5 Bullets each bullet has to be 500-1000 words - the first 3-4 sentences should summarize one or two key points that were making.

• Companies not only need a product that sells but also need a strategy to conduct business. In some cases, strategies are dictated by a person’s experience. In other cases, the detailed study goes into designing and implementing a successful plan. Do you believe business strategies should be based on strategic thinking? Why? Explain by providing a scenario to illustrate your answer. The speed at which companies are expected to operate in the business world sometimes puts a strain on the operations of the companies. In order to remain competitive, companies are required to constantly adopt newer technologies, upgrade infrastructure, and train employees. Providing examples, discuss why keeping up with technology while balancing the management of operations and business processes can become difficult in terms of corporate decision making. • Developing an IT project in-house requires huge effort and resources. Describe some of the efforts required for in-house development of IT solutions. How does risk play a role in the decision to develop IT solutions in-house? How can these risks be assessed? Use examples or scenarios to support your answers. Not all companies are able to develop in-house software applications. Although developing IT applications within a company leads to a greater probability of keeping the applications proprietary, it also means that smaller companies may need to extend their resources to enable in-house development. Assuming you are in charge of a small company, when do you believe the company should utilize its IT development potential to develop an in-house solution? When do you think your company should resort to an external contractor? Provide examples that illustrate both the cases and report the outcomes of the cases. Find out whether the companies were still able to stay in business after developing in-house IT solutions. Was the proprietary nature of the software maintained when the company resorted to a contractor? • It is a de facto standard to always keep end-users in mind when designing IT solutions. Provide an example of an IT solution where end-user input should be sought and highly valued. How would you ensure the involvement of end-users in the design process? How do you believe users help in designing IT solutions? How many users do you think should be involved? Why? Are there scenarios in which users should not be involved with the design of a new IT solution? Why? The balance between IT dominance and user dominance impacts IT activities. How do you think this balance is maintained? What do you think should prevail, IT dominance or user dominance? Why? Illustrate your answer with scenarios. • The internetworking infrastructure is one of the major components of businesses everywhere. When working with interconnected technologies, security issues may arise. There are often news reports about stolen corporate assets that contain sensitive information about either businesses or customers. Discuss the trade-offs that may be necessary between a fully interconnected infrastructure and security measures. If you had a company with a large internetworking infrastructure, what kinds of trade-offs would you anticipate and what kinds of policies would you consider putting in place? Availability is an important element in today’s global marketplace. Customers expect to be able to access services 24/7, but no system will have an availability of 100 percent. When deciding whether to host a solution in-house or externally, many considerations need to be examined. What are some of these considerations? List some of the resources that need to be allocated in order to maintain in-site hosting of services. Explain whether or not you believe in in-house hosting • What happens when companies grow? What are some of the types of things that need to be kept into consideration in order to keep it robust? This week, you will review the concepts that enable companies to manage projects and collaborations while remaining aware of possible gains as well as risks. You will look at outsourcing as a solution for reducing the IS/IT burdens of a company. Outsourcing is not always a wise choice. Even after a set of functionalities has been outsourced, a company should not remain detached from the vendor, assuming that services will be provided without any problems. The company should instead maintain a dynamic relationship with both the vendor and the competitors. IS/IT projects involve risks that are not always properly assessed. The risks may increase the strain that a company bears not only from projects that fail to complete as scheduled but also from projects that, to succeed, draw additional resources other than those allocated. Managing individual projects is important, but it is also advisable to revisit the overall direction of the projects.