What’s Your Number? 1. Compute the cost per MIS session for you. Compare that calculation with those of others in your group. Ensure that you didn’t forget any major costs. Students’ cost calculations will vary. If the cost calculations vary a lot among the team members, be sure to try to determine the cause of the differences. This should help the team members discover differing assumptions or find things that may have been omitted. 2. We (the authors of this text) claim MIS is the most important class in the business school. But, we’re selling MIS books. Do you agree? How do we justify that statement? Do you agree with us? What other courses might be more important. Why? Take a stand! Student answers will vary. Some students will say that every professor and every textbook author believes his/her subject matter is the most important and it is a totally self-serving position. Others may believe that no course is important unless it is directly linked to their major – accounting majors only consider accounting courses to be important, for example. The fact that this chapter talks expressly about marketable skills may open some student’s minds to consider this course to be very important and they may not have considered it to be so in the past. You should be able to get some lively discussion going on this question, especially if you challenge your students to defend their position and then scrutinize their underlying assumptions. 3. Suppose you manage the credit department for a parts distributor. As a business professional, do you need to concern yourself with the integration of information systems technology into your business? Justify your answer. A credit department manager may not think very broadly about the overall parts distribution business, and therefore may not have much concern about integrating information technology into the business. As long as credit decisions can be made and payments are received, the department manager may be happy. This narrow point of view is not advisable, however, because opportunities for using IT in the business can come from any perspective. 4. Suppose zulily Corporation (see Case Study 1, page 22-25) hired you in 2010. In 3 years, revenue grew from $18 million to $695 million. As a business professional, do you need to concern yourself with the integration of information systems technology in your business? Does your answer to this question differ from your answer to question 3? Should it? In answering question 3, the students may take the perspective of the credit