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Some “take home” points from last lecture:
•The term “technology” encompasses more than someone sitting working at a computer or laptop
•All business owners and managers (regardless of field or department) need to have a basic understanding of technology.
When the people at the top leave the technology piece entirely to someone else, bad things happen. Folks at the top are ultimately responsible.
•There are no longer “technology initiatives.” The line between technology and business is becoming gray.
•Automation of a bad process still leaves you with a bad process. Business process reengineering is key to success when installing new automation into a business.

Digital Divide
Social inequity that has emerged in the digital age
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Technically savvy versus computer illiterate
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Unlimited access to technology versus limited/none
Electronic Birth Registration in Bangladesh page 17

January 2008 – Harvard Business Review
Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy www.hbr.org

January 2008 – Harvard Business Review
Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy www.hbr.org
Forces That Shape Competition
The configuration of the five forces differs by industry. In the market for commercial aircraft, fierce rivalry between dominant producers Airbus and Boeing and the bargaining power of the airlines that place huge orders for aircraft are strong, while the threat of entry, the threat of substitutes, and the power of suppliers are more benign. In the movie theater industry, the proliferation of substitute forms of entertainment and the power of the movie producers and distributors who supply movies, the critical input, are important.
The strongest competitive force or forces determine the profitability of an industry and become the most important to strategy formulation. The most salient force, however, is not always obvious.
For example, even though rivalry is often fierce in commodity industries, it may not be the factor limiting profitability. Low returns in the photographic film industry, for instance, are the result of a superior substitute product—as Kodak and Fuji, the world’s leading producers of photographic film, learned with the advent of digital photography. In such a situation, coping with the substitute product becomes the number one strategic priority.
** This article is currently available in full for free from the HBR web site

Case 1: Continental Airlines
This Call is Being Monitored
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CallMiner software installed:
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Records and transcribes conversations
–
Captures keystrokes
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Used to craft marketing plans
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Improve quality of customer service
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Determine what training is needed

1. What are the business benefits of the CallMiner system?
Provide additional examples beyond those in case.
2. How can new technologies like CallMiner help companies improve their customer service & gain a competitive edge in the marketplace? Explain.
3. Andre Harris refers to calls to reconfirm a flight as
“quite frankly, low-value calls.” Why are they classified as low value? Why do you think so many customers are placing such calls?

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Basic hardware terminology
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Where does your information go?
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Speed?
•
What will it cost and why?
(Total Cost of Ownership)

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Machines and media
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Physical equipment, as opposed to computer programs or methods of use
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Mechanical, magnetic, electrical, electronic, or optical devices

Input
Storage & Processing
Output

Information from Intel on hardware http://www97.intel.com/discover/JourneyInside/TJI_Intro/default.aspx

Resources to help with the jargon
TechSoup http://www.techsoup.org/
The technology place for non-profits
WhatIs Technical Encyclopedia http://whatis.techtarget.com/
Webopedia http://www.webopedia.com
/

Input Devices
Types of hardware that enable you to get programs, data, commands, and responses into the computer’s memory

Examples of input devices
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Mouse
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Keyboard
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Monitor (touch screen)
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Stylus
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Keypad
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Audio or video input (microphone, camera)
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Bar code scanner
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Other scanning device (fax machine, other scanner)

Speech recognition is a type of input in which the computer recognizes words spoken into a microphone.

•
Videoconferencing is using digital video technology to simulate face-to-face meetings
•
Whiteboards, which are a a part of the screen, can be used to write or draw

In a computer context, biometrics refers to using some measurable physical characteristic as part of interaction with the computer.
This is usually in a security context of some sort – typically authenticating users onto a system (are you who you say you are) – or in a profiling context (are you the bad
“guy” we are looking for)

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Face
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Fingerprint
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Hand Geometry
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Retina Scan
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Iris
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Signature
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Veins on back of hand or wrist
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Voice analysis

Use of electromagnetic technology as a way to track or tag something
Need an RFID ID tag or chip
Need a transceiver (reader) for scanning and antenna
Need a processing device of some sort

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205900561

Output devices are peripheral devices that enable us to view or hear the computer’s processed data.
Visual output– Text, graphics, and video.
Audio output– Sounds, music, and synthesized speech.

Monitors
Audio Output Devices (IPOD, cell phone)
Printer
Plotter

(Where the processing occurs)
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Information appliances
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PDA
– Cell phone
– Game boxes
• Notebook Computers
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Desktop Computers
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Servers
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Mainframes
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Terminals
– Transaction terminals
– Terminals connected to mainframes
• Supercomputers

Questions Managers Might Have About
Processing
•Where does processing of our data occur?
One location or multiple locations?
Nearby or far away?
• How fast will processing occur?
• When will processing occur?
• Who has physical access to this equipment?
• How is this equipment protected?
Fire – heat – cold – dirt – other hazards
• Who owns the equipment?
• What equipment maintenance is required?
• How often should this equipment be replaced?

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Temporary
– Store information that is currently being processed
– Random Access Memory (RAM)
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Long Term
– Saved after the computer is turned off
– Hard drive, CD-ROM, floppy disk,
DVD, jump drive

RAM: Random Access
Memory Floppy Disk
Hard Disk
USB (zip drive, thumb drive)
CD-ROM, CD-RW
DVD

Questions Managers Might Have
About Storage
•Where are our data being stored?
One location or multiple locations?
Onsite, offsite or both?
• What are we planning on storing?
• How much data can be held there?
Do we need an archive plan?
• Do we have room for growth?
• Who has access to this storage?
Physically and via computer

Bandwidth
The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time.
Example 100 MBPS (megabytes per second)
Microprocessor
Speed
The clock speed of the computer
Example 200 MHz (megahertz)

… Smaller, Faster, More Reliable and Less Costly
… Easy to Purchase and Easy to Maintain
… Direct Input Devices that Are More Natural & Easy to Use
… Output Methods that Communicate Naturally, Quickly, and Clearly

Ergonomics (from the Greek words ergon [work] and nomos [natural laws] ) is the application of scientific information concerning humans to the design of objects, systems and environment for human use.

A user-centered design (UCD), also known as a systems approach or the usability engineering lifecycle aims to improve the usersystem fit.
Additional information available from http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/
The Cornell University Ergonomics website

Maintenance Schedules and Down Time
• When should regular maintenance occur?
• When should planned, larger maintenance events occur?
• How much notice is needed?
• For major hardware failure, what is acceptable down time?
You get what you pay for…..

The ability of a system to respond gracefully to an unexpected hardware or software failure.

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How often is the data backed up?
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How is it backed up?
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Who checks to make sure it backed up?
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Does the restore operation work?
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Where is the backup stored?
•
Who (in the company) knows about all this stuff?

POWER FAILURE
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
Backup power supply for a computer.
Takes over when the power goes off and begins beeping loudly to alert the operator to a power failure.
Backup Generator

Short for R edundant A rray of I ndependent
(or I nexpensive) D isks, a category of disk drives that employ two or more drives in combination for fault tolerance and performance. RAID disk drives are used frequently on servers but aren't generally necessary for personal computers.

Last modified: Monday, August 05, 2002
Utilizing a backup server that duplicates all the processes and transactions of the primary server. If, for any reason, the primary server fails, the backup server can immediately take its place without any downtime.
Server mirroring is an expensive but effective strategy for achieving fault tolerance. It's expensive because each server must be mirrored by an identical server whose only purpose is to be there in the event of a failure.

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How long?
•
What does it cover?
•
Where is the work performed?
•
How long will the work take?
•
Loner equipment?
•
Shipping method?

• The purchase price of technology is only the start
• What are the other hidden costs?
– Staff time required to set it up
– Expertise needed (technical & end user)
– Replacement parts if it breaks
– Maintenance time
– Ability to upgrade

• Read (or at least skim) chapter 4 in your textbook
• Review Mossberg instructions if you haven’t looked at them yet