MS 54 Management of Information Systems Previous Exam Paper

MBA - Master of Business Administration

Note: Attempt ant three questions from Section-A each carries 20 marks. Section-B is compulsory and carries 40 marks.

1. Discuss the changing information needs of organisations during last 50 years. How have the developments in computers affected this need and also helped in information management?

2. Describe the System Development Life Cycle. What are the key issues involved in various stages of this cycle? Illustrate with the help of an example.

3. Describe the role of MIS in strategic planning process of Business Organisation. What type information is required to be given by MIS to strategic planners?

4. What is a relational database for an organisation planning to have an inventory application.

5. With the developments in Internet connectivity technologies, computer systems protection and data files protection is becoming and important problem. Discuss some of the related security problems and methods to overcome such problems.

SECTION B

6. Read the case carefully and answer the questions at the end:

SOMETHING IS CRAZY HERE

The principal was clear. Each business unit was a profit center and therefore should be charged with its share of the cost of information processing being performed on a large central computer. The approximate cost was estimated in advance, but each business unit received its final cost when all actual costs of data processing were calculated. Total costs were divided by usage to give the actual cost there for each unit.

The company bought a new, larger computer that was to reduce the cost of processing. The business units refused to authorize applications to be places in the new equipment. The reason was the cost allocation method. The first users of the new computer would be changed for all actual costs and this would be much larger than a share of the fully utilized older equipment, For example, if the actual cost on the older equipment was Rs. 1200 an hour and an application took 10 minutes of time, but all time was used, the cost would be Rs. 20 per minute times 10 minutes, for an allocated cost of Rs. 200, if the new equipment cost Rs. 2400 an hour and the application took only 2 minutes of time, but only 20 percent of the time was being used, the cost share would be 240/12 minutes times 2 for an allocated cost of Rs. 400.

The president said, "Let me get this straight; The new computer costs less to run an application, but the business unit gets charged more, Something is crazy here."

Questions:

1. What are the advantages of actual cost allocation? What are the disadvantages?

2. Suggest an analytical method that will allow the business units to act in their own interests and also ensure that these are good ones from a total organizational standpoint.