Assignment: Management Associated Risks
Assignment: Management Associated Risks

Failing to deliver what users want: Systems that do not meet the needs of the firm’s target market are likely to fail. For example, in 2011, Netflix leadership divided the company into two, calling the DVD‐rental business Qwikster and keeping the streaming business under Netflix. But customers complained, and worse, closed their accounts, and less than a month later, Qwikster was gone. Netflix reunited both businesses under the Netflix name.16

• Running afoul of the law: Using IS strategically may promote litigation if the IS results in the violation of laws or regulations. Years ago, American Airlines’ reservation system, Sabre, was challenged by the airline’s competitors on the grounds that it violated antitrust laws. More recently, in 2010, Google said it was no longer willing to adhere to Chinese censorship. The Chinese government responded by banning searching via all Google search sites (not only google.cn but all language versions, e.g., google.co.jp. google.com.au), including Google Mobile. Google then created an automatic redirect to Google Hong Kong, which stopped June 30, 2010, so that Google would not lose its license to operate in China. Today, Google, Inc. is acting in compliance with the Chinese government’s censorship laws and Chinese users of Google.cn see filtered results as before. More recently, European antitrust officials claimed that Google’s search engine unfairly generates results that favor its shopping sites over those of its competitors and that its Android mobile phone operating system unfairly features Google as the default search engine.17

15 Marty Toohey, “More Than 100,000 Austin Energy Customers Hit by Billing Errors from $55 Million IBM System,” Statesman (February 18, 2012), http://www.statesman.com/news/local/more‐than‐100‐000‐austin‐energy‐customers‐hit‐2185031.html (accessed February 20, 2012). 16 Qwikster = Gonester (October 10, 2011), http://www.breakingcopy.com/netflix‐kills‐qwikster (accessed February 20, 2012). 17 “Viewed as a Monopoly in Europe, Google Takes on Role as a Wireless Trust‐Buster in U.S.,” The New York Times (May 8, 2015), B1, B6.

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http://www.statesman.com/news/local/more%E2%80%90than%E2%80%90100%E2%80%90000%E2%80%90austin%E2%80%90energy%E2%80%90customers%E2%80%90hit%E2%80%902185031.html
http://www.breakingcopy.com/netflix%E2%80%90kills%E2%80%90qwikster
50 Strategic Use of Information Resources

Every business decision has risks associated with it. However, with the large expenditure of IT resources needed to create sustainable, strategic advantages, the manager should carefully identify and then design a mitigation strat- egy to manage the associated risks.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.