MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON UNIVESITY
FACULTY OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
NAME: NSIMIIRWE HARRIET
REG. NO.: 2024/U/MMU/BIT/00136
COURSE: BC. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DIRECT)
COURSE UNIT: INFORMATION SYSTEM
COURSE UNIT CODE: BIT 1103
LECTURER: MR MUTABARURA DUNCAN
YEAR: ONE
SEMESTER: ONE
QUESTIONS:
1. Explain issues that normally make decision making difficult in an organization.
2. How do Customer Relationship Management systems help firms achieve customer
intimacy?
3. Discuss why information security and control is necessary for an organization.
4. Explain the types of Decision Support System.
5. What are the recurring problems system developers always face in the System’s
Development Life Cycle, and what are the limitations of the System’s Development
Life Cycle?
6. What is meant by the term systems structured methodology?
7. What are business processes and how are they related to information systems?
NO.1
Decision making refers to the process of selecting a course of action from a set of alternatives to
accomplish something or reach a certain objective. In organization, decision making is normally
used to select courses of action from among various alternatives in order to pursue specific goals
in keeping with the organization. However, making decisions can be challenged in an
organization because of the following variety of issues as follows:
Lack of Clear-cut Information: Partial or incomplete information leads to irresponsible decisions.
Under unreliable data, no variant can be analyzed.
Conflicting Interests: Where there is a contradiction between departmental or individual
interests, consensus decision making is obstructed. This is normal in organizations with large
structures whereby objectives may be different.
Uncertainty and risk: Many decisions carry risk and uncertainty. It may be difficult to predict
what will happen as a result of various courses of action, especially in turbulent environments.
Groupthink: This phenomenon is when members place a higher value on harmony and unanimity
than on critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints. Controversial ideas may not be expressed
for fear of ridicule or being seen as unpopular that can result in suppression of creative
alternatives.
Limited Resources: Time, money, or manpower scarcity limits the choices and creates tough
trade-offs that have to be made by organizations.
Over-complexity: There can be several layers of management and bureaucracy in big
organizations, creating slowness in the process of decision making. Emotional Factors Personal
biases, fear of failure, or attachment to past decisions cloud judgment. "Leaders may also resist
change, even when new information suggests it's necessary.
Unclear Goals: When organizational goals or objectives have not been defined, it may be hard
for a decision-maker to match up choices with the organization's general mission or vision.
Communication Breakdown: Poor communications across departments, teams, or individuals
may lead to misunderstandings, missed information, or delays in arriving at decisions.
Cultural Differences: Globally or in diverse organizations, different cultural approaches to
authority, collaboration, and risk make the decision-making process even more complicated.
NO. 2
Customer intimacy is achieved through the facilitation of a firm in building stronger and more
personal relationships with its customers through Customer Relationship Management systems.
There are several ways in which Customer Relationship Management systems contribute to
customer intimacy and these are as follows;
Centralized data about the customer: Each customer relationship management system updates
and consolidates data on customer preferences, purchase history, and other interactions with the
company. This presents the firm with a broad view of each customer, making it much easier to
understand their needs and behaviors.
Personalized Communication: Customer relationship Management systems will enable a
business to segment customers according to their behaviour, preference, and demographic profile
to deliver personal marketing, sales, and customer service. This makes a relationship and builds
up a sense of belonging or attachment.
Improved Customer Service: Since Customer Relationship Management systems keep a record of
each interaction with the customers, customer service teams can resolve issues faster and respond
consistently. Because agents have a record of the history with a customer, they can work out
customized solutions for them, therefore creating added value in their experiences.
Proactive Engagement: Most Customer Relationship Management applications provide different
automation tools, enabling an enterprise to get notified of essential events when a contact's
birthday or a product renewal date is approaching. Through these notifications, firms can
leverage such knowledge to reach out at the right time with timely offers and messages, thereby
nurturing relationships.
Increased ability to manage customer feedback: With the help of Customer Relationship
Management systems, firms can collect and manage the customer feedback. If a firm manages to
respond to customers' concerns and readjust offerings based on customer feedback, it suggests
that it is concerned about the relationship and willing to satisfy the needs of the customer.
Data Analytics: Availing analytics, Customer Relationship Management systems help businesses to
understand trending customer behaviors, and therefore, firms can change strategies based on
analytics rather than mere assumptions. This continual learning helps companies with deepened
relationships from customers over time.
NO.3
Information security and control are critical to organisations for safeguarding sensitive data,
ensuring business continuity, and fostering confidence among stakeholders. The reasons they are
needed include:
Data Protection and Confidentiality: Organization deals with sensitive information relating to
personal information, intellectual property, financial information, and strategic plans. Controls in
information security, including encryption and access control methods, prevent unauthorized
accesses and thus protect confidential information from competition, cybercrime, or insider
threats.
Compliance with Legal and Regulatory Requirements: Many industries are supposed to
implement regulations such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which set specific minimums for handling, storing,
and protecting data. Breaches in such regulations might lead to significant fines, legal charges,
and even loss of operational licenses.
Protection of Brand and Reputation: A security incident or data breach leads to loss of corporate
reputation and customer confidence, which will ultimately affect shareholder value. Strong
information security and control mechanisms help protect the brand of the organization by
ensuring that clients and partners will continue to view it as reliable and secure.
Loss of Money: For instance, financial losses on account of legal fees relating to the incidents,
compensation to be given to the victims, and loss of business can be really crippling. In case
these attacks can be avoided, all these contingent expenses can also be evaded through the
implementation of appropriate security and control mechanisms.
Operational Continuity and Resilience: These controls help safeguard critical data and systems
against various types of threats, including ransomware attacks, thus allowing business operations
to continue during such an attack. The organization can respond quickly with the help of a well-
justified security control to disaster recovery and incident response plans that reduce downtown
and ensure resilience.
Cyber Threat Protection: Cyber threats evolve with each passing day. Without security and
control measures, a victim can easily be exposed to some of the most common cyber-attacks in
the form of phishing, malware, and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Proactive
security measures coupled with monitoring, firewalls, and employee training avoid incidents and
minimize the risk of data loss and operational disruption.
Intellectual property and competitive Advantage: This means that intellectual property and
competitive advantage are assured for organizations in making sure that the trade secrets,
patents, and Research and Development findings of the organization do not get stolen or
compromised by any unauthorized person. So, these assets are safeguarded to maintain the
competitive advantage of the company in a highly innovating and future-oriented market.
Accountability and Trust within the Organization: In this case, the security and control
mechanisms that are instituted, including logging and monitoring, impose accountability on the
different workers and contractors working for an entity. This, therefore, makes the detection of
insider threats or misuse of information quite easier. Such transparency ensures accountability
and builds a culture of responsibility and trust within the organization.
NO. 4
A Decision Support System, is an information system that supports business or organizational
decision-making activities. Decision Support Systems are categorized based on the type of
support they provide and the technologies they use. Here are the main types:
Data-driven Decision Support system: It utilizes large volumes of structured data from databases
or data warehouses. The best examples are query systems and Online Analytical Process (OLAP)
systems. In other words, it supports routine decisions through the processing of large volumes of
data. For example, any retail company will analyze sales data to decide on the restocking of
particular products.
Model-Driven Decision Support system: The data gets processed through mathematical models
or simulation models. Examples of such systems include optimization models, forecasting
models, and simulation tools. It represents that it is ideal for complex and non-routine decisions.
For instance, logistics companies can use this to route their delivery traffic efficiently.
Knowledge-Driven Decision making: This has problem-solving and specializes in expertise
stored in knowledge bases. Examples include expert systems, rule-based systems, and
recommendation engines. Expertise knowledge is applied to specific cases in medical or legal
fields, for example, diagnosing illnesses based on symptoms.
Communication-Driven Decision Support System: These systems let people collaborate and
communicate with groups to arrive at decisions. Examples include GDSS, video conferencing
collaborative software. That is, it would be helpful in making a group decision such as business
strategy meetings or crisis management.
Document-Driven Decision Support system: It stores, retrieves, and analyzes unstructured
documents such as reports, emails, and multimedia files. Examples include content management
systems and document search engines. In other words, it aids decisions requiring the processing
of enormous amounts of textual or multimedia data, such as cases in law that deal with contracts
and regulations.
Hybrid Decision Support System: Includes elements of at least two of the above types to give an
even broader decision support system. Examples include the system that encompasses data-
driven, model-driven, and knowledge-driven approaches. This is to say, it is ideal in complicated
decision-making environments like financial markets where different kinds of data and models
are basically needed for appropriate decisions.
NO. 5
In the Systems Development Life Cycle, system developers are confronted with a lot of recurrent
problems along its different stages. Some of them include:
Poor Requirements Gathering: Forcing ineffective or vague requirements results in developing
the wrong system, ill-matched functionalities, or costly reworks later in the project.
Scope Creep: The stakeholders may request additions of functionalities or changes as the project
proceeds, causing extended timelines, increase in costs, and affecting quality.
Gaps in Communications: Miscommunication among the developers, stakeholders, and users can
result in misunderstandings regarding expectations and the direction of projects.
Budget Overruns and Time: Most projects exceed the initial budget estimate and expected
completion time because either the complexity factor was not rightly anticipated or there were
other issues during the development process.
Integration Problems: Ensuring the integration of the new system with the legacy systems or
third-party software may raise some issues relating to compatibility, data migration, and added
complexity.
Quality Assurance and Testing: Insufficient depth in testing results in the presence of bugs or
performance issues that may not have been discovered. Ill-conceived testing phases lead to
system failures or vulnerabilities.
Resistance to Change: The users and stakeholders might be resistant to moving onto a new
system simply because they are used to other systems, fear disruption, or like their legacy
systems.
Security and Compliance Issues: Systems can be developed without active considerations for
security, privacy, and legal compliance, making them highly vulnerable to various exposures
later on. Inadequate documentation: Failing to document system requirements, design decisions,
and code can create problems during the future maintenance or update of the system, or when
new personnel join the team.
Rapid Technological Changes: The rapid technological changes result in systems going out of
date even before their actual deployment, due to which it is very difficult to match the new trends
and tools.
The following are the limitations of Systems Development Life Cycle;
Inflexibility: The traditional models of Systems Development Life Cycle, such as Waterfall are
rigid in nature. Moreover once any phase has been accomplished, it is very hard to change to
another phase.
The Systems Development Life Cycle process may be very time-consuming for its structured
phases, especially in models like Waterfall, which is a line of progress but sequential.
High Initial Costs: Extensive planning, design, and documentation might require huge initial
costs even before the system is fully built or deployed.
Overemphasis on Documentation: The various methodologies of the Systems Development Life
Cycle might concentrate too much on documentation, thus slowing the process while decreasing
hands-on coding or implementation of the software.
Partial Requirements: Since all the requirements are needed beforehand, any changes in these
necessities during development can have numerous changing effects.
Most Systems Development Life Cycle models limit direct user involvement to specific stages
and may result in a system that does not meet the users' needs or expectations.
Difficulty Managing Complex Projects: As systems become more complex, Systems
Development Life Cycle can have a hard time keeping track of all the dependencies-especially
with large teams or multi-tiered architectures or distributed systems.
Lack of Flexibility for Modern Agile Practices: Most Systems Development Life Cycle models
are not suited to modern Agile or iterative practices that emphasize flexibility, rapid releases, and
continuous improvement. This often creates a chasm between the traditional Systems
Development Life Cycle approach and modern approaches for system development.
NO. 6
Systems Structured Methodology is one of the formal approaches towards systems analysis and
design in order to understand complex problems by structuring. It tries to comprehend the
interaction of a system's different parts and how these can be modeled, structured, and improved.
It's a process that juggles the technical and social features of a system in order to provide a lucid,
structured way of solving problems.
The following are the characteristics of Systems Structured Methodology as explained;
Holistic Approach: It takes into consideration the whole system comprising human, technical,
and environmental issues.
Iterative Process: In Systems Structured Methodology, something worked out needs to be
revisited for refinement, thereby achieving continuous improvement.
Stakeholder Participation: It stresses perspectives of varied kinds from persons associated with or
influenced by the system.
Soft Systems Thinking: It is often used for "soft" problems where there may not be one right
solution but rather the need to manage complexity and ambiguity.
NO. 7
A business process is the logical sequence of actions or tasks of an organization, which are
undertaken for accomplishing goals, such as making a product, providing a service, or
accomplishing a transaction. Many of them can be subdivided further into smaller-sized tasks or
workflows, and many departments, teams, or persons might participate in the conduct of the end-
to-end process.
The information system is used in business process management and support. They consist of
technology (hardware and software), people, and procedures that work together to acquire,
process, store, and provide access to information. Information systems support organizations by:
Automation of tasks: Some of the routine activities related to business processes can be
automated through the Information System hence enhancing efficiency and reducing human
errors.
Enable Decision-making: Information System provides current data and insights to support
business decisions by making the processes more transparent and measurable.
Streamlining communication whereby it makes communication smoother. It helps in enhancing
the communication and, hence, collaboration between departments for easy workflow and
coordinated effort.
Supporting Process Integration: Most the businesses have enterprise resource planning systems
which integrate various business processes, for instance, sales, finance, human resource into one
system to assure data consistency and better
REFERENCES:
Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2020). Management Information Systems: Managing the
Digital Firm (16th ed.), Pearson.
Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2019). Essentials of Management Information Systems
(13th ed.). Pearson.
Haag, S., & Cummings, M. (2013). Management Information Systems for the information
Age (9th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
