Storing Organizational Information - Databases....

Nursuhada Bt Abd Ghafar 4C BM111.

                                         Relational Database Fundamentals

Information is everywhere in an organization

Information is stored in databases  

Database – maintains information about various types of objects (inventory), events (transactions), people (employees), and places (warehouses 

Database models include: 

§Hierarchical database model – information is organized into a tree-like structure (using parent/child relationships) in such a way that it cannot have too many relationships 

§Network database model – a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships 

§Relational database model – stores information in the form of logically related two-dimensional tables
                                         Entities and Attributes.

v Entity – a person, place, thing, transaction, or event about which information is stored

§The rows in each table contain the entities

§In Figure 7.1 CUSTOMER includes Dave’s Sub Shop and Pizza Palace entities

§

v Attributes (fields, columns) – characteristics or properties of an entity class

§The columns in each table contain the attributes

§In Figure 7.1 attributes for CUSTOMER include Customer ID, Customer Name, Contact Name

                                       Keys and Relationships

v Primary keys and foreign keys identify the various entity classes (tables) in the database

v

§Primary key – a field (or group of fields) that uniquely identifies a given entity in a table

§Foreign key – a primary key of one table that appears an attribute in another table and acts to provide a logical relationship among the two tables

v Potential relational database for Coca-Cola.

                   Relational Database Advantages

v Database advantages from a business perspective include

§Increased flexibility

§Increased scalability  and performance

§Reduced information redundancy

§Increased information integrity (quality)

§Increased information security

                                     Increased Flexibility

v A well-designed database should:

§Handle changes quickly and easily

§Provide users with different views

§Have only one physical view

•Physical view – deals with the physical storage of information on a storage device

§Have multiple logical views

•Logical view – focuses on how users logically access information 

                               Increased Scalability and Performance.

v A database must scale to meet increased demand,  while maintaining acceptable performance levels

§Scalability – refers to how well a system can adapt to increased demands

§Performance – measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transaction
                    Reduced Information Redundancy

v Databases reduce information redundancy

§Redundancy – the duplication of information or storing the same information in multiple places

v Inconsistency is one of the primary problems with redundant information

                            Increase Information Integrity (Quality )

v Information integrity – measures the quality of information

v Integrity constraint – rules that help ensure the quality of information

§Relational integrity constraint

§Business-critical integrity constraint

                Increased Information Security

v Information is an organizational asset and must be protected

v Databases offer several security features including:

§Password – provides authentication of the user

§Access level – determines who has access to the different types of information

§Access control – determines types of user access, such as read-only access

                 Database Management Systems

v Database management systems (DBMS) – software through which users and application programs interact with a database

                                DATA-DRIVEN WEB SITES.
v Data-driven Web sites – an interactive Web site kept constantly updated and relevant to the needs of its customers through the use of a database

                          Data-Driven Web Site Business Advantages.

v Development

v Content Management

v Future Expandability

v Minimizing Human Error

v Cutting Production and Update Costs

v More Efficient

v Improved Stability

                                  Data-Driven Business Intelligence.

v BI in a data-driven Web site.

          Integrating Information among Multiple Databases

v Integration – allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other

§Forward integration – takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream systems and processes

§Backward integration – takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes

v Forward integration.

v Backward integration.

v Building a central repository specifically for integrated information.

chapter 6 : Valuing Organizational Information.

Nursuhada Bt Abd Ghafar 4C BM111.

Chapter 6: Valuing Organizational Information.

Organizational Information.
* Information is everywhere in an organization
* Employees must be able to obtain and analyze the many different levels, formats, and granularities of organizational information to make decisions.
* Successfully collecting, compiling, sorting, and analyzing information can provide tremendous insight into how an organization is performing.
* Levels, formats, and granularities of organizational information.



 The Value of Transactional and Analytical Information.
* Transactional information verses nalytical information.



The Value of Timely Information.
- Timeliness is an aspect of information that depends on the situation.
-> Real- time information- immediate, up-to- date information.
-> Real-time system- provides real-time information in response to query requests.

The Value of Quality Information.
- Business decisions are only as good as the quality of the information used to make the decisions.
- Your never want to find yourself using technology to help you make to a bad decision faster.
- The characteristics of high-quality information include: Accuracy, Completeness, Consistency, Uniqueness,   Timeliness.



Understanding the costs of poor information.
* The Four primary sources of low quality information include:
1. Online customers intentionally enter inaccurate information to protect their privacy.
2. Information from different systems have different entry standards and formats.
3. Call center operators enter abbreviated or erroneous information by accident or to save time.
4. Third party and external information contains inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and errors.

* Potential business effects resulting from low quality information include:
> Inability to accurately track customers
> Difficulty identifying valuable customers
> Inability to identifying selling opportunities
> Marketing to nonexistent customers
> Difficultly tracking revenue due to inaccurate invoices
> Inability to build strong customers relationships

* High Quality information can significantly improve the chances of making a good decision
* Good decisions can directly impact an organization's bottom line.

chapter 5: organizational structures that support strategic initiatives.

chapter 5 : Organizational Structures that Support Strategic Initiatives.

Organizational Structures.
- Employees must work closely together to develop strategic initiatives that create competitive advantages.
- Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses upon.
- Information technology is a relatively new functional area, having only been around formally for around 40 years.

-Recent IT- related strategic positions:
= Chief information officer (CIO) - oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives.
= Broad CIO functions include:
1. Manager- ensuring delivery of all IT projects, on time and within budget.
2. Leader- ensuring the strategic vision of IT is in line with the strategic vision of the organization.
3. Communicator- building and maintaining strong executive relationships.
= Chief technology officer (CTO) - responsible for ensuring the throughput speed, accuracy, availability, and reliability of IT.
= Chief security officer (CSO) - responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems.
= Chief privacy officer (CPO) - responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information.
=Chief knowledge office (CKO) - responsible for collecting, maintaining, and distributing the organization's knowledge.

The gap between Business Personnel and IT Personnel.
* Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing, accounting, and sales.
* IT personnel have the technological expertise.
* This typically causes a communications gap between the business personnel and IT personnel.

Improving Communications.
> Business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT.
> IT personnel must seek to increase their understanding of the business.
> It is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel.

Organizational Fundamentals- Ethics and security.
* Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses on to be successful.
* In recent years, such events as the Enron and Martha stewart, along with 9/11 have shed new light on the meaning of ethics and security.

Ethics 
- The principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people.
- Privacy is a major ethical issue-> privacy: the right to be left alone when you want to be, to have control over your own personnel possessions, and not to be observed without your consent.
-Issues affected by technology advances : Intellectual property, Copyrigth, Fair use doctrine, Pirated software, counterfeit software.
- One of the main ingredients in trust is privacy
- Primary reason privacy issues lost trust for e-business.

Security
-Organizational information is intellectual capital - it must be protected
-Information security- the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by persons inside or outside an organization.
- E-business automatically creates tremendous information security risks for organizations.

chapter 4: Measuring The Success of Strategic Initiatives.

Chapter 4: Measuring The Success of Strategic Initiatives.

What is it that managers need to know about measuring the success of information technology?...
=  Need to understand about IT success is that it is incredibly difficult to measure. Determining the return on investment (ROI) of new computer equipment is difficult.

A few questions banking executives recently raised regarding their IT systems include:
-Is the internal IT operation performing satisfactorily?
-Should the company outsources some or all of the IT operation?
-How is the outsourcing company performing?.
-What are the risk factors to consider in an IT project?
-What questions should be asked to ensure an IT project proposal is realistic?
-What are the characteristics of a healthy project?.
-Which factors are most critical to measure to ensure the project achieves success?

Key performance indicators (KPIs).
-the measure that are tied to business drivers.
Metrics.
-the detailed measures that feed those KPIs.
-Cisco systems implemented a cross-departmental council to create metrics of improving business process operations.


Efficiency and Effectiveness.
= Efficiency IT metrics- measures the performance of the IT system itself including throughput, speed, and availability.
= Effectiveness IT metrics- measure the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and sell-through increases.

Bench marking- Base lining metrics.
* Regardless of what is measured, how it is measured and whether it is for the sake of efficiency or effectiveness, there must be BENCHMARKS- Baseline values the system seeks to attain.
* Bench marking- a process of continuously measuring system results, comparing those results to optimal system performance (benchmark values) , and identifying steps and procedures to improve system performance.

The interrelationship of efficiency and effectiveness IT metrics.
= Efficiency IT metrics focus on technology and include:
1. throughput.
2. transaction speed.
3.system availability.
4. information accuracy
5.web traffic
6. response time.

=Effectiveness IT metrics focus on an organization's goals, strategies, and objectives and include:
1. Usability
2. customer satisfaction.
3. conversion rates.
4. Financial.

=Security is an issue for any organization offering products or services over the internet.
=It is inefficient for an organization to implement internet security, since it slow down processing
  - however to be effective it must implement internet security
  - secure internet connections must offer encryption and secure sockets layers.

Metrics for strategic initiatives.
metrics for measuring and managing strategic initiatives include:
>web site metrics include: Abandoned registrations, Abandoned shopping cards, Click-through, conversion rate, cost-per-thousand, page exposures, total hits, unique visitors.
>supply chain management metrics include: Back order, Customer order promised cycle time, Customer order actual cycle time, Inventory replenishment cycle time, Inventory turns( inventory turnover).
>customer relationship management metrics measure user satisfaction and interaction and include: Sales metrics, Service metrics, Marketing metrics.
>BPR and ERP metrics: the balanced scorecard enables organizations to measure and manage strategic initiatives.