute to customer dissatisfaction and regulatory problems?

Question 65

List and describe (3) traditional IT operational responsibilities.

Question 66

What will be the most important measurement of the success of IT in the future?

Question 67

What are (2) trends pulling organizational IT groups in two opposite but equally important directions?

Question 68

What were the first few actions taken by Paul Manely after the CEO of AgCredit placed him in charge of IT?

Question 69

What is the current state of IT systems development? How do systems development approaches affect the business?

Question 70

How can increasing systems integration between businesses, especially outside the firm and via the Internet, increase the firm's vulnerability?

Question 71

When considering all of the skills required of IT staff, what are "soft skills"?

Question 72

What were some of the problems with the IT organization at RR Communications?

Question 73

What were some problems with AgCredit's approach to handling IT problems?

Question 74

List and describe (3) significant new functions that have been added to the IT group's responsibilities.