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Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology

B.B.A. (Special) Honours Degree

Final Examination

Year 1, Semester I (20 19)

BM 1050- Information Technology for Business

May/June 2019

Duration: 2 Hours

Instructions to Candidates:

• Question paper contains three (3) questions on five (5) pages, including the
cover page.
• Answer ALL questions in the answer booklet.
• Total marks 100.
• This paper contributes to 50°/o of the final grade.
Question 01 (30 marks)

a) Define computer-based information systems (3 marks)

Question 02 (50 marks)

Case Study: MIS IN YOUR POCKET

Can you run your company out of your pocket? Perhaps not entirely, but there are many functions
today that can be performed using an iPhone, BlackBerry, or other mobile handheld devices. The
smartphone has been called the "Swiss Army knife of the digital age." A flick of the finger turns
it into a Web browser, a telephone, a camera, a music or video player, an e-mail and messaging
machine, and for some, a gateway into corporate systems. New software applications for social
networking and salesforce management (CRM) make these devices even more versatile business
tools.

The BlackBerry has been the favored mobile handheld for business because it was optimized for
e-mail and messaging, with strong security and tools for accessing internal corporate systems. Now
that's changing. Companies large and small are starting to deploy Apple's iPhone to conduct more
of their work. For some, these handhelds have become necessities.

Doylestown Hospital, a community medical center near Philadelphia, has a mobile workforce of
360 independent physicians treating thousands of patients. The physicians use the iPhone 3G to
stay connected around the clock to hospital staff, colleagues, and patient information. Doylestown
doctors use iPhone features such as e-mail, calendar, and contacts from Microsoft Exchange
ActiveSync. The iPhone allows them to receive time-sensitive e-mail alerts from the hospital.

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Voice communication IS important as well, and the iPhone allows the doctors to be on call
wherever they are.

Doylestown Hospital customized the iPhone to provide doctors with secure mobile access from
any location in the world to the hospital's MEDITECH electronic medical records system.
MEDITECH delivers information on vital signs, medications, lab results, allergies, nurses' notes,
therapy results, and even patient diets to the iPhone screen. "Every radiographic image a patient
has had, every dictated report from a specialist is available on the iPhone," notes Dr. Scott Levy,
Doylestown Hospital's vice president and chief medical officer. Doylestown doctors also use the
iPhone at the patient's bedside to access medical reference applications such as Epocrates
Essentials to help them interpret lab results and obtain medication information.

Doylestown's information systems department was able to establish the same high level of security
for authenticating users of the system and tracking user activity as it maintains with all the
hospital's Web-based medical records applications. Information is stored securely on the hospital's
own server computer.

D.W. Morgan, headquartered in Pleasanton, California, serves as a supply chain consultant and
transportation and logistics service provider to companies such as AT&T, Apple Computer,
Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, and Chevron. It has operations in more than 85 countries
on four continents, moving critical inventory to factories that use a just-in-time (JIT) strategy. In
JIT, retailers and manufacturers maintain almost no excess on-hand inventory, relying upon
suppliers to deliver raw materials, components, or products shortly before they are needed.

In this type of production environment, it's absolutely critical to know the exact moment when
delivery trucks will arrive. In the past, it took many phone calls and a great deal of manual effort
to provide customers with such precise up-to-the-minute information. The company was able to
develop an application called ChainLinq Mobile for its 30 drivers that updates shipment
information, collects signatures, and provides global positioning system (GPS) tracking on each
box it delivers.

As Morgan's drivers make their shipments, they use ChainLinq to record pickups and status
updates. When they reach their destination, they collect a signature on the iPhone screen. Data
collected at each point along the way, including a date- and time-stamped GPS location pinpointed

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on a Google map, are uploaded to the company's servers. The servers make the data available to
customers on the company's Web site. Morgan's competitors take about 20 minutes to half a day
to provide proof of delivery; Morgan can do it immediately. TCHO is a start-up that uses custom-
developed machinery to create unique chocolate flavors. Owner Timothy Childs developed an
iPhone app that enables him to remotely log into each chocolate-making machine, control time
and temperature, tum the machines on and off, and receive alerts about when to make temperature
changes. The iPhone app also enables him to remotely view several video cameras that show how
the TCHO FlavorLab is doing. TCHO employees also use the iPhone to exchange photos, e-mail,
and text messages. The Apple iPad is also emerging as a business tool for Web-based note-taking,
file sharing, word processing, and number-crunching. Hundreds of business productivity
applications are being developed, including tools for Web conferencing, word processing,
spreadsheets, and electronic presentations. Properly configured, the iPad is able to connect to
corporate networks to obtain e-mail messages, calendar events, and contacts securely over the air.
a) What kind of applications are described here? How they improve operational efficiency and
decision making by using information systems? (I 0 marks)
b) What kinds of businesses are most likely to benefit from equipping their employees with
mobile digital devices such as iPhones, iPads, and BlackBerrys? (5 marks)
c) According to the above scenario how their systems serve the different management groups in
the business? (1 0 marks)
d) What kind of security issues are associated with mobile devices and how to overcome those
issues? (lOmarks)
e) One company deploying iPhones has said: The iPhone is not a game changer, it's an industry
changer. It changes the way that you can interact with your customers and with your suppliers.
Discuss the implications of this statement. (15 marks)

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Question 03 (20 marks)
Read the scenario given below and draw an Entity Relationship (ER) Diagram that captures all the
information related to the following scenario.

The company employee administrative database stores information about the employees, the
department and the projects of a company. The following data have been identified in the
requirements collection and analysis phase and they are to be represented in the enterprise. The
company is organized into departments. Each department has a unique name, a unique number and
a particular employee who manages the department. The database keeps track of the start date
when an employee began managing the department. A department controls the number of projects.
Each project has a unique name, a unique number, and a single location. The database also stores
the number of work hours budgeted for each project. The database stores each employee name,
pin number, address, salary, sex, birth date, date hired and the date he/she terminates employment.
An employee is assigned to one department but he/she may work on several projects, which are
not necessarily controlled by the same department. The database also keeps tracks of the number
of hours an employee already worked on a project and the direct supervisor of each employee if
he/she has one. (Note that an employee need not have an assigned supervisor).

-End of the paper-

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