Management Information System Question Paper
Management Information System Question Paper
Part A
Part B
Answer any FOUR out of SIX 4X8= 32 Marks
Part C
Compulsory question 1X8 = 8 Marks
Case Study
This might sound hard to believe, but a bit more than a decade ago, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Apple Computer Inc., now back from near oblivion, is blazing a trail through the digital world with innovation
and creativity that has been missing from the company for the past 20 years. The unique feature of Apple‘s
competitive advantages is that they come from customers and users, not Apple employees. That‘s right; the
company welcomes products created by consumers to sell to consumers, a trend new to business.
With millions of iPods in the hands of consumers, many people are finding ways to capitalize on the product.
John Lin created a prototype of a remote control for the iPod and took his prototype to Macworld, where he
found success. A few months later, Lin‘s company had Apple‘s blessing and a commitment for shelf space in its
retail stores. ―”This is how Apple supports the iPod economy” Lin said. In the iPod-dominated market, hundreds
of companies have been inspired to develop more than 500 accessories—everything from rechargers for the car
to $1,500 Fendi bags.
Eric Tong, vice president at Belkin, a cable and peripheral manufacturer, believes that 75 percent of all iPod
owners purchase at least one accessory—selling over 30 million accessories to date. With most of the products
priced between $10 and $200, that puts the iPod economy well over $300 million and perhaps as high as $6
billion.
Looking at someone using an iPhone is an interesting experience because there is a good chance they are not
making a phone call. They could be doing a number of things from playing a game to trading stocks, watching a
TV show, or even conducting business with a mobile version of salesforce.com ‘s customer-management
software. In a brilliant strategic move, Apple let outsiders offer software for the iPhone and in less than six
months, more than 10,000 applications had been created. In fact, more than 15,000 applications are available at
its app store section of iTunes, and they have been downloaded a total of 500 million times. Now, many of the
iPhone apps are available for the iPad. The iPhone and iPad app store market is getting so huge relative to other
smartphone markets that some developers argue there is little point adapting applications for Google‘s Android
or any other iPhone competitor. According to Jeff Holden, CEO of Pelago Inc., when he created his social
networking company he fully intended to follow the conventional wisdom for how to build a sizable, fast-
growing software company: Get your programs on as many platforms and devices as possible. But when he
crunched the numbers he came to an interesting business conclusion: The 13 million iPhone owners had already
downloaded more applications than the 1.1 billion other cell phone owners! To entrepreneurs, developing a
program for the iPhone automatically provides a significantly larger market—almost 94 times larger than its
competitors. ―”Why would I ever build for anything but the iPhone?”Holden asked
Questions:
1) Why are data, information, business intelligence, and knowledge important to Apple? Give an example of
each type in relation to the iPad.
2) Explain how Apple achieved business success through the use of information, information technology, and
people.
3) Evaluate how Apple can gain business intelligence through the implementation of a customer relationship
management system