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MNO Pharmaceutical is a leading pharmaceutical company that produces and markets a broad range of
health care products. In early 1990s, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MNO Pharmaceutical realised
the need to integrate information system into the company's business and the company had since
invested in information technology and systems to improve services and delivery of products. During the
initial stage, the CEO had various discussions with the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and managers
about the integration of computer-based systems in order to support the pharmaceutical͛s company
vision.

Today, MNO Pharmaceutical utilises the internet and an electronic commerce website to connect to its
customers and suppliers, and to capture data and share information about sales orders and purchases.
Sales and order data are processed immediately, and inventory and other databases are updated.
Videoconferencing and electronic mail services are also provided.

The information systems in MNO Pharmaceutical are used as tools for data integration, analysis and
reporting for its commercial operations. Manager and business professionals access reports on a
periodic, exception, and demand basis, and use computers to interactively assess the possible results of
alternative decisions. Finally, top management can access text summaries and graphic displays that
identify key elements of organizational performance and compare them to industry and competitor
performance which enhances their ability to react quickly to changing business conditions.

a) Based on MNO͛s Pharmaceutical decision in 1990s, which was to integrate computer-based systems
to improve their health care product marketing operations, explain FIVE (5) tangible benefits (directly
quantifiable) that the company might have obtained.

 

Electronic Commerce, also called e-commerce or in Inggerisnya Electronic Commerce (EC) is a business
and trading system that many facilities use advanced telecommunications technologies, especially
information so that they can protect and satisfy its users iaiitu consisting of vendors, buyers and the
third-parties such as banks, finance companies, credit card companies, manufacturers of digital
certificate authentication and others. Lately, it's many uses, especially the Internet Web to conduct a
network that brings together customers, vendors and third parties in an electronic environment that is
safe for all parties and can be trusted.
E-commerce with a company or individual can make sale and purchase transactions to and from
anywhere in the world. The most important precondition for doing business in an environment that uses
technology to E-Commerce is the appropriate ownership of IT equipment and telecommunications
infrastructure that allows you mengkases Internet. This course begins with a computer, modem and
telephone line. Use of E-commerce is expected to increase from a year surged by a year according to
increase acceptance among the IT community, however between the cuff acceptance of e-commerce
more widely among the public perception is that e-commerce is still not reliable in terms of security and
belief as compared with traditional method of trading.

E-commerce more widely used among the Internet community, especially in western countries starting
in the mid-1990s. Even e-commerce is now recognized by international companies and marketing
experts as a marketing and business sector that can not be ignored again and become an alternative
mandatory for any business who want to go to the international level.

One of the advantages and benefits of using e-commerce is the networking and integration among all
companies that respect both as a buyer, seller or service provider concerned. In this way information
exchange and business transactions can be conducted Daam twinkling of an eye may be handcuffed by
the previously neglected mengisian paper forms and bureaucracy.

Ideally all this can be done efficiently by all parties involved in e-commerce network and not be
handcuffed by the issues of incompatibilities (incompatibility) or standard (standard) technology and
telecommunications that are not similar. Has been offered by Internet technology that uses
telekomunikasinya protocol called TCP / IP was adopted as a standard that allows any platform
(platform) computer can touch and exchange information easily. Web users also can interact with the
Web easily using only a Web browser (Web browser) such as Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer and
others.

Use of e-commerce by a company that can also help integrate all the internal parts of the company with
a business transaction is to improve the quality of service to customers. For example, when customers
make reservations through the purchase of e-commerce, reservations can be immediately sent to the
internal parts such as parts sales, parts logistics and manufacturing divisions. Coordinating with this
internal order to meet these will become more efficient.

E-commerce is actually composed of several components that have the features and functions of its own
such as Electronic Data Exchange or Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Internet, digital certification,
digital signature, digital currency, Electronic Funds Transfer, Electronic Catalogs, Intranets, Bar Code and
others.

Data integration, in its simplest form, is the capture and movement of data from one database or flat-
file on a source system to another database or flat-file on a target system. Most companies are already
performing some type of data integration, whether it is backing up network servers, performing
mirroring for high availability, or replicating key databases to business intelligence applications. But with
the sheer number of integration tools on the market, along with the different approaches each employs,
choosing an effective solution can be both difficult and time consuming.

Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified
view of these data.This process becomes significant in a variety of situations both commercial (when
two similar companies need to merge their databases) and scientific (combining research results from
different bioinformatics repositories, for example). Data integration appears with increasing frequency
as the volume and the need to share existing data explodes.It has become the focus of extensive
theoretical work, and numerous open problems remain unsolved. In management circles, people
frequently refer to data integration as "Enterprise Information Integration"

The benefit of data integration are;

!? . Most databases support transactional multiuser access, ensuring that one user's
transaction does not affect another user's transaction. This is accomplished by using the
Isolation property of the Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) properties set.
In addition, many applications permit you to produce and consume files for the purpose of data
exchange. This makes h
 

  a natural choice for packaged applications that are
difficult to modify.

!? Ö  . Direct database connections are designed to handle large volumes of data.
Likewise, reading files is a very efficient operation. High bandwidth can be very useful if the
integration needs to access multiple entities at the same time. For example, high bandwidth is
useful when you want to create summary reports or to replicate information to a data
warehouse.

!? ·    . In most cases, data that is presented to an end user is transformed for the
specific purpose of user display. For example, code values may be translated into display names
for ease of use. In many integration scenarios, access to the internal code values is more useful
because the codes tend to more stable than the display values, especially in situations where
the software is localized. Also, the data store usually contains internal keys that uniquely
identify entities. These keys are critical for robust integration, but they often are not accessible
from the business or user interface layers of an application.

!? „   . Metadata is data that describes data. If the solution that you use for data integration
connects to a commercial database, metadata is usually available through the same access
mechanisms that are used to access application data. The metadata describes the names of data
elements, their type, and the relationships between entities. Access to this information can
greatly simplify the transformation from one application's data format to another.

!? å  . Most business applications need access to databases. As a result, many
development and debugging tools are available to aid in connecting to a remote database.
 Almost every integration vendor provides a database adapter component that simplifies the
conversion of data into messages. Also, Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) tools allow the
manipulation of larger sets of data and simplify the replication from one schema to another. If
straight data replication is required, many database vendors integrate replication tools as part
of their software platform.

b) A company͛s vision is not the responsibility of the CIO, it is the responsibility of the CEO or the top
management board. Kindly state whether you agree or disagree with this statement. Explain your
reasons by stating the definition of CEO and CIO, and the roles that should be played by both of them in
a company.

 

 Some large companies may actually have several CEOs, or at least a CEOCEOCEO for every
department. Small companies, and small non-profit agencies usually have a single CEOCEOCEO, and a
vice-president who takes over for the CEOCEOCEO when needed, or several vice presidents simply called
executive officers.

How you get to be a CEOCEOCEO is very individualized depending upon the size of the company, the
person in question͛s background and education, and the type of company. Often, when a company first
begins, the founder of the company acts as its CEOCEOCEO. Later, if the company is profitable, the
founder may recognize he is not the best leader for the company, or would like to pursue other career
goals and may hire a CEOCEOCEO to run the company.

On boards, both profit and nonprofit, a CEOCEOCEO may be elected from a few worthy candidates.
Again, the founder of a corporation may be the primary choice, but many times, especially when the
company produces a product, the inventor who founds the company may really have no interest in
running it. He or she may far prefer someone with greater business acumen to handle the day-to-day
details of being ͞the boss.͟

In non-profit groups, limits may be set as to how many terms someone may serve as a CEOCEOCEO or
president of a company. This is not always the case, and determination of who the CEOCEOCEO is does
not always occur by election. Sometimes when a nonprofit organization remains small, a small board
consisting of a CEOCEOCEO, a secretary, treasurer or chief financial officer (CFO) and a few other board
members will rotate the CEOCEOCEO position.
Being a CEOCEOCEO may mean being responsible for overseeing many different branches of a company,
or simply helping to run small board meetings and overseeing small organizations. The CEOCEOCEO may
be present at meetings given for stockholders, may sign paychecks, and may take an active role in
managing the company and setting goals.

A CEO͛s responsibilities: everything, especially in a startup. The CEO is responsible for the success or
failure of the company. Operations, marketing, strategy, financing, creation of company culture, human
resources, hiring, firing, compliance with safety regulations, sales, PR, etc.Ͷit all falls on the CEO͛s
shoulders..

The CEO͛s duties are what she actually á 

, the responsibilies she doesn͛t delegate. Some things can͛t
be delegated. Creating culture, building the senior management team, financing road shows, and,
indeed, the delegation itself can be done only by the CEO.

Many start-up CEOs think fund-raising is their most important duty. I disagree. Fund-raising is necessary,
but the CEOs contribution is in building a superb business with the money raised.

What is the CEO͛s main duty? Setting strategy and vision. The senior management team can help
develop strategy. Investors can approve a business plan. But the CEO ultimately sets the direction.
Which markets will the company enter? Against which competitors? With what product lines? How will
the company differentiate itself? The CEO decides, sets budgets, forms partnerships, and hires a team to
steer the company accordingly.

The CEO͛s second duty is building culture. Work gets done through people, and people are profoundly
affected by culture. A lousy place to work can drive away high performers. After all, they have their pick
of places to work. And a great place to work can attract and retain the very best.

Culture is built in dozens of ways, and the CEO sets the tone. Her every actionͶor inactionͶsends
cultural messages (see ͞Life Under a Magnifying Glass͟). Clothes send signals about how formal the
workplace is. Who she talks to signals who is and isn͛t important. How she treats mistakes (feedback or
failure?) sends signals about risk-taking. Who she fires, what she puts up with, and what she rewards
shape the culture powerfully.

A project team worked weekends launching a multimedia web site on a tight deadline. Their CEO was on
holiday when the site launched. She didn͛t call to congratulate the team. To her, it was a matter of
keeping her personal life sacred. To the team, it was a message that her personal life was more
important than the weekends and evenings they had put in to meet the deadline. Next time, they may
not work quite so hard. The emotion and effect on the culture was real, even if it wasn͛t what the CEO
intended. Congratulations from the CEO on a job well done can motivate a team like nothing else.
Silence can demotivate just as quickly.

Team-building is the CEO͛s #3 duty. The CEO hires, fires, and leads the senior management team. They,
in turn, hire, fire, and lead the rest of the organization.
The CEO must be able to hire á fire non-performers. She must resolve differences between senior
team members, and keep them working together in a common direction. She sets direction by
communicating the strategy and vision of where the company is going.     ! With
clear direction, the team can rally together and make it happen.

Don͛t underestimate the power of setting direction. In 1991, at Intuit͛s new employee orientation, CEO
Scott Cook presented his vision of Intuit as the center of computerized personal finance. Intuit had just
120 employees and one product. Ten years later, it͛s a billion-dollar company with thousands of
employees and dozens of products. Worldwide, it is the winner in personal finance, bar none. The
success is due in no small part to every Intuit employee knowing and sharing the company͛s vision and
strategy.

If vision is Ä  the company is going,    à
      ! Values outline
acceptable behavior. The CEO conveys values through actions and reactions to others. Slipping a ship
schedule to meet quality levels sends a message of valuing quality. p
over-celebrating a team͛s heroic
recovery when they could have avoided a problem altogether sends a message about prevention versus
damage control. People take their cues about interpersonal valuesͶtrust, honesty, opennessͶfrom
CEO͛s actions as well.

Capital allocation is the CEO͛s #4 duty. The CEO sets budgets within the firm. She funds projects which
support the strategy, and ramps down projects which lose money or don͛t support the strategy. She
considers carefully the company͛s major expenditures, and manages the firm͛s capital. If the company
can͛t use each dollar raised from investors to produce at least $1 of shareholder value, she decides
when to return money to the investors. Some CEOs don͛t consider themselves financial people, but at
the end of the day, it is their decisions that determine the company͛s financial fate.

The CEO͛s success at team-building can often be measured through the team. Teams usually know when
they͛re effective. They can also rate their team using assessments that measure specific behaviors. For
example, ͞I can trust my teammates.͟ ͞My teammates deliver their part of the project on time.͟ ͞Every
member knows what is expected of them.͟ Regular team self-assessments can help the CEO track the
team͛s progress and hone her abilities to keep the team running smoothly[2].

Easiest to measure is a CEO͛s capital allocation skill. In fact, financial measures are the ones made public:
earnings and share price. But how can a CEO link those to her actual decisions? Working with her CFO, a
CEO can devise financial measures appropriate to her business. Sometimes traditional measures are
most appropriate, such as economic value added or return on assets (for a capital-intensive company).
Other times, the CEO may want to invent business-specific measures, such as return on training dollars,
for a company which values state-of-the-art training for employees. By monitoring several such
measures, a CEO learns to link her budget decisions with company outcomes. Ultimately, the CEO͛s
should be creating more than a dollar of value for every dollar invested in the company. Otherwise, her
best bet is to return cash to the shareholders for them to invest in more productive vehicles.

Chief Information Officer (CIO) is a job title commonly given to the most senior executive in an
enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise
goals. As information technology and systems have become more important, the CIO has come to be
viewed in many organizations as a key contributor in formulating strategic goals. Typically, the CIO in a
large enterprise delegates technical decisions to employees more familiar with details. Usually, a CIO
proposes the information technology needed by an enterprise to achieve its goals and then works within
a budget to implement the plan. The CIO role is also sometimes used interchangeably with the chief
technology officer role, although they may be slightly different. When both positions are present in an
organization, the CIO is generally responsible for processes and practices supporting the flow of
information, whereas the CTO is generally responsible for technology infrastructure.

Chief information officer (CIO) is one of the most unique of all corporate positions. Like all jobs, the CIO
role is defined by a set of requirements and expectations specified by the management of the
corporation. The problem is that CIOs can do exactly what they are askedͶand still fail.

The position of a CIO is a paradox. How can a CIO be a visionary implementer of new technology and, at
the same time, an operational manager whose systems never fail? How can a CIO find ways to simplify
the current infrastructure and save money while adding capability and capacity to that same
infrastructure? Can a CIO be a supportive business partner while driving information technology (IT)
standards?

What does a CIO do? A CIO is a manager of people, a manager of infrastructure, a financial planner, a
business partner, a business expert, an international expert, a customer-facing executive, and a
corporate leader. How a CIO fills those roles depends on the business, financial, personal, and political
drivers within a particular company.

c) Describe how the information systems support the key business functions: (1) sales and marketing,
(2) manufacturing and production, (3) finance and accounting and (4) human resources at MNO
Pharmaceutical.

 

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  - IT has not only brought the world closer together, but it has allowed the world's
economy to become a single interdependent system. This means that we can not only share information
quickly and efficiently, but we can also bring down barriers of linguistic and geographic boundaries. The
world has developed into a global village due to the help of information technology allowing countries
like Chile and Japan who are not only separated by distance but also by language to shares ideas and
information with each other.

° 
  - With the help of information technology, communication has also become cheaper,
quicker, and more efficient. We can now communicate with anyone around the globe by simply text
messaging them or sending them an email for an almost instantaneous response. The internet has also
opened up face to face direct communication from different parts of the world thanks to the helps of
video conferencing.

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- Information technology has helped to computerize the business process thus

streamlining businesses to make them extremely cost effective money making machines. This in turn
increases productivity which ultimately gives rise to profits that means better pay and less strenuous
working conditions.

á
 
    - Information technology has helped to bridge the cultural gap by helping
people from different cultures to communicate with one another, and allow for the exchange of views
and ideas, thus increasing awareness and reducing prejudice.

 
  - IT has made it possible for businesses to be open 24 x7 all over the globe. This means that a
business can be open anytime anywhere, making purchases from different countries easier and more
convenient. It also means that you can have your goods delivered right to your doorstep with having to
move a single muscle.

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  Ä 
- Probably the best advantage of information technology is the creation of new and
interesting jobs. Computer programmers, Systems analyzers, Hardware and Software developers and
Web designers are just some of the many new employment opportunities created with the help of IT.

Benefits of information technology in business

Information technology has formed a major place in the different business areas. Most of the businesses
have started their own in-house training for IT by their own staff. The different benefits in use include:

The use of IT is evidently a major component of work in businesses;

Most responding companies prefer in-house training by their own staff for IT Training above other
methods;
The most important use of the IT by respondents is in office applications, followed by accounting
software and sector-specific applications

The sector-specific and project-management applications were expected to show the greatest growth in
demand over the coming years;

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   in the field of heath care allows complete management of the
medical information and the safe exchange of information between the health car
consumers and the providers. Information technology has brought about a big revolution in the heath
care industry. Some of the benefits of information technology in health care industry include:

Improved quality of health care;

Prevention of medical errors;
Reduction in the health care costs;
Increase in the administrative efficiencies;
Decrease in the amount of paperwork; and
Increased access to affordable health care options.

The other benefits of information technology would not only improve the individual patient care but
would also bring about many benefits to the general public health like:

Early detection of infectious disease outbreaks in the country;

Improved tracking of severe disease management; and
Evaluation of health care based on value enabled by the collection of de-identified price and quality
information that can be compared.

The introduction of information technology in health care system has helped people in the better
management of the health information and also patient management. The documents need not be filed
in the form of papers and can be complied on the computer and given to the patient. There are less
chances of loss of documents and patient information.

Major effect has been seen in the area of clinical trials where the documents need to be maintained and
kept for a period of 15-20 years. With the help of this  
 
   it is now possible to store
these documents safely away from any sort of natural calamity and they can be filed in a proper manner
and made use of whenever required.

Benefits of information technology in agricultural industry

Information technology has also found place in the agricultural industry. The farmers have benefited a
lot from it and it have affected both their output and management.

Some of the benefits of information technology in the agricultural industry are mentioned below.
Information technology has affected the public good and created a non-excludable environment in the
agricultural industry in consumption, but does have positive costs of gathering, screening, editing and
disseminating.

Information and technology is evaluated subjectively, hence it is dependentl on an individual's non-

observable utility function. However, actions may be observed and stated willingness to pay for
information elicited.

The use of computers on farms will increase as farms continue to increase in size and complexity and
farmers level of education increases.

The use of information technology on the farm contributes to increased managerial effectiveness by
making access to farm records quicker and more accurate. Quicker access enhances the monitoring
ability of farm managers.

The importance of information and technology has improved the ability to communicate is indicated by
the inelastic demand for those services exhibited by 60%-70% of the farmers surveyed.

For a large proportion of farmers, information and technology has increased the ability to communicate
are necessary and have no real substitutes.

The possible benefits from the Internet are vast but uncertain at this time. It is likely that many of the
pay-for-information services will be replaced by magazine type websites on the Internet. Market and
futures prices, and other information will act as a draw to bring farmers to the Web Site, which will also
have commercials and information about the sponsoring firm's goods or services.

Government's role as an "honest broker" of information will likely continue regardless of the technology
of the information systems.

User fee for government-supplied information is problematic. Once data is screened and edited into
usable information, it is non-rival and non-excludable in consumption; i.e., the main characteristics of a
public good.

The information technology industry has come a great way and has made its mark on all the industries.
This has also affected the types of education that students are getting these days. The advancement in
technology has had a major impact on the type of education and also on the quality. There are special
information technology courses that are developed to provide student knowledge about these things.
Technology has always shown positive effects on the instructional process and has also changed it
completely. The newer development in technology has defined the role of information technology
better in the education and other industries
REFERENCE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_integration

Research and Practical Experiences in the Use of Multiple Data Sources 1

© 2003 Center for Technology in Government www.ctg.albany.edu