Posted: March 1st, 2022

Challenges and Security Issues

Challenges and Security Issues
Complete the following for this assignment:

Compare and contrast the management information systems (MIS) in place in 2 distinctly different organizations.
Compare each organization’s use of information systems to help manage internal operations and to make decisions.
Assess how these two organizations use information technology for competitive advantage.
Appraise the individual and organizational consequences of the use of information technology, and recognize potential security breaches and computer crimes.
Present your findings in a Word document of 4-5 body pages formatted in Help write my thesis – APA style.

Challenges and Security Issues
Management Information Systems (MIS) are a growing trend in organizations as they offer reports that aid organizations make decisions. Even though the technique of looking at company data for decision making has been around for a long time, MIS makes it different as it incorporates the use of Information Technology (IT) and personnel activities. Toyota and Northwestern Medicine are two distinctly separate organizations that use MIS to plan, manage, operate, and transact. The importance of MIS is that it aids companies in attaining their desired competitive advantage. Today, it is tough for firms to survive unless they have superior decision-making features. While Toyota may be an automobiles company and Northwestern a medical institution, they both see the need to manage their information systems despite their diversity in business. MIS serves as a platform where large organizations such as Toyota and Northwestern Medical can define the approach they need to take to improve the quality of services or products hence competitive advantage.
Toyota and Northwestern both employ MIS to gain competitive advantage despite their different approaches to implement the system. Since 1980, Toyota has grown from a small national company to a global organization comprised of smaller companies. This change was brought about by their venture into information systems. By 1990 the company was already using CAD/CAM systems within its engineering systems. As the company crossed borders, there was a need to venture into office automation. By the early 2000s, the company sought to standardize its information systems to remain at par with each other and advance at a mutual pace. Northwestern Medical is younger that Toyota in the field of MIS as it began its technology upgrade in the year 2018. Mostly, the medical center uses electronic health record systems (EHR) to manage patient records with the highest degree of confidentiality (Northwestern, 2020). This system enables various departments within a hospital to share electronic medical records amongst themselves. The system also has guidelines concerning cases of sharing with third parties
For Toyota, the information system classification falls into tasks and responsibilities distributed across the company alongside the MIS. This includes personal, departmental, organizational, and inter-organizational. The segmentation of these duties allows the company to have a worldwide standard that all employees use. Each segment knows how to function with the information system at hand to deliver the organization’s vision and goals. In Northwestern, however, their MIS focuses more on handling patient’s records, their privacy, and their safety. Likewise to Toyota, the medical center and its branches have a centralized system where doctors can retrieve patient information despite their location. While Toyota looks into making better products, Northwestern focuses on the care of their patients. This is only fair as the organizations are giving more attention to their primary business. Northwestern MIS relies mostly on patient consent, while Toyota’s MIS relies on top management and the information they need to convey across the whole organization. To make the best out of decision-making technology, MIS should be employed.
Medical establishments are currently under high scrutiny by the law as increased demand for privacy rises in the health sector. This has forced institutions such as Northwestern Medical to resort to Electronic health records (EHR) as required per HIPPA. Healthcare organizations that neglect this demand are likely to face legal action as traditional methods have proved to be risky. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, EHRs are highly recommended to create a centralized system whereby retrieval of data is secure. Northwestern Medical employs this system to improve their competitive advantage as it improves all aspects of healthcare. Issues such as safety, workflow, and timeliness are adjusted to give consumers a centered experience when they visit the hospital. Such a positive impact on patients encourages them to revisit the hospital and provide return business, which improves competitive advantage for the hospital.
Besides the notion of privacy, the medical industry is also on the EHR market for the benefits it brings to businesses. By 2014, the EHR market’s value hit $18.93 billion, a figure that should increase by 5.4% before 2023 (Rupp, 2016). Information is a powerful tool for any organization when appropriately utilized. Hospitals such as Northwestern Medicine may employ the use of EHR to cut costs or generate more revenue. Due to past and present records on patients, Northwestern can cut down on time and money spent by doctors while they look for the cause of illnesses. Sometimes, a history of reoccurring symptoms may aid doctors in identifying underlying conditions. Furthermore, the organization can use the system for data analytics, whereby they can narrow down problems in statistical manners. Such actions could be used for decision making to determine areas that would have cost the hospital if errors were made.
Management Information Systems provides several benefits that contribute to competitive advantage. The cases of analysis, modeling, operational, and transaction processing are exactly what Toyota needed from MIS. Toyota (2019) employs the use of Transaction Processing Management Reporting Sytems (TPS), warehouse management system (WMS), and Learning Management Sytems (LMS). The WMS is the system in charge of transactions, warehouse management, and stock management. Toyota then uses this information system to assign locations a unique sequence number, predetermine delivery locations for items, and classify stock. The TPS system deals with organizing logistics so that customers can receive their products in the fastest way possible. LMS then creates value for the organization through training employees on the brand of the organization and customizing Toyota products to fit their target environment. All these three systems work together to satisfy MIS for Toyota and increase its competitiveness in the relevant market share.
Toyota has two principles by which they support the organization, and the MIS they use aligns with its strategy as a company. These principles are continuous improvement and respect for people. In other words, the organizations aim to embrace development in technology while at the same time working under streamlined management. If the organization employs these systems on a global basis, then the organization will experience continued development. Considering how large the organization expands across the globe, MIS is a good foundation for the standardization of protocols. Moreover, the company is able to train its employees on the latest developments, monitor production, and distribution. These actions ensure that Toyota maintains excellent quality in their products across all branches. The same model vehicle produced at a particular plant is the same that is generated at another plant, hence reduction in trial and error costs. Clients are also content by the fact that the organization can produce the same good quality no matter their location. Toyota stays ahead of other manufacturers because they have managed their information systems.
As much as Toyota has a perfectly defined MIS, there are still potential threats that may render the technology vulnerable. Such cases include computer crimes such as jamming, malware, and denial of service attacks. With a DoS, every possible way of action over the Toyota MIS is blocked by attackers. This kind of attack may be performed by hackers who are in the network or outside the system. Jamming, on the other hand, happens when the attacker sends a signal over the interface that is powerful enough to block the organization’s connection. The message is usually of an equivalent frequency hence causing intentional interference. It is similar to a denial of service attack since other branches will not be able to communicate. An attacker can execute this attack during an occurrence of an event to gain leverage of the situation. There are also cases of malware attacks that can be initiated through third-party applications over Toyota’s TPS system through injection. This is possible because an attacker may embed malicious software into the forms and wait for it to be opened, leading to a malfunction in the system. All in all, information systems are not a hundred percent reliable, hence the need for extreme security measures over the network.
Healthcare institutions also face challenges with security breaches, considering the rise in cybercrimes over the past years. Northwestern Medical is prone to violations such as man in the middle attacks, masquerading, and eavesdropping. The man in the middle attack often has an attacker getting in the middle of the EHR channel and sending messages to support their gain. It may be hard to tell since personnel may view the connection as secure and private. Masquerading is another case where an attacker possesses as an authorized user by having the necessary logins to access the EHR network. Such logins could be fake, but the user shows the IDs to pretend to be another user. Northwestern MIS systems may also experience cases where secret details are disclosed to non-registered users (Gupta et al., 2016). In such a case, especially when connected to the internet, the details of patients could be revealed. These are the most likely attacks towards EHR systems as most malicious people would like to steal the information and misuse it.
In conclusion, Management Information Systems are a benefit to both Toyota and Northwestern Medical despite their different use. For any organization looking to thrive in the market today, IT strategies aiming at information management could help improve productivity. After all, there are numerous data generated all over today, and most companies fail to recognize it as a resource. Organizations can tap into their information management to improve the control they have over decision making. Just like Toyota, other companies can use MIS to expand business by harnessing the power of information. Organizations in healthcare are also realizing the benefits of EHR as they cut down on costs and administer better care to patients. Despite challenges in breaches and cyber-attacks, it is possible to build robust security measures to support the system. The pros of MIS seem to outweigh the cons after analyzing Toyota and Northwestern Medical. Hence, it is only fair to say that proper planning, implementation, and maintenance of MIS is a contributing factor to competitive advantage.
References
Gupta, B., Agrawal, D. P., & Yamaguchi, S. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of research on modern cryptographic solutions for computer and cyber security. IGI global.
Northwestern. (2020). Medical Records. Retrieved from https://www.nm.org/patients-and-visitors/mynm-mychart-and-medical-records
Rupp, S. (2016). HER Market Growth is still on the Rise. Retrieved from https://www.nuemd.com/news/2016/03/18/report-ehr-market-growth-still-rise
Toyota. (2019). Information systems used. Retrieved from http://toyotaprojectteam.blogspot.com/p/information-system-used.html

Order | Check Discount

Tags: Challenges and Security Issues