Hello. Welcome to our four-course specialization in Information Systems Management. I'm Gautam Ray. I'm Ken Reily. I'm Jason Chan. I'm Soumya Sen. We are all faculty members at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. You may associate Minnesota with cold winters, but in the field of Information Systems, the Carlson School is recognized as the school where the academic field of Information Systems was founded. In fact, the Information and Decision Sciences Department at the Carlson School celebrated its golden jubilee in the year 2018. We have one of the top Master's programs in the field, and amongst the four of us, we have over 50 years of experience, teaching in the Information Systems area. All four of us are excited to team-teach this specialization, Information Systems Management. This specialization focuses on the key principles, policies and best practices in information systems. We start by identifying key information systems projects that will add value to the firm. We then look at how we model and describe these systems, so that they can be built. Next, we look at the capabilities of modern enterprise systems and what they bring to the organization. Finally, we look at infrastructure options to accomplish these goals. These are core areas in which all managers who wishes to use IT in solving business problems should be aware of, even if this person is not within IS field. Throughout this specialization, we'll be sharing and presenting the best practices and practical guidelines that is being inferred from the best scholarships and learnings from the field. After you complete this specialization, you will have a better understanding of what works in the workplace, including a toolkit of best practices for aligning IT investments to business goals, modeling information systems, knowing the capabilities of enterprise systems and understanding the range of IT solutions and technologies available to modern enterprises. We have designed this specialization for students with different types of interests. So, who should take this specialization? Maybe you're an accidental IT manager. As a kid, you were interested in technology, so you became a programmer. Now, because of your continued success in developing IT applications for your firm, you have been promoted to an IT manager position. This means you are now responsible for significant capital investments in your firm, that is, now you're responsible for managing the IT capital investments of your firm. Given that you lack formal education and training in IT, now you want to become better at managing the IT capital investments of your firm. Perhaps you're an IT person by accident. You're a top performer in the accounting, finance, engineering or service departments. Because of your status as a top performer, you've been given extra responsibility and you manage IT investments for your department. You're good at what you do. However, you want to gain some confidence in managing IT. Maybe you're a career explorer. You have an interest towards emerging information technologies and you wish to learn more about what it means to be a IT manager. In that case, you want to learn and take this course on IT management. Or maybe you want a career refresher. You have been in the IT industry for some time and you want to know if you're up-to-date. Or maybe you want to check out the thinking on IT management issues from one of the top universities in this field. Whatever your interests and profile may be, you will definitely benefit from knowing the key IT management principles in today's workplace. So, what are the broad goals of this specialization? Firms make significant investments in IT. In the IS/IT Governance course, we will discuss how to align IT strategies with the goals and strategies of the organization. Firms make significant investments in IT. IT investments are also risky. So, in the IS/IT Governance course, we will discuss how to formally evaluate IT investments. Firms usually make multiple IT investments. In the IS/IT Governance course, we will also discuss how to evaluate a portfolio of IT investments. Firms usually charge users for IT investments to make sure that IT investments are consumed prudently. In this course, we will also discuss how to incent users so that IT dollars are spent wisely. Finally, new information systems have to be used by users for the firm to derive value from its IT investments. So, in this course, we will discuss strategies that firms can follow to ensure that the new systems that are developed are used by users, so that the firm realize the value from its IT investments. Most often, firms acquire information systems as part of a larger focus on process improvement. Organizations are looking for the right system, at the right price, at the right time. The business systems analyst's role is responsible for translating the organizations needs into system requirements. These system requirements are then used to guide the process of buying or building the right system. During the analysis for business systems course, you'll learn about the cornerstone of systems development, the Systems Development Life Cycle, or SDLC. You'll learn how to describe, read and even create the major deliverables of the systems development life cycle. Then, we'll finish by telling you how these deliverables are used to then build or buy and configure the right system for the organization. Enterprise systems are necessary tools in today's business. Enterprise systems allow companies to be proficient and at the same time allows managers to see complicated business processes across different business units. However, enterprise systems are often large and complicated and companies do not have the right know-how in managing their interactions with these systems. In the enterprise system class, we'll be talking and discussing about what enterprise systems are, what they can do for companies, and also the manager aspects related to the systems. In this course, we'll be learning about ways to select the right systems for your company and also managing organizational change that's involved with ERP implementations. The success of modern businesses depend on their ability to adapt, innovate and disrupt their industries through effective deployment of IT solutions. However, there are many IT solutions to choose from, and a good manager needs to have the technical foundation to use them to their full potential. This is particularly true for the domains of Cloud Computing, Mobile Communications, Cyber Security and Blockchains. In the course on IT infrastructure and emerging trends, we're going to look at the technical concepts behind these technologies and see a wide range of examples of how businesses are using these technologies Today. Using IT to address business problems is critical to the success of any professional in the digital age. We're excited to bring you our University of Minnesota expertise on this topic, no matter what your goals might be. If you've only signed up for one course, that's great too. We hope that this introduction to this specialization gave you an appreciation of the wide range of topics that we'll cover in these four courses, and that you would sign up for this specialization. We can't wait to see you in our courses.
