University at Buffalo School of Management

MGS 611 MANAGEMENT OF GLOBALLY-DISTRIBUTED SERVICES (3) This course provides an overview of the growing phenomenon of IT-enabled globally-distributed services (GDS), what has come to be commonly known as IT and business process outsourcing. The course will cover the various phases of the GDS life cycle and discuss how companies can use the GDS paradigm to innovate their various services and processes. Topics to be covered include GDS strategy planning, process distribution analysis, global collaboration and virtual teamwork, knowledge and risk management in GDS, vendor capabilities evaluation, management of contracts and service level agreements, and governance and relationship management with GDS partners. It is also planned to have some virtual collaboration and team work with students in other foreign universities to give a hands-on feel to our students about the issues and dynamics of global collaboration. NORMALLY OFFERED IN FALL MGS 613 DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (3) This course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of database management systems (DBMS) and the skills needed to design and implement a relational database. Students will be introduced to data modeling concepts, modeling tools, the process of transforming conceptual models into relational database designs, and finally the steps needed to implement those designs. Emphasis is placed on Entity-Relationship diagramming, data normalization, database administration, and data definition, data manipulation and query development using Structured Query Language (SQL). Other topics covered include: object-oriented databases, database security and integrity, web/database integration, application development in a Client/Server environment, distributed databases, data warehousing, data mining and knowledge management via the Internet to support electronic commerce. Readings, lectures, interactive case assignments and a database design project reinforce the role of DBMS in supporting organizational systems, transaction processing and decision support applications. Prerequisite: MGS 602 or concurrent, or permission of instructor. NORMALLY OFFERED IN FALL MGS 614 SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN (3) This course provides an introduction to the systems development life cycle (SDLC) emphasizing the recent adaptive approaches to SDLC, such as the unified process life cycle and agile methods. The course focuses on the disciplines of business modeling, requirements analysis, and logical design and utilizes the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for analysis, modeling, and design of business-oriented information systems. Information assurance issues of system controls and security are covered with respect to their impact on system requirements and design models. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of instructor NORMALLY OFFERED IN SPRING. MGS 616 DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS (3) This course teaches the tools, techniques and methodologies which are mainly used nowadays by customer-centric corporations to help make decisions involving complex systems. The course concentrates on a variety of data cleansing, data integration from both internal and external sources, data warehousing and online analytical processing concepts in conjunction with a set of well known data analysis methods to support non-trivial decision making processes within any firm. Topics such as association rule mining, decision trees, neural networks, regression analysis and cluster analysis are covered in great depth. Prerequisite: MGS 602. NORMALLY OFFERED IN SPRING. MGS 620 MANAGEMENT OF IT-ENABLED GLOBALLY-DISTRIBUTED WORK (3) This course provides a comprehensive overview of the growing phenomenon of IT-enabled globallydistributed services (GDS) from the perspective of a firm that is planning to or is currently engaged in distributing its various services processes globally using IT platforms and systems in various functional areas. It examines various issues related to the GDS phenomenon focusing on those GDS ventures that involve IT and IT-enabled services. The course examines the various drivers and inhibitors of the GDS phenomenon, the current business models of GDS, and the technologies, processes, and structures that 55

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