The Information Systems Course: Reflections and Applications

With the information systems, I have so much I am planning to carry out in relation to my career path. I had a lot of hopes that the course will help me plan my career path by providing me with a roadmap to follow. This is having in mind that currently, many organization promise not their employees, lifetime careers. Even though an employer could in one way or the other help me to manage a career and grow professionally by for instance providing job progression, training, and on the other hand, increasing responsibility, it is my responsibility to come up with a good plan concerning my career by coming up with a decision on the kind of goals I want and the steps needed to take the kind of job I need to achieve such goals. Since I was young, I have always admired to work for Textile Company as an information systems manager. It is the career path I have wished for. The course has been an excellent one. I feel that it has impacted me with a lot that I will apply in my future career based on the readings and the assignments from the chapters in my course textbook, conversations in discussion forums, videos and class discussions.

The course has provided me with additional information and knowledge about the information systems that will help me secure a job in the Textile Company. The eleven chapters have been educative as far as I am concerned. It was so good of the course to first, take me through an overview of the entire concept of information systems. I stood a chance to figure out what is it that I expect over the course. The overview chapter even made me sure that this was my dream path.

I have my top three lessons that I learned over the course that I feel and know I will make use of in my future career and to be specific, from chapter ten of the course book building a successful information system. The planning lesson was one of my best. I learned a lot that I should do if I want to become a successful information system manager. For instance, as a manager, I need to define a problem the information systems in my organization would likely face and underlying the problem. I now know how to internally and externally identify any kind of problem in my future organizations information systems for instance if there is lack of competition in the marketplace and when suppliers in my organization note any kind of inefficiency for example in the inventory control procedure.

The implementation lesson was my best as well. There is a moment that I will have to transfer all that I have written into the paper into action. The lesson taught me that the implementation phase will involve a lot of tasks that include, acquiring new equipment, training, planning and designing the physical layout of my system, coding, testing, coming up with security measures and safeguards, and coming up with a disaster recovery plan.

The maintenance lesson was excellent for me. It taught me how I will have to try my level best to ensure that the information systems does not stop functioning because of any defects. I have known how important enhancements and modifications are at this stage. I should always make sure that they have been tested and developed, add and replace both the hardware and software components. This is the moment when I will ensure that the maintenance team has assessed how the entire system is working and above all, taking the appropriate steps to ensure that the system keeps running. This will be my golden chance to impress my employer by ensuring that I, as the head of the information system, guide a collection of data in order to examine whether the system is meeting the organizational objectives by, for instance, talking to the users, customers and all other people the information systems serve.

I do understand what sustainable competitive advantage is to the development of any organization. The entire course provided I with relevant knowledge that will enable my employer to achieve this goal. This will be so because of a number of aspects. For instance, operational excellence will be guaranteed in my organization. In this, my organization will be in a position to improve the efficiency of its operations so as to achieve high profits. Such would be achieved by monitoring through the information system, the correct amount of stock for the consumers to always find what they want. On the other hand, it will be possible with the new knowledge on information systems, to have business models and new product services. The information systems will play a major role by for instance creating new services and products for my organization. I will be able to transform the knowledge and create new business models for my organization and this is what will describe how my company will be producing, creating, and selling new products.

The sustainable competitive advantage comes as a result of customer and supplier intimacy. This is having in mind that the better services an organization provides to its customers, they will definitely come back and even buy more. With the information systems knowledge, my organization will be in a position to have improved decision making. For instance, the information systems will make it possible, for the organization managers to use real data when they are making any kind of information. It will, therefore, become possible to come up with better decisions because there will be no time to waste when one is looking for information. The use of information system is a day to day survival for organizations. Investment in the information system by applying all the knowledge in the course will make the jobs in the entire organization easy. With all this, the organization will stand a positive competitive advantage over its rivals.

Conclusively, the course really provided me with additional skills that will make my career ready. For instance, the machines that are behind computing skills were excellent for me. Skills of the power of computers, the input, output and memory devices skills, computer languages skills, and computer operations skills, among others will mean a lot in my career field. Additionally, the information that was covered in the course was most relevant. However, it would have been better if the course exposed me and my colleagues to the challenges one is likely to face on this face. Anything that has advantages has got its disadvantages as well. The course should have exposed the bad aspect of the information systems so as to clear the notion that the career is a smooth path.