Description of careers for which concentration prepares students:
This concentration prepares students for careers in technology and IT-intensive business contexts. This includes a career in product management, IT management or management consulting. A growing number of industries, from entertainment to financial services are increasingly technology based, and require an understanding of software, business analytics and technology skills. This is also necessary in virtually all software, online service or technology companies.
This specialization will provide students with an introduction of software and analytics skills, but crucially, it will demonstrate how these tie into business processes to help students to understand how to create value for their organizations when such skills. What distinguishes this specialization from business analytics is the additional focus on how these technologies are used within organizational processes.
Graduates can pursue opportunities in consulting, software or online service providers as well as product management roles in technology companies.
Description of the academic content and requirements for concentration:
The study of information systems is about understanding how to manage the relationship between information technology (IT) capabilities and the functioning of a business. This field of study originated at a time when IT supported business processes, but increasingly most organizational processes are based on IT and provide some form of digital products and services or use digital processes to facilitate their business. As a result, Information Systems provides an understanding of how to intelligently harness the strategic business value of information, data, and communication technologies. It includes how to organizationally implement and deploy different types of information systems within and across enterprises considering both consumer-facing and business-to-business companies.
The courses aim to help students build skills in information systems management, business process improvement, systems analysis and design, database design, data warehousing and business intelligence systems, understanding technology and platform business models, understanding data and AI based business models, and understanding the integration and use of data within platform companies. Many of these involve or are supported by data skills such as Python or SQL.
Required for the Concentration (all of the following):
DSO-510: Business Analytics (1.5 or 3 units)
DSO-528: Blended Data Business Analytics for Efficient Decisions (3)
DSO-531: Digital Foundations for Business Innovation (1.5)
DSO-551: Digital Transformation in the Global Enterprise (3)
DSO-556: Business Models for Digital Platforms (3)