MGIS 130.600 – Info Sys & Tech
MGIS 130.600 – Information Systems & Technology
Case Study 1
Fall 2021
RIT-Dubai
Due Date: October 21, 2021 at 11:30 PM
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MGIS 130.600 – Info Sys & Tech
Mission
In this case study, you will apply the knowledge you gathered from Chapters 1, 2 and 3 to
analyze an online real-estate website. Read the following case description then answer the
questions that follow.
Statement
Zillow.com is an online, web-based real-estate site helping homeowners, buyers, sellers, renters,
real-estate agents, mortgage professionals, property owners, and property managers find and
share information about real-estate and mortgages. Zillow allows users to access, anonymously
and free of charge, the kinds of tools and information previously reserved for real-estate
professionals. Zillow recalculates home valuations for each property every day, so it can provide
historical graphs on home valuations over time. In some areas, Zillow is able to display 10 years
of valuation history, a value-added benefit for many of its customers. This collection of data
represents an operational data warehouse for anyone visiting the website.
As soon as Zillow launched its website, it immediately generated a massive amount of traffic. As
the company expanded its services, the founders knew the key to its success would be the site's
ability to process and manage massive amounts of data quickly, in real time. Zillow's traffic
continues to grow despite the weakened real-estate market; the company is experiencing annual
traffic growth of 30 percent, and about a third of all U.S. mortgage professionals visit the site in
a given month.
Zestimate values (Zillow's estimated market value, computed using a proprietary formula) on
Zillow use data-mining features for spotting trends across property valuations. Data mining also
allows the company to see how accurate Zestimate values are over time. Zillow has also built the
industry's first search by monthly payment, allowing users to find homes that are for sale and
rent based on a monthly payment they can afford. Along with the monthly payment search, users
can also enter search criteria such as the number of bedrooms or bathrooms.
Zillow also launched a new service aimed at changing the way Americans shop for mortgages.
Borrowers can use Zillow's new Mortgage Marketplace to get custom loan quotes from lenders
without having to give their names, addresses, phone numbers, or Social Security numbers, or
field unwanted telephone calls from brokers competing for their business. Borrowers reveal their
identities only after contacting the lender of their choice. The company is entering a field of
established mortgage sites such as LendingTree.com and Experian Group's Lowermybills.com,
which charge mortgage companies for borrower information. Zillow, which has an advertising
model, says it does not plan to charge for leads.
For mortgage companies, the anonymous leads come free; they can make a bid based on
information provided by the borrower, such as salary, assets, credit score, and the type of loan.
Lenders can browse borrower requests and see competing quotes from other brokers before
making a bid.
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MGIS 130.600 – Info Sys & Tech
Questions
1. Suppose that Zillow gives an online e-ticket to each visitor. Upon providing the e-ticket
to each department on Zillow’s website (i.e., inventory, sales, marketing, check-out,
bidding, mortgage, etc.), the customer is able to have a continuous journey that starts with
searching for a target property for rent/buy and ends with renting/buying the desired
property. Read the supplemental material provided to you then, using your own words
and proper referencing, answer the following questions:
a. What is Systems Thinking? [10 points]
b. Apply the different components of Systems Thinking on the Zillow business
scenario. In other words, identify the different components of Zillow as system:
the input, the output, the processing, and the different feedbacks. [10 points]
c. Perform a SWOT analysis on Zillow as a business. Keep in mind that Zillow is as
collection of, not only different departments, but also different information
systems, such as various software, databases, and servers. [10 points]
d. As stated above, Zillow gives an e-ticket to each visitor. The visitor, then, must
present this e-ticket to each department s/he visits. For example, in order to use
the mortgage service, a visitor must present her/his assigned e-ticket so that the
mortgage department knows which property the visitor had chosen.
Design or suggest alternative solutions (at least one) that shall improve how
Zillow handles each visitor’s journey to make it smooth and transparent across
different departments. Your answer must be from a system thinker’s perspective
(as explained in the supplementing material). [10 points]
2. Describe how Zillow can use business intelligence to create unique products/services for
its customers. Incorporate your knowledge of business intelligence from Chapter 1 with
the use of the decision support systems (OLAP operations) in Chapter 2. [10 points]
3. As an e-business, how can Zillow improve its business/operations effectiveness?
Elaborate your answer and provide examples. Hint: Remember clickstream data? [10
points]
4. Discuss how Zillow can achieve success by defining at least one KPI and one CSF. [10
points]
5. Zillow is an example of an e-business that comes with several advantages, such as
expanding global reach, reducing costs, and improving effectiveness. How did Zillow
manage to achieve each one of these three advantages? For example, Zillow reduced
costs by doing… [10 points]
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MGIS 130.600 – Info Sys & Tech
Deliverable
Form a group of exactly three students. Discuss with your teammates all the questions presented
above, then write a report as per the following format:
•
Page 1: a cover page [2 points]
o Course title with course code and section number
o Case Study 1
o Names and IDs of group members
•
Page 2: manifesto [10 points]
o This page should include the contribution of each group member to the report
o There are two cases for grading each group member:
▪ Case 1: If the entire group discussed and equally contributed to solving each and
every question, then the same grade will be given to each group member.
▪ Case 2: If the amount of effort put in this report is not equal among group members,
you must indicate so by listing what each group member did. In this case, each
member’s grade will be proportional to their own contribution.
o Your manifesto must indicate which one of the above two cases (Case 1 or Case 2)
applies to your report.
o Missing the manifesto in your report will result in an automatic penalty of 10 points.
o Distributing the work by assigning each member a different set of questions (e.g.,
member 1 solves Questions 1-3 and member 2 solves Questions 4-5) will result in both
students being penalized for not attempting to solve all the questions.
•
Page 3: start your report with a summary of the business scenario in discussion. [2 points]
•
Page 3: Introduction section that clearly states the purpose of your report. [2 point]
•
Report must use proper referencing and be well-written, organized, and clear of grammatical
mistakes. [4 points]
•
Answer all of the above questions in a Q/A way. For example:
o Question 2: Describe how Zillow uses business intelligence to create…
o Answer: BI is… . Zillow uses BI by…
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MGIS 130.600 – Info Sys & Tech
Submission
This is a group-based work. Your group representative will submit a single copy of the group’s
report. The report will be submitted to
myCourses → Assignments → Case Study 1.
The report file must be in MS Word or PDF. The name of the report file must be as follows:
CS1_LastName1_LastName2_LastName3.pdf
where LastName is the last names of each group member.
Turnitin will be active, and you will be able to see your Similarity Score. High Similarity Scores
(i.e., above 25%) will result in an automatic mark of zero. You have the option to resubmit your
report if you wish to modify it.
Evaluation criteria
Your work will be evaluated based on the following rubrics:
Deliverable
Score
Report organization
10%
Complete Manifesto
10%
Question 1
10% x 4
Questions 2-5
10% x 4
Total
100%
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