Kanhai Parekh
CIS 201 – B
09/20/2013
Homework Assignment 1

Chapter 1
1.) The six primary roles that information systems play in organizations are as follows: Operations Management, Customer Interactions, Decision Making, Collaboration and Teamwork, Strategic Initiatives, Individual Productivity.
2.) Data refers to individual facts or pieces of information and information refers to data or facts that are assembled and analyzed to add meaning and usefulness.
3.) The three characteristics that make information valuable are accuracy, timeliness and completeness.
4.) The four components of an information system are people, technology, processes, and data. The five functions that these components provide are to collect, process, manage, analyze and distribute information.

Chapter 2
1.) The 5 competitive forces that shape the industry are as follows: The power of buyers, the power of suppliers, the threat of substitutes, the rivalry among existing competitors, and the threat of new entrants.

2.) Government policies can affect industry competition through legislation, court decisions and regulation. External factors can adversely affect industries as they sometimes can be forces out of control such as natural disasters, and pandemics. Disruptive innovations, can change entire industries by creative destruction, a good example of this is the invention of the internet, and how it is slowly disintegrating smaller industries that are being deemed obsolete with new technology.
3.) The following can be considered to be primary activities: Bringing in raw resources, marketing, production, and delivery and customer services. The following can be considered to be support activities: Human resources, technology support, procurement, administration and management. The extended value chain includes suppliers and customers and includes more strategic opportunities.
4.) Competitive strategies include product differentiation, low cost leadership, and a focused strategy for market niches. Information systems support all these approaches by reducing costs, restructuring processes, and adding a unique value by producing new products or features. Their role includes running the organization and acting as a strategic enabler, developing and transforming the organization. Nonprofits take advantage of information systems to manage basic operations, and as an enabler in areas such as fund-raising and volunteer management. Governments use information systems extensively for e-government initiatives, especially to increase access and enhance services for the public and to organize and tabulate data such as payrolls.

Case Study 1 (GameStop)
1.) The five forces analysis of GameStop are as follows:
Supplier Power: There is a very high supplier power as GameStop receives its games directly from the production companies. This trend will continue in the future as GameStop is one of the few retail outlets that receive their games directly from the suppliers.
Barriers to Entry: There are very low barriers to entry within video retail industry. Starting a video game store, or store that sells video games as well as other merchandise requires fairly low start-up costs. These barriers to entry will stay constant into the future.
Buyer Power: There is a high amount of buyer power in the industry even though the prices of most games are fixed. This is because these prices drop over time and with respect to popularity. If a game is popular, it will be expensive, and if it loses popularity amongst buyers, its prices will drop.
Threat of Substitutes: There is a moderate