Information Systems

Looking back over the class, what I believe will make the biggest difference in my professional career relates to change management.  As managers and leaders of companies in our future, we will be assigned the tough task of changing organizations to foster growth, creativity, and innovations.  We won't be hired to simply keep things on an even keel, and settle for less than the situations we walk into.  We will be asked to exhibit an entrepreneurial nature that spurs on our organizations to new heights.  And this is what change management is about.  It's never easy to get people to change, it's human nature that we get ourselves stuck into a routine, and many times people start to say 'that's not how things are done around here'.  Most of the people in organizations don't understand why things should change and that we always want improvement and to be better at what we do, especially in organizations.  I for one plan on using what we learned in class in my career and hopefully create change in meaningful ways.  These concepts and many other things that I didn't know before are the reasons I decided to come back for graduate school and so far, I'm really glad that I did.

The Importance of Selling Online

http://www.cio.com/article/636070/Is_Black_Friday_Dead_on_Arrival_?source=rss_news

I read this article on Black Friday promotions and thought that this was pretty interesting.  Finding deals during the holidays is pretty important, especially if you have a large family or friends that you buy gifts for.  I remember a few years ago when I first started to shop online, mainly at Amazon to buy books for cheaper prices.  Now trying to find a good deal won't be looking at the newspapers, but almost completely online.  While many physical retailers will still push huge deals and savings on Black Friday, since an increasing number of customers have moved purchasing online over the past few years a lot of these retailers have responded with moving the savings and promos here as well.  Just another example of technology driving trends...

Outsourcing's External Factors - The Vendor's Perspective

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_46/b4203016835355.htm

This article focuses on the external factors hitting outsourcing companies located in India.  With the US as their biggest market, and Obama working to keep jobs from being outsourced, this represents a serious threat to Indian companies.  They have had to react to this factor that is external to the company in 2 majorly different ways.  First, they've tried to diversify, mostly into China.  Second, they've made acquisitions in the U.S. and tried to move more of their work into the US so there would be more of a sense of near-shoring instead of offshoring.  This makes many US companies more comfortable with the prospect of outsourcing these huge IT contracts.  Nonetheless, it just goes to show how external factors to your company can change the way you approach business overnight.