The objective of the course is to provide students with a better understanding of the influence of 21st-century technologies on business decisions. The course will examine how information technology (IT) enables organizations to conduct business in radically different and more effective ways and discuss today’s challenges from the point of the view of the managers who are grappling with them. It recounts stories of success and failure, focusing on the issues faced and the decisions made by executives in companies around the world. This course is based on the fundamental premise that the major role of information technology is to provide organizations with strategic advantage by facilitating problem solving, increasing productivity and quality, improving customer service, and enabling business process reengineering. By taking a practical, managerial-oriented approach (case studies), this course discusses how IT can be used by information system department, by end users and vendor as well. Managing information resources, new technologies, and communications network is becoming a critical success factor in the operations of many companies and will be addressed in the course too.
The course is divided into two modules. The first module is aimed at understanding the impact of IT on industries, markets and organizations. It discusses issues of strategic positioning and explains how 21st-century IT provides opportunities to alter market/industry structure, leadership, power, and relationships. New technologies also enable new organizational capabilities and management/leadership principles. The second module examines the operational issues at the interface of business and technology as it examines approaches to designing and managing open-standard, net-worked technology infrastructures.