Carnegie Mellon University

GSIA

[70-456] – Telecommunication for Business

Fall 1999

TuTh 12-1:20, Simon Auditorium

Instructor: Il-Horn Hann TA: Rahul Telang

hann@andrew.cmu.edu rtelang.andrew.cmu.edu

GSIA 314B

Office phone: 268-4637

Office Hours: TuTh 1:30-2:30

and by appointment

Course Overview

The shift in the economy from the industrial era to the information age has profound implications for the management of the modern enterprise. Firms are experimenting with new types of products, production processes, organizational structures, and competitive strategies that have been enabled by the use of computer and telecommunication technology. In this “information economy”, there is tremendous demand for managers that can combine technical skills with business insight to create value for their organizations using the technology, whether they work in the information systems function or elsewhere.

This course provides a broad-based introduction into telecommunications focusing on three interrelated themes: technology, organization, and strategy. The goal of this course is to equip students with the knowledge and tools they need to analyze and specify communication technology from the technological as well as the business perspective.

Course Format

Classes will include a mixture of case discussions, lectures, and possibly computer demonstrations and guest speakers. Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the readings.

This course requires the textbook "Business Data Communications" by W. Stallings and R. Van Slyke, 3rd Edition, Prentice-Hall, Englewood, NJ, 1998. In addition, there are several readings, which will be distributed in class. Occasionally, I will also distribute copies of my lecture notes and other handouts to the class.

There will be 5 problem sets, which must be delivered on the dates assigned. No credit will be given if a problem set is handed in late

There will be 2 midterms and a final. The midterm will be given in class. The final exam will focus on the material following the midterm and will primarily be on business analysis (concepts introduced in the first half of the class will be relevant as well, but no questions will be targeted specifically at material covered in the midterm and first half of the class).

There will also be a group project which involves writing a business plan for an information technology related innovation which can be a new product, a modification of an existing product, or an application of an IT-related technology to a particular business setting. Further details appear later in this document.

You are strongly encouraged to collaborate with your fellow students on working through the course material including the problem sets and short essays. However, any work which is handed in must be written entirely and only by you, which includes doing your own versions of any computer generated text or diagrams.

Grading

Grading is based on a number of individual and group exercises:

Problem Sets 15%

Class participation 10%

Mid-term examination (each) 15%

Team project (group) 25%

Final examination 20%

Because we will often discuss the problem sets on the day that they are due, late assignments cannot be accepted. The restriction on late papers applies to all work in the class: exams, problem sets, individual papers and team projects. Note: “late” is defined as not turning the paper in at the beginning of class in which it is due - this includes putting the paper in my box during class or sending faxes or e-mail after 12:05 PM on the due date. If you cannot attend class on the day an assignment is due, please make prior arrangements with me or turn in the problem set a few hours (or a day) early.

Class participation will also be included as part of the grade. Students are expected to come prepared to participate in the case discussions and all students are expected to contribute at least occasionally in class. Quality of contribution is much more important than quantity. I recognize that not all students are equally comfortable with participating in class; however, this is a relatively low risk environment in which to practice skills that you will need later in life. The class participation grade policy is simple: if you make an effort to attend regularly and participate occasionally, you will get full credit. If you are concerned about your class participation, please come see me to work out a solution.

Both Rahul – the TA – and I are willing to spend as much time as necessary to make sure that you understand the material. Assignments will be graded by the TA (Rahul). If you have a question about your grade on an assignment or you believe that you were graded incorrectly please see one of us. Because we are both human, we sometimes make mistakes. If you believe that such a mistake has occurred, please put your issue in writing and your entire paper will be regraded with this issue in mind. Because the problem set grading is handled by Rahul, fastest service will be obtained if you speak with him first although I am happy to discuss the material as well.

Questions and Assistance

We will also have a Web site for course announcements, assignments, and related issues, and you will have to use the web for the team project. If you are not familiar or comfortable with these technologies, please see Rahul as soon as possible.

The best ways to reach me is via e-mail or see me during office hours. I read my mail at least once a day. Feel free to stop by and see me at any time on course related issues although I can only guarantee that I’ll be free during office hours.

Rahul is also easily reached by e-mail. He is very capable of answering both technical and business questions, and he is the preferred contact point for problem set regrades.

Group Project

The purpose of this presentation is to study a specific technology in depth in a short period of time. The presentation should basically answer three major questions.

· How does it work? Explain the functions of the technology in layman’s terms. The challenge is to provide a description of the components and the process underlying the technology without using jargons.

· What are its current applications? Are there opportunities for this technology to be used in 2000? What are the costs and benefits of using this technology? What are the sources (e.g., vendors) for this technology?

· What are the future applications? Is it an emerging technology with much future potential? Is this technology likely to be elbowed out by another contender? Are costs likely to reduce in future? Are more vendors going to enter the market? If it does not have much current applications, should we start a pilot project for further study?

You will be randomly assigned to a group and are free to choose the topic. Topics can be drawn from a wide range of telecommunications technologies, applications, or issues. The topic must have both technical and business aspects. You need to make sure that the topic is not too broad (e.g., the Internet) or too focused (e.g., TCP/IP protocol). Your presentation should not be more than 15 minutes long. This is a group project. However, not all members of the group are required to make the presentation.

The specific required steps of the project are:

1. A written proposal outline (can be a rough draft) must be e-mailed or delivered to Rahul (rtelang@andrew) by September 14 at the beginning of class. It should be approximately 1/2 page, and have enough information to determine if you are on the right track. Also if you intended to create a prototype or demonstration you should indicate this is in this preliminary topic description.

2. A final proposal, approximately 2-3 pages in length should be e-mailed or delivered to me no later than October 5 at the beginning of class. This should be a list of 10 information sources that you have discovered about your topic and how you think that they contribute. For each resource you should include a paragraph that briefly describes what the resource contains that is useful for your project. In the same paragraph mention any biases that you think the information source might have. Remember that these information sources can be on-line, paper-based, or even knowledgeable people.

We will evaluate this deliverable as an indication of the progress your group is making on the project. For example, if the resource list contains 10 magazine articles from the same magazine we will take this as a bad sign. After receiving these things we may request that your team meet with us to discuss your project.

You should turn this in by sending it via e-mail to Rahul (rtelang@andrew.cmu.edu) or by placing it in your project directory and sending a message to indicate that it is there.

This is a commitment to a topic and you should not expect to make major changes in the project after this point. I strongly encourage you to do this and turn it in before the due date to minimize last minute work on the project.

3. First draft by November 9. So that we can give you some feedback on the progress of your project you should make a first draft available. Remember the project is the equivalent of a group term paper so it should contain as much information as you would put in a 6-8 page paper. This draft should be an under-construction set of WWW pages. It should be focused on the content. We are most interested in seeing you discussion of the different aspects of the topic and the kind of resources you are using.

You should turn this by placing it in your project directory and sending a message to Rahul to indicate that it is there.

4. An oral presentation is due by November 23. The major deliverable of the project is a set of WWW pages due on November 30th, that explains the business and technical aspects of you topic. For WWW based materials it is difficult to specify a particular size requirement - WWW pages are variable length so page counts don't make much sense. However many pages you create the set of WWW pages should be designed so that an executive could use them to get an overview and a manager or technical professional could use them as a useful resource for further investigation of the topic.

You should turn this by placing it in your project directory and sending a message to Rahul (retelang@andrew) to indicate that it is there.

Your oral presentation should be 15 minutes long, with 5 minutes for questions. The presentation can be structured any way you want within your allotted time (all people can present a part, a single person can present the whole thing, or you can break the class into groups and do multiple concurrent presentations).

Project Grading Criteria

The first three project deliverables (topic description, preliminary resource list, and draft) will be graded as complete or incomplete. Adequate deliverables, which are submitted on time, will receive a grade of complete. Deliverables that are obviously underdeveloped or late will receive a grade of incomplete. Examples of underdeveloped deliverables include:

· Topic descriptions that lay out obviously trivial or impossible projects

· Resource lists that draw from an extremely limited set of sources - indicating little or no search has been done.

· Draft projects that consist entirely of a list of resources

If you are concerned about a deliverables discuss it with us BEFORE the deadline. All deliverables (including late ones) will be commented on and feedback provided.

The final project will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

· Technical completeness - Does the project adequately address the technical aspects of the topic? (25%)

· Business completeness - Does the project adequately address the business aspects of the topic? (25%)

· WWW presentation - Does the project use the capabilities of the WWW well to present the information, resources, and if available prototype? (10%)

· Executive evaluation - Is the material presented in such a way that a non-technical executive would find the materials informative? (15%)

· Technical professional evaluation - Is the material present in such a way that technical professional would find it useful and informative? (15%)

The presentation will be graded based on the following criteria:

· Clarity: Can a student who has not taken this course understand and appreciate the value of this presentation? Is the presentation well motivated? (15%)

· Organization: Does the presentation have a logical order? Are the main points substantiated by facts and numbers? Is each part a cohesive, but integral component of the whole presentation? (15%)

· Depth: Does the presentation leave the reader with a sense of a new understanding of a key technology? Does the presentation get down to basics, or does it gloss over important concepts? (15%)

· Breadth: Does it contain materials outside the reading given to the group? Does it represent a well rounded research effort or does it imply an ad hoc collection of ideas? Does it contain recent, if not absolutely recent, facts and ideas? (15%)

· Questions and Answers: Is the group able to deal with the questions effectively? Do they have a clear idea about the issue or do they exhibit a vague understanding only? Please keep in mind that some questions may be outside the scope of the presentation. (15%)

· Peer rankings of the presentations (peer rating sheets will be distributed to the class at presentation time). (25%)

The grade for the project will be based on the progress on the deliverables (i.e. whether or not they were complete) (15%), evaluation of the final project (70%), and final presentation (15%).

If you have any questions feel free to contact Rahul (rtelang@andrew.cmu.edu).

A note to the project grade: The default will be to assign the same grade to all members of the group; however, I will have each of you fill out confidential group evaluation forms that rate the contribution level of each member of your group. Students, who have contributed significantly less in the opinion of the majority of the group members, will receive at least 50% less credit for the group project.

Guidelines for Written Work

Problem Sets (Technical Problems and Case Analysis). Some of the questions on the problem sets are straightforward technical questions, which you should answer as completely and concisely as possible.

Other questions are case analyses that will ask you to analyze a particular business situation in depth. Be sure to answer the questions and it is generally helpful for the graders for you to number your answers. However, I am not asking you to write an interesting story, conduct a general competitive analysis, or summarize the facts in the case. You should emphasize analysis of the issues, with selected facts from the case used to bolster your argument. The analyses should require between 2 and 4 double spaced pages (this is a guideline, not a requirement), should be typewritten, use formal business writing and contain no typographical errors (the 4 page guideline applies to text; diagrams or numerical calculations may expand the number of pages you need). You are welcome to use bullet points, indentations or other styles that help you organize and present your thoughts but don’t annoy the graders by using 8-point fonts, bizarre typestyles or unusual margins. Please note that in preparing your answers, writing too much can be as bad or worse than writing too little. Maximal credit is given to thorough answers that address the question without extraneous comment.

Many of the frameworks we discuss in the class are particularly useful for answering the questions. However, do not try to shoehorn a question into a framework that does not fit (not all management problems can be solved by Porter’s “five forces”). Also, do not try to demonstrate that you have done the reading by including as many terms and phrases from the text and the articles as you can. In particular, avoid management gibberish, buzzwords (“we are going to proactively reengineer our key business processes to focus on our core competencies and exploit scale economies in pursuit of competitive advantage”) and platitudes (“people are our most important asset”) since the use of such phrases suggests to intelligent people that you really have no idea what you are trying to say. If you want to use a particular management phrase such as “competitive advantage”, define your terms precisely and apply them consistently and thoughtfully.

Tentative Class Schedule

PART	SESSIONS	TOPICS	WORK DUE
1. Introduction	Aug 24 Aug 26	Introduction Distributed Systems	Chapter 1 Chapter 2-3
2. Basics	Aug 31, Sep 2 Sep 2, 7, 9 Sep 9, 14	Transmission Basics Communication Basics Transmission Efficiency	Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
	Sep 14	Group project	Written Proposal
	Sep 16	Part 1 &2	Assignment 1
	Sep 30	Test 1 (Closed Book)	Part 1 & 2
3. Networking	Sep 16, 21	Wide Area Network	Chapter 7, 8
	Sep 23, 28 Oct 5	Local Networks Wireless Networks	Chapter 9-10 Chapter 11
	Oct 5	Group Project	Final Proposal
	Oct 7	Part 3	Assignment 2
	Oct 7	Butt Grocery Case	· Butt Grocery Case · Guidelines for Case Analysis
4. Applications & Management	Oct 12, 14	Protocol Architectures	Chapter 12
	Oct 19	Test 2 (Closed Book)	Part 3
	Oct 21	Introduction to Strategy	· Porter, Competitive Strategy: The core concepts · Porter and Millar, How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage · Assignment 3
	Oct 26	Strategic IS	· InformationWeek, Sabre Gives Edge to American Airlines · InformationWeek. AHSC On-line System Ships Supplies ASAP
	Oct 28	Classic IS Strategy	· Baxter Healthcare: ASAP Express (Case) · Assignment 4
	Nov 2	IT & Organization	· Malone and Rockart, Computers, Networks and the Corporation · Drucker, The Coming of the New Organization · Hitt and Brynjolfsson, IT and Internal Organization (excerpt)
	Nov 4	IT & Organization: Executive IS	· Phillips 66 Company: Controlling a Company Through Crisis (Case) · Assignment 5
	Nov 9	IT & Organization: Expert System	The Brooklyn DA’s Office: Client Contact Systems (Case)
	Nov 9	Group project	First draft of report
	Nov 11	E-Commerce Security	Chapter 17
	Nov 16	Business on the Internet	TBA
	Nov 18	Competition in Electronic Markets	TBA
	Nov 23, 30	Group project	Project Presentations
	Dec 2	Course Review

Questions for Case Discussion and Written Analysis

Butt Grocery Case

Questions for discussion (not to be handed in):

1. Is the communication decision a strategic move that could make the company more competitive?

2. What opportunities does the proposed network open up? What potential opportunities may have to be missed if the proposal is accepted?

3. How would you characterize the approach taken to manage communication at Butt Grocery? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Questions for Case Discussion and Written Analysis

Baxter Healthcare Corporation: ASAP Express

Problem Set #4: Answer the following questions about the Baxter Case:

4. (50%) Were the earlier versions of the Baxter ASAP system a source of competitive advantage? Was it a source of sustainable competitive advantage? Analyze the factors that determined whether it provided competitive advantage and whether the advantage was sustainable. (Note: Earlier versions refers to the first version of ASAP up until ASAP express. If at some point the system changed to a source of competitive advantage or from being a source of competitive advantage, note the point at which it changed and why)

5. (25%) Why would Baxter want to create a “level playing field” with the ASAP express system? Is this a good idea?

6. (25%) What competitive threats does Baxter face as they move forward with ASAP express? What can they do to address them?

Questions for Discussion (not to be handed in)

1. What is the structure of the hospital supplies industry? What are the important characteristics of buyers and suppliers from a competitive standpoint?

2. What does the value chain of a hospital look like? Where are potential opportunities for a hospital supply company to improve the economics of hospital operations?

3. How important is price competition in the hospital industry? What types of market imperfections exist?

4. What resources does Baxter Healthcare have that distinguishes it from the competition? How does ASAP Express fit in?

5. Has Baxter managed the development and implementation of ASAP effectively? What have they done right and wrong?

Questions for Case Discussion and Written Analysis

Phillips 66 Company: Controlling a Company through Crisis

Problem Set #5:

1. (20%) In the abstract, what are the tradeoffs between centralizing and decentralized decision making? How can IT affect the optimal location of decision rights?

2. (40%) Analyze the how the organizational architecture (decision rights, incentives and monitoring systems) was changed at Phillips. Be sure to examine the changes for both senior management and line/field managers. How did information systems relate to these changes in organizational architecture?

3. (20%) What was the impact of these changes within the organization (please be specific)? Do you think the IS investments needed to support these changes were justified?

4. (20%) What could threaten the ongoing success of the new organization at Phillips (again, please be specific)?

Questions for discussion (not to be handed in):

1. How was EIS implemented? In particular, what roles did Bob Wallace and Gene Batchelder play?

2. How was decision making conducted before EIS? How was it changed by the implementation of EIS?

3. What were the tangible and intangible benefits of EIS? What were the costs?

4. Are the benefits of the ETS likely to extend to other divisions? What would be the value of using ETS throughout the company?

5. Some managers are concerned that they no longer have sufficient control over the business. Does it make sense to recentralize control of pricing and other operational decisions now that ETS is in place?

Questions for Case Discussion

The Brooklyn DA: Client Contact Systems

Questions for discussion (not to be handed in):

1. What factors lead to the decision to implement video-linkages and CACE?

2. What are the benefits of the CACE system? What are the costs?

3. The project was originally started on “buy-and-bust” narcotics cases. Why was this application chosen? Is this a reasonable strategy for a pilot project?

4. Which stakeholders stand to gain from CACE? Which stakeholders are likely to be worse off? How should the distribution of benefits affect how the system is implemented?

5. Think about the questions raised in the “implications and limitations” section at the end of the case.