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Cover of Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology v4.0
Published: 
August 2015
Page Count: 
480
ISBN (Digital): 
978-1-4533-7281-4

Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology

Version 4.0
By John Gallaugher

Included Supplements

Students

Online Access Price:  $39.95 Color Printed Textbook with Online Access Price:  $66.95
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Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Techonology, v. 4.0

 

John Gallaugher

WHAT'S NEW IN 4.0:

      • FRESHLY UPDATED:

Every chapter has received an update to ensure that it covers the latest topics and material. Today’s cutting edge firms and headline grabbing topics presented through durable frameworks and concepts.

      • PROFILING WOMEN IN TECH ENTREPRENEURSHIP:

New chapter on Rent the Runway highlights Jenn Hyman and Jenny Fleiss as they’ve built a user base of over 5 million for their sharing economy standout, a “Fashion Company with a Technology Soul.” The entrepreneur’s path in building value for a two-sided market, leveraging social media, scouring big data, and building a multi-channel operations marvel is covered in depth.

      • MICKEY’S WEARABLE:

A mini-case in the “Moore’s Law and More” chapter discusses the launch of Disney’s billion dollar MagicBand and MyMagic+ systems. Low cost consumer tech is leveraged for better customer experience and operational efficiency gains, but not before tackling challenging systems integration and team coordination issues.

      • BIG DATA STANDOUTS:

New examples show how Spotify’s The Echo Nest is creating a machine-learning tastemaker, while L.L. Bean dives deep into NoSQL to wrangle a business that now spans some 30 customer engagement channels.

      • EMBEDDED VIDEO FOR KEY UPDATES:

Students using the online version will find embedded video for several new topics, including Amazon’s use of robotics to automate fulfillment centers, Zara’s new RFID initiative, the Cognitoy/Watson-using child learning aid, and Disney’s MagicBand, among others.

      • CUTTING EDGE COVERAGE:

From Facebook’s move to make Messenger a platform to Google’s evolution to Alphabet, students will feel their text and classroom are alive with the most current content available.

For a comprehensive list of what's new in version 4.0, visit Gallaugher’s blog.

John Gallaugher of Boston College has been named one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Gurus to Grads.” His popular and award-winning textbook offers a proven approach that has garnered student praise and increased information systems enrollment. Each year Gallaugher meets with scores of tech industry executives from Silicon Valley to sub-Saharan Africa, and there is no other Information Systems author today who keeps his text as "up-to-the-month" current.

For regular updates, follow Gallaugher’s blog, The Week in Geek, and connect with him on Twitter at @gallaugher.

This textbook is suitable for these courses:Undergraduate or graduate courses in Management Information Systems and Information Technology

This textbook is suitable for 2 and 4 year institutions.

PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES:

      • FOCUS ON STRATEGIC THINKING:

Rather than lead with technical topics, the book starts with strategic thinking, focusing on big-picture issues that have confounded experts but will engage students.

      • CURRENT, ENGAGING AND HOLISTIC CASE STUDIES:

While chapters introduce concepts, cases on approachable, exciting firms across industries further challenge students to apply what they've learned. Students love how concepts are introduced in a text that reads more like Wired and the Wall Street Journal than a conventional textbook.

      • CONCEPTS:

Chapters cover not only strategy and technology basics, but critical and cutting edge concepts such as data analytics, security, social media, the sharing economy, disruptive innovation, network effects and platform creation, open source, and cloud computing.

      • FASCINATING FIRMS:

In-depth profiles include firms that students know and are eager to learn more about. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Rent the Runway, and Zara are among the firms that get extended coverage, along with mini-cases on Airbnb, Uber, and more.

      • CUSTOMIZABILITY:

The Flat World Knowledge publishing model allows instructors to adapt the textbook to the exact needs of their specific class and student body. See how easy it is to customize a textbook in this 4 minute demo: Flat World Editing Platform Video Demo

  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Dedication
  • Preface

    • Chapter 1: Setting the Stage: Technology and the Modern Enterprise

  • 1.1 Tech’s Tectonic Shift: Radically Changing Business Landscapes
  • 1.2 It’s Your Revolution
  • 1.3 Geek Up—Tech Is Everywhere and You’ll Need It to Thrive
  • 1.4 The Pages Ahead

    • Chapter 2: Strategy and Technology: Concepts and Frameworks for Understanding What Separates Winners from Losers

  • 2.1 Introduction
  • 2.2 Powerful Resources
  • 2.3 Barriers to Entry, Technology, and Timing
  • 2.4 Key Framework: The Five Forces of Industry Competitive Advantage

    • Chapter 3: Zara: Fast Fashion from Savvy Systems

  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Don’t Guess, Gather Data
  • 3.3 Moving Forward

    • Chapter 4: Netflix in Two Acts: The Making of an E-Commerce Giant and the Uncertain Future of Atoms to Bits

  • 4.1 Introduction
  • 4.2 Act I: David Becomes Goliath: Crafting Killer Assets for DVD-by-Mail Dominance
  • 4.3 Act II: Netflix and the Shift from Mailing Atoms to Streaming Bits

    • Chapter 5: Moore’s Law and More: Fast, Cheap Computing, and What This Means for the Manager

  • 5.1 Introduction
  • 5.2 The Death of Moore’s Law?
  • 5.3 Bringing Brains Together: Supercomputing, Grids, Clusters, and Putting Smarts in the Cloud
  • 5.4 E-waste: The Dark Side of Moore’s Law
  • 5.5 Mickey’s Wearable: Disney’s Magic Band

    • Chapter 6: Disruptive Technologies: Understanding the Giant Killers and Tactics for Avoiding Extinction

  • 6.1 Introduction
  • 6.2 Bitcoin: A Disruptive Innovation for Money and More?

    • Chapter 7: Amazon: An Empire Stretching from Cardboard Box to Kindle to Cloud

  • 7.1 Introduction
  • 7.2 The Emperor of E-Commerce
  • 7.3 Kindle on Fire: The Rise of Digital, the Everywhere Store, and New Opportunities from e-Book, Tablet, TV, and Phone
  • 7.4 Amazon and the Cloud: From Personal Storage to AWS

    • Chapter 8: Understanding Network Effects: Strategies for Competing in a Platform-Centric, Winner-Take-All World

  • 8.1 Introduction
  • 8.2 Where Does All That Value Come From?
  • 8.3 One-Sided or Two-Sided Markets?
  • 8.4 How Are These Markets Different?
  • 8.5 Competing When Network Effects Matter

    • Chapter 9: Social Media, Peer Production, and Web 2.0

  • 9.1 Introduction
  • 9.2 Blogs
  • 9.3 Wikis
  • 9.4 Social Networks
  • 9.5 Twitter and the Rise of Microblogging
  • 9.6 Prediction Markets and the Wisdom of Crowds
  • 9.7 Crowdsourcing
  • 9.8 Get SMART: The Social Media Awareness and Response Team

    • Chapter 10: The Sharing Economy, Collaborative Consumption, and Creating More Efficient Markets through Technology

  • 10.1 Introduction
  • 10.2 Boom Times and Looming Challenges in the Sharing Economy
  • 10.3 Future Outlook: Established Players Get Collaborative
  • 10.4 Airbnb—Hey Stranger, Why Don’t You Stay at My Place?
  • 10.5 Uber: Sharing Economy Success from Tech-Fueled Superior Service

    • Chapter 11: Facebook: A Billion-plus users, the High-Stakes Move to Mobile, and Big Business from the Social Graph

  • 11.1 Introduction
  • 11.2 Disrupting Competition, Building Competitive Advantage, and the Challenging Rise of Mobile
  • 11.3 Lessons from Facebook as an Apps Platform: Early Promise, Continued Challenges, Mobile Missteps
  • 11.4 Advertising and Social Networks:  A Challenging Landscape but a Big Payoff
  • 11.5 A Platform Player that Moves Fast and Breaks Things: What All Managers Can Learn from Facebook’s Mistakes, Responses, and Pursuit of New Opportunities

    • Chapter 12: Rent the Runway: Entrepreneurs Expanding an Industry by Blending Tech with Fashion

  • 12.1 Introduction
  • 12.2 Founding the Business. Are We On To Something?
  • 12.3 Customer Engagement (Mobile, Social, and Physical Storefronts)
  • 12.4 Data
  • 12.5 Operations and Logistics
  • 12.6 Expanding with New Models
  • 12.7 Conclusion

    • Chapter 13: Understanding Software: A Primer for Managers

  • 13.1 Introduction
  • 13.2 Operating Systems
  • 13.3 Application Software
  • 13.4 Distributed Computing, Web Services, and APIs
  • 13.5 Writing Software
  • 13.6 Understanding Technology beyond the Price Tag: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and the Cost of Tech Failure

    • Chapter 14: Software in Flux: Open Source, Cloud, Virtualized and App-driven Shifts

  • 14.1 Introduction
  • 14.2 Open Source
  • 14.3 Why Open Source?
  • 14.4 Examples of Open Source Software
  • 14.5 Why Give It Away? The Business of Open Source
  • 14.6 Defining Cloud Computing
  • 14.7 Software in the Cloud: Why Buy When You Can Rent?
  • 14.8 SaaS: Not without Risks
  • 14.9 Understanding Cloud Computing Models: PaaS, IaaS, and Motivations and Risks
  • 14.10 Clouds and Tech Industry Impact
  • 14.11 Virtualization: Software That Makes One Computer Act Like Many
  • 14.12 Apps and App Stores: Further Disrupting the Software Industry on Smartphones, Tablets, and Beyond
  • 14.13 Make, Buy, or Rent

    • Chapter 15: The Data Asset: Databases, Business Intelligence, Analytics, Big Data, and Competitive Advantage

  • 15.1 Introduction
  • 15.2 Data, Information, and Knowledge
  • 15.3 Where Does Data Come From?
  • 15.4 Data Rich, Information Poor
  • 15.5 Data Warehouses, Data Marts, and Technology behind “Big Data”
  • 15.6 The Business Intelligence Toolkit
  • 15.7 Data Asset in Action: Technology and the Rise of Walmart

    • Chapter 16: A Manager’s Guide to the Internet and Telecommunications

  • 16.1 Introduction
  • 16.2 Internet 101: Understanding How the Internet Works
  • 16.3 Getting Where You’re Going
  • 16.4 Last Mile: Faster Speed, Broader Access

    • Chapter 17: Information Security: Barbarians at the Gateway (and Just About Everywhere Else)

  • 17.1 Introduction
  • 17.2 Why Is This Happening? Who Is Doing It? And What’s Their Motivation?
  • 17.3 Where Are Vulnerabilities? Understanding the Weaknesses
  • 17.4 Taking Action

    • Chapter 18: Google in Three Parts: Search, Online Advertising, and an Alphabet of Opportunity

  • 18.1 Introduction
  • 18.2 Understanding Search
  • 18.3 Understanding the Increase in Online Ad Spending
  • 18.4 Search Advertising
  • 18.5 Ad Networks—Distribution beyond Search
  • 18.6 More Ad Formats and Payment Schemes
  • 18.7 Customer Profiling and Behavioral Targeting
  • 18.8 Profiling and Privacy
  • 18.9 Search Engines, Ad Networks, and Fraud
  • 18.10 The Battle Unfolds
    • Instructor’s Manual

    Instructor’s Manual

    The Instructor’s Manual guides you through the main concepts of each chapter and important elements such as learning objectives, key terms, and key takeaways. Can include answers to chapter exercises, group activity suggestions, and discussion questions.

    Instructor’s Manual

    PowerPoint Lecture Notes

    PowerPoint Lecture Notes

    A PowerPoint presentation highlighting key learning objectives and the main concepts for each chapter are available for you to use in your classroom. You can either cut and paste sections or use the presentation as a whole.

    PowerPoint Lecture Notes

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    Test Bank Files for Import to Learning Management Systems

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    John Gallaugher Boston College

    John Gallaugher (PhD Syracuse University School of Management) is the founder of the Boston College TechTrek field study programs, and as an advisor to multiple successful student entrepreneurs, John has had unprecedented access to the world’s leading technology and tech investment firms. An award-winning educator and author, John has been named a "Distinguished Educator" by Apple Inc., a "Most Popular Professor" by Bloomberg Businessweek, and “Guru to Grads” by Entrepreneur Magazine. He has also received the Boston College Trzaska Faculty Leadership Award, the all-university Boston College Teaching Award, the Carroll School of Management Teaching Award, and the student newspaper’s Momentum Award for campus impact. His bestselling textbook Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology has been used at over 450 universities worldwide, and has twice won the Textbook and Academic Authors' Association "Texty" award for excellence. John has taught on five continents and has led field study experiences in Seattle, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Dublin, Ghana, and Sydney. John’s research has been published in leading journals including the MIS Quarterly and Harvard Business Review, and he has consulted for leading organizations including Apple Inc., Accenture, ING, Partners Healthcare, State Street, and the U.S. Information Agency, among others. John has worked extensively with student entrepreneurs and has seen several former students gain admittance to elite accelerators (Y-Combinator, TechStars, MassChallenge), raise capital, and build thriving businesses, with some garnering unicorn ($1 billion plus) valuations. His comments on Business and Technology have appeared in several media outlets, including The New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Associated Press, National Public Radio, and Wired. One of the rare academics who teaches managerial as well as software and hardware programming courses, you can find hundreds of "flipped learning" and project videos at: YouTube.com/profgallaugher. John holds both a BA in Computer Science and an MBA from Boston College, and a PhD in Information Systems from the Syracuse University School of Management. He occasionally publishes on Substack (http://profgallaugher.substack.com) and is also active on social media—having left X for Threads: @john.gallaugher.

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