4 Responses Sep 03

Work #1 Responses:

Actual work where 2 students given their post on this:

Consider, in 500 words or more, how business processes as services can improve efficiency. This discussion is about business process as a service and security. 

Use at least three sources. Use the

Research Databases available from the Danforth Library

not Google.   Include at least 3 quotes from your sources enclosed in quotation marks and cited in-line by reference to your reference list.  Example: “words you copied” (citation) These quotes should be one full sentence not altered or paraphrased. Cite your sources using APA format. Use the quotes in your paragaphs.  Stand alone quotes will not count toward the 3 required quotes.

Copying without attribution or the use of spinbot or other word substitution software will result in a grade of 0. 

Write in essay format not in bulleted, numbered or other list format. 

Reply to two classmates’ posting in a paragraph of at least five sentences by asking questions, reflecting on your own experience, challenging assumptions, pointing out something new you learned, offering suggestions. These peer responses are not ‘attaboys’.   You should make your initial post by Thursday evening so your classmates have an opportunity to respond before Sunday.at midnight when all three posts are due. 

It is important that you use your own words, that you cite your sources, that you comply with the instructions regarding length of your post and that you reply to two classmates in a substantive way (not ‘nice post’ or the like).  Your goal is to help your colleagues write better. Do not use spinbot or other word replacement software. It usually results in nonsense and is not a good way to learn anything. I will not spend a lot of my time trying to decipher nonsense. Proof read your work or have it edited. Find something interesting and/or relevant to your work to write about.  

Work #2 Responses:

Actual work where 2 students given their post on this:

(1) Define the time value of money.  Do you believe that the average person considers the time value of money when they make investment decisions?  Please explain.  

(2) Distinguish between ordinary annuities and annuities due.  Also, distinguish between the future value of an annuity and the present value of an annuity.

Please find the two attachments.

Dushyanth Work:

Week 2 Discussion Business Process Efficiency

 

           Bailey (2017) claims that, “Business processes are the core for executing successful business strategies.” Therefore, if the process are efficient the firms are guaranteed of increased sustainability. The efficiency relies on the technology, supporting structures, and the right employees in the organization. Moreover, firms have to ensure that, “the right process in place is the best way organizations can deliver value to their clients and continue to remain competitive.” (Bailey, 2017). The inferences show that firms have to define the strategies required in the development of  high-performing business processes.

            The study argues that firms require effective business process management (BPM) efforts. The BPM strategies are required in the examination and evaluation of existing processes in an organization (Bailey, 2017). They assist in improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the firm’s operations. The management has to guide in identification and improvement of the current processes. The strategies can either be  formal or informal (Bailey, 2017). Nevertheless, they have to ensure that the firm offers quality services and is secure.

            The management has to understand the implication of formal and informal process. “Formal processes have well-established steps, like creating and receiving invoices” (Bailey, 2017). They ensure that firms align their operation with legal and financial requirements. On the other hand, “Informal processes are typically those you have created yourself and may not be documented.” ” (Bailey, 2017). They assist firms in identifying new prospective customers.

            The study noted that BPM operations raise the firm’s productivity. They have to be implemented lest the firms become ineffective and dysfunctional. The reason being, “Many processes can become inefficient due to inadequate monitoring of progress or manual effort. Improving processes will increase efficiency and remove activities that waste time and resources.” ” (Bailey, 2017).  The trend might de-motivate employees and lower the firm’s reputation. Therefore, the firms have to ensure the “processes become more efficient, they also become more effective.” The approach raises the firm’s ability of making highly informed decisions.

            Ronan (2018) affirms the need for firms to reduce operational costs. However, the article stresses the need for efficiency in improve the firm’s financial position. Processes efficiency lowers the cost of quality in the enterprise. The reason being, “When processes are efficient they take less time to execute, can have fewer steps, and can make wasteful activities more obvious and therefore easier to eliminate.” (Ronan, 2018). The processes are more likely to convert customer quotes into code of conduct.

            Traditional process management processes tend to attract lots of salespeople. Therefore, most of costs goes to payment of salespeople (Ronan, 2018). However, there is need for formulating the process in disciplined strategies. The approach guarantee reduced mistakes on production and delivery. It also improves quality of data collected (Ronan, 2018). The study also argues that the efficiency improve the speed of commodity delivery and tracking purchases.

            Mxotech (2018) argued that firms should invest more on technology projects. The primary goals should be reduction of process completion time. Moreover, there is need for identification of wasted efforts. Firms should also assist in improving work output quality. The study notes that “Business process improvement (BPI) involves automating processes and restructuring operational resources to contain costs” Mxotech (2018). BPI guides in exposing the firm’s organizational inefficiencies and assist in solving the challenges.

 
 

References

Bailey, J. (2017). How o Gain Momentum Plus Increase the Efficiency Of Your Business Process Management (BPM) Efforts. AR Media, np

Mxotech Inc. (2018, April 23). 7 benefits of business process improvement. Retrieved from 

https://www.mxotech.com/2018/04/7-benefits-business-process-improvement/

Ronan, S. (2018, April 1). 5 ways to improve your business processes. Biz Journals, np.

Charanjeet Work:

Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) is any type of horizontal or vertical business process that’s delivered based on the cloud services model. Using BpaaS can increase the threat surface. With applications hosted in the cloud, there is always a possibility of attacks. Since applications hosted in the cloud are accessed by anyone from anywhere. Corporate companies or organizations should always monitor sensitive data for any suspicious activity.

To say that cloud adoption is accelerating is an understatement. You can almost sense the “uplift” of applications and data into the cloud evidenced across the massive growth in the volume of accounts, files, collaboration, and connected third-party cloud applications. Enterprises have begun to standardize on SaaS applications. Meanwhile, users are speeding by, taking advantage of self-provisioning capabilities enabled by the BYOD and cloud phenomena. “In 2015, it was reported that external collaboration via public cloud applications increased four times, and there were ten times as many files are being stored in public cloud applications” (Bhandarkar & Dewey, 2017).

As data, apps, and users shift to the cloud, we must ask ourselves what is the impact of our threat surfaces and what new attack opportunities will emerge. While most security professionals are aware of how traditional data breaches happen, few have dissected the who, what, when, where, and how a breach takes place in the cloud. “The traditional “kill chain” used by outside bad actors or the vehicle used by insider bad actors changes significantly” (Barcan, 2018). This presents a challenge to security teams as they must adjust their approach to identifying and evaluating breaches in this new environment.

This means that you can focus on how to enable and configure cloud applications and services as opposed to spending time patching systems. You can focus on user education and enablement and not blocking, which tends to lead to shadow IT. Also, consolidating users and data in several major cloud applications can lead to an overall reduction of your threat surface in comparison to the distributed and heterogeneous IT environment on-premises. You do, however, need to model these threats, assess their impact on your company, and prioritize which ones to deal with.

A universal security policy is an oversimplification at best, especially considering the hybrid nature of the modern enterprise’s IT infrastructure and application ecosystem. The layering of threat detection, prevention, and response mechanisms and practices is the way forward for IT-heavy enterprises.

The good news is that you can use the cloud itself to help. You can use the ultra-elastic and scalable cloud and the availability of APIs to connect cloud apps and platforms to build an intelligent, adaptive cloud security system that runs in the cloud and protects the cloud. 

“BPaaS is a new paradigm shift in the industry that not only affects IT executives but also line-of-business executives” (Wang, Wang, Su & Ge, 2020). BPaas is also a chance to transform your business processes and create an enterprise architecture that is agile and is flexible to rapidly changing business environments and opportunities arising out of globalization.

 
References

Bhandarkar, M. P., & Dewey, M. K. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,645,712. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Barcan, L. (2018). Business process management, an important aid in optimizing organizational processes in national security institutions. Journal of Defense Resources Management (JoDRM), 9(1), 92-97.

Wang, Z., Wang, N., Su, X., & Ge, S. (2020). An empirical study on business analytics affordances enhancing the management of cloud computing data security. International Journal of Information Management, 50, 387-394.

Charanjeet Work:

Time Value of Money

The time value of money is the idea that money received in the present is more valuable than the same sum in the future because of its potential to be invested and earn interest. This potential opportunity to earn money over time on the amount is the opportunity cost of waiting for the money. In addition to the opportunity cost of waiting for the money, inflation gradually erodes the purchasing power of the sum of the money over time. In general, people pay attention to compounding or the future value of an investment or expense made in the present. They generally do not consider the present value of a return to be received in the future or an expense to be paid in the future (this is called discounting) (Abor, 2017).

Annuities

Annuity is a series of payments received on regular intervals – monthly, quarterly or yearly. The payments could be fixed payments or variable payments based on the type of contract between the source (e.g. an insurance company) and the beneficiary. There are 2 types of annuity –

Ordinary Annuity

 

– In ordinary annuity, payments are made at the end of a covered term. Payments are usually made monthly, quarterly, or annually. A home mortgage, for instance, is a common type of ordinary annuity. When a homeowner makes a mortgage payment, it typically covers the month-long period leading up to the payment date. Two other common examples of ordinary annuities are interest payments from bonds and stock dividends. When a bond issuer makes interest payments, which generally happens twice a year, the interest is paid and received at the end of the period in question. Similarly, when a company pays dividends, which typically happens quarterly, it is paying at the end of the period during which it retained enough excess earnings to share its proceeds with its shareholders. Ordinary annuities are also seen in retirement accounts, where you receive a fixed or variable payment every month from an insurance company, based on the value built up in the annuity account. In a fixed annuity account, your monthly payment is based on a fixed interest rate applied to the account balance at the start of payments. Variable annuity account payments are based on the investment performance of your account (Flórez, Vera, Salazar-Torres, Huérfano, Gelvez-Almeida, Valbuena & Aranguen, 2019, November).

Annuity Due – With an annuity due, payments are made immediately, or at the beginning of a covered term rather than at the end. A rent or lease agreement, for instance, is a common example of an annuity due. When a rental or lease payment is made, it typically covers the month-long period following the payment date. Insurance premiums are another example of an annuity due, as payments are made at the beginning of a period for coverage lasting through the end of that period.

A fixed annuity’s present value is how much the future cash flows are worth in today’s time. It’s figured by reducing the value of each payment based on a discount factor and the time until the payment occurs. The discount rate is based on the opportunity cost measured from an alternate investment.

The future value of an annuity is the value of a group of recurring payments at a certain date in the future. So, Annuity due has a better present value than the ordinary annuity as payments are made at the start of the period in annuity due.

 

References

Abor, J. Y. (2017). Time Value of Money. In Entrepreneurial Finance for MSMEs (pp. 259-291). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Flórez, M., Vera, M., Salazar-Torres, J., Huérfano, Y., Gelvez-Almeida, E., Valbuena, O., … & Aranguen, M. (2019, November). Interest rates calculation in certain ordinary annuities. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1414, No. 1, p. 012009). IOP Publishing.

Chandini Work:

Time Value of Money Matters to Investors

The time value of money (TVM) is an important concept to investors because a dollar on hand today is worth more than a dollar promised in the future. The dollar on hand today can be used to invest and earn interest or capital gains. A dollar promised in the future is actually worth less than a dollar today because of inflation. Provided money can earn interest, this core principle of finance holds that any amount of money is worth more the sooner it is received (Chen, 2020). At the most basic level, the time value of money demonstrates that all things being equal, it is better to have money now rather than later.

Present the value determines what a cash flow to be received in the future is worth in today’s dollars. It discounts the future cash flow back to the present date, using the average rate of return and the number of periods. No matter what the present value is if you invest that present value amount at the specified rate of return and number of periods, the investment would grow into the future cash flow amount.

Present value = (future cash flow) / (1+ rate of return)^number of periods

Future the value determines what a cash flow received today is worth in the future, based on interest rates or capital gains (Chen, 2020). It calculates what a current cash flow would be worth in the future if it was invested at a specified rate of return and number of periods.

Future value = present value x {1 + (rate of return x number of periods)}

Both present value and future value take into account compounding interest or capital gains, which is another important aspect for investors to consider when looking for good investments. Time is literally money. The value of the money you have now is not the same as it will be in the future. Knowing how to determine TVM by calculating present and future value can help you distinguish between the worth of investments that offer returns at different times.

 

Ordinary annuities & annuities due

Ordinary annuities are seen in retirement accounts, where you receive a fixed or variable payment every month from an insurance company, based on the value built up in the annuity account. In a fixed annuity account, your monthly payment is based on a fixed interest rate applied to the account balance at the start of payments. Variable annuity account payments are based on the investment performance of your account. Retirement annuities send you payments at the end of each period. That’s standard when you are the recipient of annuity payments rather than the payer.

An annuity is a series of payments at a regular interval, such as weekly, monthly or yearly. Fixed annuities pay the same amount in each period, whereas the amounts can change in variable annuities (Rama- Poccia, 2018). The payments in an ordinary annuity occur at the end of each period. In contrast, an annuity due features payment occurring at the beginning of each period. The difference between an ordinary annuity and annuity due lies in when the payments occur – at the period’s end for an ordinary annuity and at the period’s beginning for an annuity due.

The a classic example of an annuity due is rent. When you sign a lease for an apartment, you commit to paying rent on the first of each month (Rama- Poccia, 2018). This qualifies as an annuity due because the payments occur at a regular interval (monthly) and at the beginning of each period. Insurance premium payments are another common example of an annuity due. Notice how annuity due is usually found in situations where you are paying out money. An annuity account is meant to pay you money each month for either a fixed number of years or until you die, according to your contract with the insurance company. The largest insurance carriers are likely to make all payments on time, but annuities from smaller carriers carry some risk that the insurer will default on its payments. All financial annuities carry the risk of underperforming relative to the broader stock market, especially compared to the returns available from low-cost index funds. A financial adviser can review the pros and cons of retirement annuities with you before you commit to one.

 

Reference:

Chen, J. (2020). Time Value of Money. Retrieved 21 April 2020 from 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/timevalueofmoney.asp

 

Rama- Poccia, M. (2018, December 5). What Is the Time Value of Money and Why Does It Matter? The Street, np