MY BIO-DATA

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• Name : Tan Sue Ming
• DOB : 23 Oct
• E-mail : tansueming@gmail.com
• Matrix no: GM05164

Smartphones and the great Digital Divide

Q1: Even thought 44 percent of African Americans and Latinos own a smartphone while only 30 percent of white, non-Hispanics do, many people contend that this isn’t really closing the great digital divide because African Americans and Latinos use their smartphones more for entertainment then empowerment. Build an argument to support the previous statement.

When a person only uses smartphone for entertainment, the smartphone is actually not function as a smartphone but only act as a game player or a television. This could not help to closing the great digital divide as many people now have a television and game player in their house. To closing the great digital divide, African Americans and Lat shall be teach to use the smartphone smart enough, such as as a GPS, phone, tablet, working tool and etc. only when the smartphone is function as what it should, the great digital divide cab be closed.

Q2: When accessing the Internet, what can you do on a desktop or laptop computer that you can’t do on a smart phone? If smartphone have fever Internet capabilities (than desktop and laptop computers), can you necessarily link an increase in smartphone ownership within a U.S. based economically disadvantaged group of people to closing the great digital divide? Why or why not?

Smartphone have a similar function as laptop and destop. The only thing that I can think of that smartphone cannot support is those program with JAVA version and smartphone do not have a physical keyboard.  However, even smartphone yet to complete as laptop, as long as most of the disadvantage group owned and use smartphone, they still can learn a lot of thing thru online at anytime any place, the great digital divide surely can be closer.

 

Q3: How does an increase in smartphone ownership in a third-world geographic region like Africa close the digital divide for contries in that region? If you owned a U.S. business and wanted to start doing business in Africa, what would be essential part of your marketing stretagy.

Smart phone is much cheaper and smaller the normal laptop or destop, this make poor people have a chance to use this device. However, without internet, smartphone will become not smart enough. If I would be doing business in such region, I will target to provide cheaper online provider which come with cheap smartphone so that they can owned a smartphone which can online.

Q4: If you look at smartphone ownership by household income, you’ll notice a fairly sizable dip for the category of $ 50,000.00 - $ 75,000. To what do you attribute this? Justify your answer?

This is mainly because category of $ 50,000.00 - $ 75,000 considers a middle low income range where people with this range are more concern on buying house and property. Their income is enough to support only for basic living with having a house or property. In such, technology device become secondary important or luxury thing for such group.

Q5: Finally, will greater access to the internet case a closing of the great digital divide? You can answer Yes, No or same. Whatever the case, build an argument for your answer.

The answer can be yes or no. theoretically, greater access to the internet can close the great digital divide. However, it is much depend on what you have use internet for. If you use it for knowledge purpose, then the gap can be closed but if only for entertainment, the gap will not close much. But having greater access to the internet is a very important step to close the gap.

Just how big is the impact of technology on society

Q1: Visit University Oxford Press at http://global.oup.com/?cc=us. For all years after 2010, find the new word of the year and all the runner-up words perform the simple analysis we presented in the final paragraph above. How has technology impacted the English language in the years after 2010?

2011:

New Word of the year: squeezed middle

 

2012:

New Word of the year : omnishambles

 

2013:

New Word of the year: selfie

 

 

Runners-up:

·         Bedroom tax

·         binge-watch

·         bitcoin

·         olinguito

·         schmeat

·         showrooming

·         twerk

 

From the above data, we found out that the new word of the year has mostly related with technology.

 

Q2: While technology has certainly impacted our language in the last several years, so has the environment, perhaps to an even greater extent than technology. Why have so many environment-related words inserted themselves into our language?

 

More and more people are well educated and we all know that environment is the 2^nd mother of us. People hoping to build up the mind set of environment friendly and the best way is created more new word to educate public, for example, bio-plastic, Bio-petrol and etc. This is the main reason that environment-related words inserted themselves into our language

 

Q3: Create some new technology-related words. Think about the things you do with technology or have witnessed other people doing with technology. Create list of at least five new technology-related words. For each, describe how you derived them and also provide their definition.

 

1)      Foodbook: since people love to take picture of food before start eating and post in Facebook, this word describe people who doing it.

2)      Balktag: always tag all other people instantly in facebook post.

3)      Touchbook: the combination of tablet and netbook

4)      Pencard: pendrive which in card design

5)      Watchphone: watch that can call others.

 

Q4: What about text message abbreviations, emotions, and chat slang terms. Which have been formally recognized by University Oxford Press as a part of the English language? Is it good or bad that these are becoming a part of our formal language? Justify your answer.

 

“Oxford dictionary adds “twerk,” “derp,” “selfie,” “phablet,” and more voguish vocabulary”

 

More and more text message abbreviations, emotions, and chat slang terms has been recognize by University Oxford Press. This is good thing in term of the world is accepting new world but this is also bad where there are not any grammer in the new language. It can be easily use and lower the usage of the word but in the same time the whole paragraph is messy and hard to understand as no structure. Unless this problem can be slove, the new language shall not be formalize as one part of the English language.

Sony Reels from Multiple Hacker Attacks

Q1: Do some research on the Sony PDN debacle. What are the new cost estimates for the incident? How many customers have left Sony because of the incident? Have there been any reports of fraudulent use of identities obtained from the hack? Has Sony’s PlayStation Network being hacked again?

 

From the research, it is estimate that the cost of the incident is about USD 318 per customer. And due to the incident, almost 9% of customer have left Sony and change to other game services provider such as Xbox. However, no particular news showing that there been any reports of fraudulent use of identities obtained from the hack but Sony had been hack again in year 2012 October.

Q2: Gaming and virtual services on the Internet, like Sony’s PSN, World of Warcraft, and Second Life, boast millions of users. For each user, this service must store credit card information. What must these organizations do to protect the private information of their customers? Is it even reasonable to assume that any organization can have protection measures in place to stop the world’s best hackers?

The organization could:

1.       Encrypt the private information.

2.       Put stronger firewall or maybe layering the firewall.

3.       Hired a team of member which knows how to deal with situation when being hack by hackers.

It is important to have such protection as the private information somehow is very private and must be protect from theft. A lot of fraud can occur if the customer identity had been stolen.

Q3: If an extremely intelligent hacker is caught by a law enforcement agency, should that hacker be prosecuted and sent to jail? Is there perhaps way that the hacker might be “turned’ for the good of the digital world? What would that be?

It is depends on what kind of fraud had been done by the hacker. If the hacker had stole the identity and create a big problem to the society, he/she shall be sentence and send to jail. However, if the hacker is only hack for fun and did not make big harm to others, he can be advice to become the talent of protecting cyber world from being hacking. Only those know hacking system well person can know how to stop them. In fact, a lot of antivirus system or firewalls are created by intelligent hackers.

 

Q4: Every survey taken of business regarding data breaches has found that many businesses are reluctant to publicly announce a data breach. Further, most business will downplay the significance of the breach. Why do organizations behave like this? What is there to gain by not operating in a transparent fashion? Is this an ethical issue, a legal issue or both?

Company reluctant to publicly announce a data breach is due to they want to protect their company good will. And there are very limited law that enforces company to announce to public is such incident happen. It is all depend on the ethical issue whether the company wanted to protect their client or the company names.

 

Q5: What’s your personal identity theft story? Has someone used your credit card fraudulently? How many phishing emails have you received in the last year? How often do you check your credit card report?

I am been lucky where I do not have any identity theft story. I have receiving phishing email almost every week but I choose to junk them. I have been checking my credit card report every week.

Sexting Now Almost Commonplace

 

 

Q1: Adult sexting is perfectly legal, as it is the sharing of sexually explicit content between tewo consenting adults. But what about teen sexting, should that be legal? If a 16-year-old boy sends a sext to his 16-year-old partner, should that be xonsidered child pornography? Why or why not?

Adult sexting is not legal in some country as this involves morality issue. However, teen sexting is definitely not allow as teenage or children are not mature to know what they are doing and what is the risk behind sexting. They have a lot of imagination about sex but they are lack of the knowledge. If teen sexting is allowed, there might have certain people hunting teenage for sexting and might even cheat for having real sex with the teenage people. This will cause a lot of society problem.

Q2: If you refer back to Figure 8.1 on page 228, where would you place adult sexting – a minor ethical violation, a serious ethical violation, or a very serious ethical violation? What circumstances – consequences, society’s opinion, likelihood of effect, time to consequences, relatedness, and reach of result – might move adult sexting from a minor ethical violation to serious ethical violation and then finally on a very serious ethical violation?

I will rate adult sexting as a minor ethical violation. This is because both adults are mature enough to decide what they wants to do and it will not harm other people. However, if the sexting is being stole and publish in public, it will move to serious ethical violation as this involve copy rights and bad intention as other people such as teenage could watch the sexting easily. Furthermore, if the sexting is containing a spyware or virus, it could become a very serious ethical violation as this could even harm other online user and stole their personal data while the person is watching the texting.

Q3: Consider the whole notion of power being tied to sexting, flirting, and cheating. From a psychological point of view why might this be true? Do some research into Tiger Woods’s troubles woth extra-marital affairs. Could his cheating be tied to his position of power? Is “power” and the temptations that go with it an excuse for such behavior?

The reason behind of having sexting, flirting, and cheating is because of greedy. People wants to have more than one partner to show the status and power. They feel proud that they can do things that others cannot do. But actually they are just greedy and not confident with themselves. Just like tiger wood, when he is having cheat, he can perform well but after the cheat being know by others, his performance become very poor. This is all because of self confident level. Temptation is one of the reason to have such behavior as people hope to know more and wanted to find fun. But as a mature adult, you should responsible to what you had done and do not use temptations as an excuse.

Q4: What role can and should employers play in limiting (perhaps eliminating) sexting in the workplace? What about employee-to-employee sexting? What about employee-to-customer sexting? Regarding the latter, what sort of legal liability does an organization have if an employee sends an unwanted and unwelcome sext to another employee or to a customer?

First, Human governments is a good idea to limiting (perhaps eliminating) sexting in the workplace. As a human, we should governs ourselves. Sexting in the workplace is very unhealthy as it could affect the working performance. Sexting in the workplace is same as having affair in work place and it could crash of interest especially between superior and subordinated. Company could also set a rule that forbidden the sexting inside work place. Besides, sexting with customer might end up become sexual harrestment to the customer and customer could have legal suit to the company and affect the company goodwill. So this also should not be allowed no matter it is agree by customer or not.

 

Q5: These are purely for you to answer yourself. Have you ever participated in sexting? Have you receive a sext? Has learning more about ethics and the nonprivacy of technology enabled communications reshaped your thinking about participating in quesrtionable activities like sexting?

All the answer is no and never. I have never participate in any form of sexting.

Denver Health Operation with a Private Cloud and thin Clients

Q1: Privacy laws and regulations require medical facilities to take measurable steps to ensure the confidentiality of patient information. From this case study, can you tell what Denver Health has done to ensure the confidentiality of its patient information?

 

 

1)      The patient information is store in a private Cloud and is not accessible by public.

      2)      Only authorize people with thin client can log into the private Cloud.
     3)      The thin client is being password encrypted.

 

Q2: Think about your school. How could it use the ThinIdentity solution to support the technology needs of (1) faculty and (2) students such as yourself?

The school can benchmark the ThinIdentity solution into its Information system. School will store student data in a private cloud and only those with thin client have the access to the private cloud and each thin client can only access to personal information. The person with thin client can add data to the private cloud and store it safely.

 

Q3: In Thinking about cloud computing (Focusing on the public cloud), what role it play in business continuity planning for Denver Health? That is, how could the public cloud act as a backup for Denver Health’s private cloud?

 

Denver Health could store same copy of data in their private cloud into the public cloud. If the data in private cloud is missing, Denver health could recover it from public cloud. It is just same theory of storing data into another hard disk.

 

Q4: If Denver Health were to give each patient a smart card, log-on name, and password, which functions, features, and information could benefit patients? What security would have to be in place to ensure that patient have access to only their own information?

Each of every patient shall have a unique matrix in order to control their power of excess. There will need to have several tier protection to ensure that patient have access to only their own information. Denver Health could also put a lot of server as the protection of the data and each patient can only log on into certain server.

 

Q5: How could Denver Health extend the ThinIdentity solution beyond its brick-and-mortar walls? How would it work (ie, need to change) to have doctors and nurses log on from home or use a mobile device such as a Blackberry or iphone?

Denver Health could make it server being connect by other user other then those connected by using Web server. First the Denver Health server have to connect online and then the doctor Blackberry or iphone could connected with the server thru online.

Public "Personal" Clouds

Q1: Do some research on Amazon’s Cloud Drive. What  is the amount of free storage space? What is the annual cost for additional storage? What about Apple’s iCloud? Is it still free? Does Microsoft charge anything for use of its SkyDrive cloud service?

The Amazon’s Cloud Drive give first 5 GB storage free and charge additional USD 0.50 per year for every extra GB.

It is show that iCloud is not free. It only provides 5GB free and after that user can upgrade to certain storage capacity with a one lump sum payment.

Skydrive offer 7GB free and additional charges are depending to the capacity by annually basis. For example, 20GB for USD 10 per year, 50GB for USD 25 per year and 100 GB for USD 50 per year.

 

Q2: Putting all your personal information in the cloud means letting go of some control over information like your tax files, personal photos that you might not want anyone else to see, term papers you’re currently writing, and so on. What is your level of concern for the security of these personal digital assets in the cloud? Explain why your level of concern is high or low.

My level of concern is high as there is a lot of information that I do not hope to publish in public. Since the service providers offer such product with fees, it is their duty to make sure my data being protected. Besides, my data shall be protected under data protection act so that I could store my data in cloud safely.

 

Q3: As we move more of our personal storage needs to the cloud, will computers really need disk storage space? Is it possible that we’re in the early stages of an outrageous industry transformation? Who are the major manufacturers of disk storage for personal computers and laptop?

In future, computer might not need to have personal storage. However, since there are a lot of people need to store some data privately, the personal storage will not disappear from the world. However, offering storage in cloud is the early stages of an outrageous industry transformation where people have the choice of storing data online and the data will much easy to be recover if the data had been accidently deleted.

Currently, the major disk storage for personal computers and laptop provider is kingstam.

 

Q4: If you choose to store all your personal information in the cloud, you’ll need a personal continuity plan, much like organizations have business continuity plans in case of some sort of disaster. Suppose that right now you begin storing all your personal information, what will you also back up onto a flash drive? How often would you perform the backup information on your computer’s hard drive?

As a lay person, the data that I might back up might be related to money and tax. I might not backup data other than money related as, most of the data is not that important that I cannot survive if I lose it. I might back up those needed data only once a month as I believe that it is not so easy that the service provider will lost my data as there also need to protect their good will.

 

Q5: Do some research on personal cloud providers. What sort of service level agreement (SLA) do they offer? Are you willing to store your information with a personal cloud provider that offer no SLA? Why or why not.

Example of personal cloud providers SLA:

• Codifies the specific parameters and minimum levels required for each element of the service, as well as remedies for failure to meet those requirements.
• Affirms your institution’s ownership of its data stored on the service provider’s system, and specifies your rights to get it back.
• Details the system infrastructure and security standards to be maintained by the service provider, along with your rights to audit their compliance.
• Specifies your rights and cost to continue and discontinue using the service.

Basically the personal cloud providers will agree to store your data safely. If a personal cloud providers did not have SLA, which is mean that the data you store in that personal cloud providers will not have strong protection. It is much like keeping money in unlicensed banking system where you would probably lost your data or your data might be stole by a third person. So my opinion is, better pay more for security purpose rather than store data in personal cloud providers without SLA.

Tablets Take Their Place in the PC Market

 Q1: Computers, using some AI techniques like those we discussed in Chapter 4, can learn. In the classroom while a child is using a tablet PC to learn the basics of addition, how can software be developed to aid in the learning process? Does this mean that teachers are no longer needed for some subjects? Are teachers needed in earlier grades while computer-based training can take over in later grades? Why or why not?

By having tablet, Children no longer need to carry a lot of books which are very heavy. Children only need to bring a tablet and install a lot of e-book into the tablet and they can read whenever they want. 3D software shall be implemented so that when children asking for explanation, object can be shown in 3D instead of 2D and this will let the learning process become fun and fast. However, in our opinion, the development of tablet PC does not mean that we are no longer need teacher. The development of Tablet is only reducing the burden of the teacher. Teacher become the guide for the children to know where there can find answer/solution to their question. Beside, tablet could not guide attitude of a children, and it is still teacher responsible to make sure children learn knowledge as well as having good morality/attitude.  However, a mature adult can learn knowledge by just computer-based training as long as the AI of the tablet is good enough to demo the learning material effectively and efficiency. The success of the learning course will be depending on how well the adult can governs himself.

 

Q2: End – user systems, like those that allow patrons to orders meals on an ipad, must be “idiot proof.” That is, systems must be usable without training and created in such a way, for example, that a patron at one table can’t accidently change the order of a patron at another table. What does this mean for system development? Can complex and complicated end-user systems be developed and deployed on tablet PCs so that people can use the system without training and without intervention by knowledgeable person such as waiter or waitress?

The reason of having user friendly system patron is because there are a lot of people especially those baby boomers are lack of technology knowledge. However, this kind of problem can be solve if there is an AI that can read every people mind or listen to the order by end user. If this kind of end user system had been created, the depended on waiter/waitress will be very minimum.

 

Q3: What security issues are involved in allowing people to pay with tablet PCs? Does this payment process make it easier for someone to steal your credit card information? Are you comfortable using a restaurant – supplied technology to enter your credit card information? Why or Why not?

 As tablet PCs is just recently created, there are a lot of system issues yet to be solved. One of the issues the security issues. It is much easier where the credit card info being stole compare to normal computer as there are a lot of spyware being created and lack of system securities being intro. However, I am still comfortable to use restaurant – supplied technology to enter my credit card information as nowadays, bank securities are quite complete and as long as I alert with every transaction done by my credit card, the chances of my credit card info being steal are same as normal computers.

 

Q4: What will happen to offshore outsourcing for software development? Can outsourcing firms in India or China, for example, be expected to develop software systems for use in U.S. schools? Can those same firms be expected to develop systems that meet FAA rules and restrictions?

The answer wills certainly a yes. By having globalization, the technology advancement gap between each country is very small. India and China will certainly have the resources to develop software for use in US school and the cost will be much lower due to the low living expences in such country. As long as there are certain quality governs rules being setup, the system generated can meet FAA rules and restrictions. 

The Good Enough Technology Economy

Q1: As we alluded to, the outrageous transformation taking place in the camera and film industries is being caused by good-enough products, specifically digital cameras and phone-embedded cameras. Read the Outrageous Industry Transformation cases at the beginning of Chapters 2 through 8. Which corrections are being caused by good-enough technology products?

 

From digital camera to phone with camera, this correction is caused by good-enough technology products. Camera in phone is not a perfect camera because the quality of megapixel is not as good as a digital camera. However, people tap into its benefits of being able to snap photos anywhere, anytime.

Another example of good-enough technology products is from hard-wired internet to wireless.  Wireless connectivity enable people to access internet anywhere, at anytime, and it makes you mobile as compared to hard-wired internet, although its connectivity is slower.

Skype is a good-enough technology product, it is not as convenient as mobile phone as skype cannot be used without internet, whereas you can make phone call anytime at anywhere using mobile phone without the need of internet. However, the cost being saved through making international calls through skype are tremendous

Cell phone is not perfect either as the voice on the other end cuts in and out, and sometimes calls are even dropped. However, the good thing about cell phone is that it makes you mobile. 

 

Q2: What does all this mean for systems development? In the good-enough technology, which will organizations come to rely on more heavily: insourcing, selfsourcing, or outsourcing? Can organizations afford to use the traditional SDLC and completely gather requirements before proceeding with development? For what systems can organizations still use the traditional SDLC?

 

 

System development is being defined as the process of defining, testing and implementing a new software application or program. The advantage of incorporating “good-enough technology” in system development is that you will save a lot of time, money and resources in your system development process. This could be achieved through rapid application development methodology, whereby it has extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the system development process.

In the good-enough technology, organizations usually will rely more heavily on in-sourcing.

Organization can afford to use the traditional SDLC to completely gather requirements before proceeding with development, because it is a component-based development that can be written each time for each application. Thus, it save a lot of time & utilization of resources to gather information required for proceeding the development. The rapid application development system is an example of traditional SDLC that can be used by organization to achieve good-enough technology economy . 

 

Q3: How is the notion of getting things out the door quickly and then using market feedback for product improvement similar to the concept of prototyping? What are the disadvantages of using such an approach to the release of products that aren’t perfect?

 

Prototyping is the process of building a model that demonstrates the features of a proposed product, service, or system. Prototyping is a dynamic process that allows end users to see, work with, and evaluate a model and suggest changes to that model to increase the likelihood of success of the proposed system. This is where the notion of getting things out the door quickly and then using market feedback for product improvement similar to the concept of prototyping.

The disadvantage of using such an approach to the release of products that aren’t  perfect, is that the project team tends to forgo proper testing and documentation. This is because they trust that after all, this product is going to be improved further in future. Thus, they tend not to put in efforts to look into the details. This may lead to the standard of the product getting lower and lower.

Another disadvantage is that people will feel that this company’s products are not high in quality, as they can easily spot the product weaknesses when it first launches in the market. It gives a bad impression to the consumer.  As time passes by, this becomes a not so good branding for the company as the product is low in quality, even though it is going to be improved later on. This impact is especially prominent in those products that required high quality image, such as health supplement.

 

Q4: Can manufacturers of automobiles use the concepts of the good-enough technology economy to produce automobiles? What features of an automobile must be perfect (or very close to it)? What features of an automobile can simple be “good enough”?

 

Certain parts of the automobiles can use the concepts of good-enough technology, whereas certain parts of it cannot use the concept of good-enough technology. For example, the engine, the hand-brake, tyre, etc must be perfect because any discrepancies will threaten the safety of human’s life. On the other hand, parts that do not require perfect technology are the material of the seat, the air-con, the sound system, etc. These features can be just “good-enough” technology instead of perfect technology.

The Mobile Commerce Explosion

Q1: Take a survey in one of your classes. What percentages of students own a smartphone? Gather some data regarding how they use their smartphones for shopping. Do they use a smartphone to compare prices? Do they use a smartphone to read product reviews? For what other shopping-related activities do they use their smartphones?

From the survey in MIS class, all the students own a smartphone. However, the most students usually do not use a smartphone for shopping. Only 20% of students use smartphone to shop. Students only use smartphones to compare prices between retail and only shop. After compare, if the price is within reasonable range, students are still prefer to shopping in the retail shop. There are 50% students mention that they are interested to shop from smartphone however they feel lack of protection and lack info about the cyber law protection. Student did use smartphone to read the review and they will comment about the product and rate it accordingly. 10% student have successfully sold their 2^nd hand shirt thru smartphone.

Q2: How do you think large brick-and-mortar retailers like Best Buy and Walmart can compete in a world quickly moving to smartphone-enhances shopping? Do you think smartphone-enhanced shopping will outgeously transform brick-and-mortar retail, perhaps putting many retail chains out of business? Why or why not?

Large brick-and-mortar retailers like Best Buy and Walmart can survive in the world now as they provide good services and reasonable price product and there are a lot of people enjoy window shopping. However, as the market of smartphone-enhances shopping is very new and big, they need to implement their traditional retail business and provide online selling as well as smartphone-enhances shopping. By having both smartphone-enhances shopping, and normal retail services, brick-and-mortar can bring their business into a higher level of income. I do not think smartphone-enhanced shopping will outgeously transform brick-and-mortar retail, perhaps putting many retail chains out of business. It only suggests the brick-and-mortar retail there is another way to sell their product. The reason behind this is because one of the reason people shopping in brick-and-mortar retailers is not only for shopping, but also to have fun and feel the atmosphere.  Besides, not everything can buy thru online, for example having a dinner in a romance atmosphere is not provided online yet.

Q3: Many retailers are creating proprietary in-store apps for shoppers. Some of these apps help shoppers find the location of products in the store, while other recommend  complementary products based on product searches. For an in-store app, say, for a Best Buy store, identify and describe three additional features that you believe shoppers would benefit from and encourage them to make purchases in the store.

 

Best Buy store could provide discount voucher for the user to buy selected item. Beside, the apps could have Q and A function so that customer could find the best product that they need buy answering or asking Question. Furthermore, the apps could have advertisement about the monthly promotion and let the user notice the promotion easily.

Q4: Ensure (www.esurance.com) has a slogan that states, “People when you want them, technology when you don’t.” This speaks very much to the increasing role of technology in customer service. What do you think about this? Can (and should) technology take over the primary customer-facing role for an organization, especially a retail store? Will stores like Nordstrom lose their competitive advantage based on superior customer service?

 

The slogan did say out the reality of the society. Customer usually only ask for services when they want or have facing problem while technology has take over all other function of customer service. For example, if we having lunch in a restaurant, we can take order, bill buy just pressing the computer. We will only ask for people services if we found the problem in the food or meal. However,   stores like Nordstrom will not lose their competitive advantage based on superior customer service as more is better. Even technology can overtake mostly customer function, customer still would prefer that there are better services provide from the workers in the shop compare to others.  This let them feel that they get what they have paid.

 Q5: What about people who can’t afford a smartphone? Will they be advantaged while shopping? When do you think smartphones will become affordable to all, say in the price range of $40 to $50?

In my opinion, for those who can’t afford to buy a smarphone get some disadvantages in updating the lasts review in the product or lastest promotion. They might miss the promotion as they will get the news much later then those who have smartphone. I am suggesting people to own a smartphone as nowadays, smartphone are affordable and the price range could as cheap as $40 to $50.

When you're Big, You can be you own B2B E-Marketplace

 

 

Q1: Volkswagen operates its own proprietary B2B e-marketplaces in which its suppliers participate.  What are the disadvantages to Volkswagen of not using a generic B2B e-marketplace with even more suppliers?  What are the advantages to Volkswagen of developing and using its own proprietary B2B e-marketplace?

Disadvantages:

·         Volkswagen could be missing out on using a new supplier who are just started to enter into the market.  The new supplier would mostly go to a generic e-marketplace and start its advertising campaign rather than using Volkswagen own proprietary B2B e-marketplaces.  In such, to attract the attention of Volkswagen, the new supplier would have to go directly to Volkswagen by offline and not online.

·         Volkswagen could out on some demand aggregation as it does not let other buyers participate in its e-marketplace.
·         Volkswagen needs to put a lot of funds to maintain its owned B2B e-marketplaces.

 

Advantages:
·         Volkswagen can determine and control how the e-marketplace will operate. 
·         Volkswagen can gather vast amounts of competitive intelligence on it suppliers. 
·         Volkswagen has greatly reduced supplier power because Volkswagen is the only buyer in its     own B2B e-marketplaces.

Q2 : When Volkswagen needs a new part design, it uses VWsupplygroup.com to get its suppliers involved in the design process early.  This creates a tremendous amount of inter-organizational collaboration.  What are the advantages to the suppliers and to Volkswagen in doing so?

The suppliers could work closely with one of their biggest buyers, Volkswagen.  They can be sure to develop the part exactly as what Volkswagen wants it.  Besides, the suppliers could have better understanding on what Volkswagen wants and why it wants it. Furthermore, Volkswagen can work closely with the supplier and it could choose its most trusted suppliers.  It can get the suppliers to design the exact product needed and it can utilize the expertise of the supplier organizations in designing a new part.

 

 

Q3: How is Volkswagen’s VWgroupsupply.com B2B e-marketplace an example of a vertical e-marketplace implementation?  How is it an example of a horizontal e-marketplace implementation?  Why is it necessary that Volkswagen combine both of these e-marketplaces into one e-marketplace?  What would be the drawbacks to creating two different e-marketplaces – one for suppliers of direct materials and one for suppliers of MRO material?

Volkswagen’s e-marketplace is a vertical e-marketplace because it is only for it and suppliers in the automotive industry. Volkswagen’s e-marketplace is a horizontal e-marketplace because it also include suppliers to MRO materials that Volkswagen needs. Both of these beinge combined because Volkswagen is the only participation in this e-marketplace and needs both direct and MRO materials. By creating two different e-marketplaces, Volkswagen would be duplicating many processes and have redundant information.

 

 

Q4: To make effective purchasing decisions, Volkswagen’s purchasing agents need business intelligence.  What kind of business intelligence does iPAD provide to purchasing agents for carrying out their tasks?  What additional kinds of business intelligence not discussed in this case could Volkswagen’s purchasing agents take advantage of to make more effective decisions?

IPAD provides a variety of business intelligence including the need for inventory parts, lists of potential suppliers, and the costs of the parts for each supplier. The iPAD system could include other forms of business intelligence (and it may very well) including suppliers according to their number of defective parts per million and suppliers according to how long they take to deliver their parts.

 

 

Q5: IPAD manages the workflow for purchasing agents.  Describe how iPAD manages this process including information provided, steps to be executed, and the presentation of information.

 

IPAD provides the necessary information in the native language of the purchasing agent (which is the presentation of information through a Web browser) including the needed inventory, the list of potential suppliers, and the costs associated with each supplier. The steps in the workflow process include:

1)       presenting the business event

      2)       providing the supporting information

      3)      sending the work flows electronically once they are completed.