Information Systems in E-Business and Online Commerce

COURSE OBJECTIVE

• Obtain in-depth insight into the important trends in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and how these trends impact organizations’ E-business activities;
• Understand the role and value of ICT in the digital transformation of organizations;
• Understand how e-business relates to various degrees of digitalization by
  1) optimizing industrial production logic,
  2) integrating market feedback in service delivery processes and
  3) facilitating supplier, crowd or peer production networks;
• Have knowledge of relevant theories about the various aspects of ICT in relation to organizations’ E-business activities; Bridging Theory & Practice
• Be able to apply their understanding, insight and knowledge about ICT in relation to E-business to a practical case and the development of an E-business solution.

COURSE CONTENT
Recent technological developments in ICT are creating new possibilities for the interactions between organizations and various parties in their environment – business partners, customers, and others. At the same time, the use of these technologies also creates unprecedented amounts of data that organizations need to make sense of. In this course, we focus on these technologies, how they affect organizations’ E-business and online commerce activities, and the demands this puts on the Information Systems (IS) used in the organization. This course does so by covering the following themes:

• Relevant developments in hardware, software and networking;
• The interaction between technology and organization;
• Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Systems;
• How changing ICT architectures and developments in the area of big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, social media and mobile technologies affect organizations’ E-business activities
• The changing nature of markets and supply chains related to these technological developments We relate these themes to concrete issues related to managing ICTs for E-business. Examples of such issues are:
  - How to optimally support both back- and front-office E-business processes with ICT;
  - How to derive meaningful intelligence from the big data generated by interactions and transactions through applications in the area of business Intelligence and algorithmic decision making;
  - How the increasing flexibility of IS (as a consequence of moving to the cloud, modular ICT architectures and the increasing use of mobile devices) influences the way these technologies meet the requirements of these processes;
  - How to manage the security of data, processes and systems in light of these developments.

We will not only be discussing these themes and issues in lectures, but you will also apply your knowledge about them in the analysis of a practical case and the development of an E-business solution in relation to that case.

TEACHING METHODS
Lectures
Tutorials

TYPE OF ASSESSMENT
written exam - Individual assessment
case assignment - group assessment