1.

Effects of IT on the organizational strategy and competition (present the

current situation description, advantages, problems)

IT impact on strategy defines the role that IT plays in determining product, market, business network, and boundary positioning. It seeks to explain the mechanisms though which IT drives differentiation, sustainable advantage, and the development of proprietary assets. It also identifies the impact of IT on defining the growth path of the company over time. When IT was first introduced for commercial use, the primary target was to automate routine, information intensive back-office transaction such as payroll processing and accounting. The primary goal was to increase efficiency and productivity. Business quickly learned to apply these same benefits to front-office activities that involved transactions with suppliers, distributors, customers, and other value chain participants. But the impact of IT increased dramatically when businesses learned to use it, not just to automate, but also to inform and transform. Many moderns companies relies in their IT department to deliver their services and products, in fact it could be the IT is the most important competitive advantage for these companies. For example, Amazon can not operate one second without their IT department, the high growth sales at Amazon comes from the creative ideas that been developed in the IT department such as recommendation from previous browsed items and the universal shopping list. Now with the advance of technologies and the increase of customers' preferences toward the use of internet communications increased the dependency in IT department. The view of making business has been changed besides strategies, planning, and the way they compete in their industries. However, Quicken is no different than Amazon they heavily rely on the IT department to deliver the best services available. Beside Quicken loans services and the tremendous effort from the IT department to deliver number one loan service in the United States online, Quicken have a huge collections of personal finance management software designed and developed in the IT department. The department is

responsible to support the customers with all the software and monitor the efficiency of the debugging process.

Quicken's IT department have the upper hand all activities. Like any IT department in modern companies that exict and center around technological activities. Appendices (such as internet prints, research paper copies, etc.) 2. Electronic commerce (present the current situation (description, advantages, problems)) Introduction Often referred to as e-commerce is the act of buying or selling products or services over the internet or other electronic networks. Electronic commerce is also about reaching the global market, improving customer services and fostering closer customer relationship.Before 1995 commercial enterprise on the internet was strictly prohibited, mainly because there is no security protocols to transfer sensitive transactions through the web and it was for the interest of the customers after all. After that the e-business start booming where most of the American companies offer an electronic method to approach their customers and many businesses came to exciting in this era. In all organizations the IT department is the one responsible for establishing, maintaining, and analyzing data of the electronic commerce in the company. Competitions between businesses shifted from traditional methods and become more internet oriented. The electronic commerce created more opportunities for businesses and customers, where it provides multiple benefits to the consumers in form of availability of goods at lower cost, wider choice and saves time. For businesses, the electronic commerce generate more revenue from the electronic sales and advertisements.

what are we talking about and why is it important; examples are welcome (e.g., what is outsourcing in genera, what are the general risks and capabilities, opportunities of outsourcing, etc.. The analysis at this session should be generic and not related specifically to the analyzed

organization. A comprehensive analysis, discussion, and evaluation of the topic (what should the board know about this issue, what is the status of the company regarding the topic, and evaluation of the status); Conclusions and recommendations (what should the company do, including justification by presenting the benefits for the company);

Also, Quicken are well known for there personal finance services that comes in different packages. We think that their market share will increase in this area if they offer these services through multiple mobile operating system such as Apple OSX or Google Android as an application, by that they will increase there customer's satisfaction. For example, Quicken provide a service called Quizzle, this service can manage family or individual expenses and budget, credit score and report, and other useful financial tools. The users of the this service can plan and set a budget and then add there expenses in daily basis, it is only available in personal computer. If Quicken could implement this software in smart-phones, the process of adding users' daily spending can be instantly. Appendices (such as internet prints, research paper copies, etc.)

3. Systems integration present the current situation (description, advantages, problems)

Introduction

In information technology, systems integration is the process of linking together different computing systems and software applications physically or functionally, to act as a coordinated whole. System integration is also about adding value to the system, capabilities that are possible because of interactions between subsystems.

Quicken have a lot of suppliers and to communicate with each one individually will cost the company a lot of effort and manpower to maintain the communication systems between the suppliers. However, to

minimize the cost Quicken come up with a standard method of communication between the company and other suppliers. For example, Quicken use The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) this software is a standard platform. The MISMO standards are grounded in an open process to develop, promote and maintain voluntary electronic commerce procedures and standards that allow mortgage lenders, investors in real estate and mortgages, services, industry vendors, borrowers and other parties to exchange real estate finance-related information and eMortgages more securely, efficiently and economically. MISMO promotes data consistency among transaction participants, reduces processing costs, increases transparency, and boosts investor confidence in mortgages and real estate as asset classes while permitting cost savings to be passed on to borrowers and other customers. MISMO constructs a standard approach using XML files format whereby two business-related firms can streamline shared data contained in forms or reports. One of the best features of this software is the ability of transferring data without interfering with the organizations software. In other word, MISMO does not dictate what kind of software to use or even the appearance of loan-documentation forms. Rather, it dictates how to format data sent to another party. This allows all parties to develop, run and maintain their own platforms while having uniform efficiency.

4. IT and the organization (How well the IT department structure, location in the organizational hierarchy, strategy, and priorities suit the organizational structure, culture, and strategy). We could add a chart here showing the IT location in the organization. 5. Outsourcing present the current situation (description, advantages, problems) Introduction Outsourcing is the process of involving an external provider or third-party in part of the organizations activities. In IT outsourcing is common for some organizations, the main reason is to reduce cost. Most

view the action of outsourcing as simply removing unproductive or underperforming assets from the balance sheet, while also lowering the expenses of operating and maintaining those assets. There are some advantages that could come from outsourcing the IT. For example, by outsourcing, an organization may have access to professional trained people, processes and advance technologies that it might not otherwise financially obtained. Also, by outsourcing the IT activities to a specialist management can focus more on the organizations core activities. In general, outsourcing is more suitable for small businesses where it is usually not cost-effective to employ an in-house IT specialist. However, many researchers found that outsourcing is not the ideal way to reach the organizations goals in the long term. Many problems of outsourcing may arise in the future. Loss of managerial control, hidden costs, threat to security and confidentiality, quality problems, and culture misunderstanding are all a disadvantages of outsourcing. In other word, without the IT in-house there will be an extreme case of difficulty between the IT provider and the company in general. In order for the IT department to deliver the best result they have to be presented in the company floor to see the actual process of the business from there they can generate and deliver the most officiant jobs to fit the organization environment.