Past Year Questions

March 2012

Part A

The four common information sharing cultures include information-functional culture, information-sharing culture, information-inquiring culture and information-discovery culture.

True

An entry barrier is typically used to influence the rivalry among existing competitors.

False

Part B

What is a field concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information?

Information Technology.

Which of the following represents the order of priority for the three primary organizational key resources?

Information, information technology, people.

What refer to application and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to and analyse data and information to support decision-making effort?

Business intelligence

What is the acquisition and analysis of events and trends in the environment external to an organization?

Environmental scanning

All of the following are common tools used in industry to analyse and develop competitive advantages, except;

Competitive analysis model

Part C

Porter’s Five Forces Model is one of common tools used in industry to analyse and develop competitive advantages. List and describe each of the five forces in Porter’s Five Forces Model.

Buyer Power – the ability of buyers to affect the price they must pay for an item. The buyer power is high when buyers have many choices of whom to buy from and low when their choices are few.

Supplier Power – consist of all parties involved, directly and indirectly in obtaining raw material or a product.

Threat of Substitute Product or Services – it is high when there are many alternatives to a product or service and low when there are few alternatives from which to choose.

Threat of New Entrant - high when it is easy for new competitors to enter a market and low when there are significant entry barriers to entering a market.

Rivalry among existing competitors – it is high when competition is fierce in a market and low when competition is more content

October 2012

Part A

Information technology (IT) is a field concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information.

True

Information discovery culture encourages employee to search for information to better understanding the future and align themselves with current trends and new direction.

False

Part B

Management Information System (MIS) can be defined as:

A general name for the business function and academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies and procedures to solve business problems.

Applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to and analyse data and information to support decision making efforts refer to:

Business intelligence.

Part C

Explain four organizational information cultures.

Information-Functional Culture: Employees use information as a means of exercising influence or power over others.

Information-Sharing Culture: Employees across departments trust each other to use information (especially about problems and failures) to improve performance.

Information-Inquiring Culture: Employees across departments search for information to better understand the future and align themselves with current trends and new directions.

Information-Discovery Culture: Employees across departments are open to new insights about crisis and radical changes and seek ways to create competitive advantages.

Describe three Porter Generic Strategies. Support your answers with example.

Cost leadership: The business strategy is to be low cost provider of goods for the cost conscious consumer. For example, Walmart that offers a broad range of goods at low prices.

Differentiation: Its business strategy offers a variety of specialty and upscale products to affluent consumers. For example, Neiman Marcus competes by offering broad range of varieties of products at high prices.

Focused strategies: In this strategy it could go either offering specific product at low prices or a high cost provider of premier product to affluent consumer. For example, Payless shoes that offers specific product at low prices while Tiffany & Co offers variety of product such as jewellery at high prices.

March 2013

Part A

Data is information converted into meaningful and useful context.

False

An organization’s IT culture can directly affect its ability to compete in the global market.

True

Switching costs are costs that encourage customers to switch to another product or service.

False

Part B

What can IT enable an organization to accomplish?

Reduce costs, improve productivity and generate growth.

Organizational information cultures include:

Information-functional, sharing, inquiring and discovery culture.

Which of the following statement is true?

IT enables business success and innovation.