Mengjie
Infonnation and Communications Technology in Business 16/ 10/ 2013
Part 1: Identify and evaluate the role of business information in decision-making.
Question 1:
Strategic Management
Strategic management is responsible for making decisions that affect whole company. These decisions are generally very complex and unstructured .They make long-term decisions.
Internal: The market trends. If the company can observe the index，it will understand the needs of the company ，so as to decide it will produce the products to gain more profit. External: the staffing needs. If the
∞mpany can improve employee benefits，
increase their rewards ，it will make employees have more power.
Tactical Management
Tactical managers are the middle management. They make medium-term decisions a忏'ecting budgets， monitoring operations， developing policies， obtaining resources. Tactical managers develop tactics to achieve the overall strategic aims and objectives set by the strategic manager.
Internal: The budgets. If the company has a budget process，it will be able to control the budget and control the company's cash position. And the enterprise
capital will become more flexible .
External: If the enterprise has the fixed suppliers，it will guarantee the quality of enterprise products and save operating time，thus enhances the enterprise the competitive ability and increase more profits.
Operational Management
The operational manager is the first line manager or supervisor. They are
Mengjie
Information and Commurucations Technology in Business 16/ 10/ 2013
responsible for the day-to-day opera甘ons of the business.
Internal: If the enterprise sta仔 attendance record eve叩 day，it can work out a plan for a more perfect plan according to the information，so that employees work more e仔iciently.
External: The customer needs. If the enterp川se understand customer needs， its products to attract customers and increase income.
Senior Management
Strategic
Middle Management
Tactical
Operational
Question 2:
\Enterprise resource planning is a cross-functional enterprise system driven by an integrated suite of so仕ware modules that supports the basic internal
business proωsses of a
∞mpany.\ERP gives a company an integrated
real-time view of i怡 core business processes such as production，order processing，and inventory management，tied together by ERP applications software and a common database maintained by a database management system. ERP systems track business resources (such as cash，raw materials，
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Mengjie
Infonnation and Communications Technology in Business 16/ 10/ 2013
and production capacity) and the status of commitments made by the business (such as customer orders，purchase orders，and employee payroll)，no matter which department (manufacturing ，purchasing ，sales，accounting ，and so on) has entered the data into the system. ERP facilitates information f10w between all business functions inside the organization，and manages connections to outside stakeholders. (Wikipedia ，2013)
This information system would support decision-making at strategic levels. ? ERP provides support to upper level management to provide them with critical decision making information.This decision support allows the upper level management to make managerial choices that enhance the business down the road.
? ERP also creates a more agile ∞mpany that better adapts to change. ERP
makes a company more f1exible and less 时gidly structured so organization components operate more cohesively，enhancing the business-斗nternally
and externa11y.
? ERP can greatly improve the quality and efficiency of a business. By keeping a company's internal business process running smoothly ，ERP can lead to better outputs that benefit the company such as customer service，and manufacturing.
\Customer relationship management is a model for managing a company's interactions with current and future customers.\It involves using technology to organize ，automate ，and synchronize sales，marketing ，customer service ，and technical suppo凡 (Wikipedia ，2013)
This information system would support decision-making at operational levels.
? Access control is crucial for the SCM tool. On the one hand，since this is team development ，may need to limit certain members of the authority;
The sub-project of the especially big projects tend to be involved in outsourcing ，at the end of the alignment stage will involve a lot of different units，need more rights management. Access control ，on the other hand，
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Infonnation and Communications Technology in Business 16/ 10/ 2013
also reduced the possibility of wrong operation，indirect improve the availability of the SCM tool.
? SCM tools record programs and files modified tr司ectory，track
change information，make the software development work completed in Baseline (Baseline) gradual wa弘 avoiding the uncontrolled software developme nt situation ，make development status in order.
\Supply chain management is the management of the flow of goods. It includes the movement and storage of raw materials ， work-in-process inventory，and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption .\ Interconnected or interlinked networks，channels and node businesses are involved in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain . Supply chain management has been defined as the \， planning，execution，control ，and monito时ng of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value，building a competitive infrastructure ，leveraging worldwide logistics， synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally.\，2013)
This information system would support decision-making at operationa川evels. .. CRM is not only one in the face of customer marketing and service department， also is a business departments can share information and resources pla
仔'o rm
for the automation work，in order to maximize
the mining and coordination of enterprise resources ， expand the survival space and potential.
? CRM is customer information into positive customer relationship and the working process of the cycle. Through the CRM can more truly comprehensive collection，analysis of customer information ，to provide
customers with multi-angle，all-round service.
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Mengjie Infonnation and Communications Technology in Business 16/ 10/ 2013
Question 3:
\The Data Protection Act 1998 is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament which defines UK law on the processing of data on identifiable living people. It is the main piece of legislation that governs the protection of personal data in the UK. Although the Act itself does not mention privacy，it was enacted to bring UK law
into line with the EU data protection directive of 1995 which required Member States to protect people's fundamental rights and freedoms and in particular their right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data.\ (Wikipedia ，2013)
think it necessa叩for enterprises to use the Act.It can better protect corporate
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data and information，to reduce a lot of business risk.
\The Copyright，Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)，also known as the CDPA，is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law (including pe斤。rming rights) in the United Kingdom， which had，until then，been governed by the Copyright Act 1956 (c. 74). It also creates an unregistered design right，and contains a number of modificatìons to the law of the United Kingdom on Registered Designs and patents.\ (Wikipedia ，2013)
1 suggest it necessary for enterprises to use the Act. It can help enterp川ses to
better protect and increase their own interests.
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