CHAPTER 7 : Storing Organizational Information

➤ RELATIONAL DATABASE FUNDAMENTALS

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 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

Entity - a person, place, thing, transaction or event about which information is stored.
Attributes (fields, columns) - characteristics or properties of an entity class.

 

➤ Keys and Relationships

Primary key - a field (or group of fields) that uniquely identities 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.



➤ Relational Database Advantages

Increased Flexibility 

• Database provide flexibility in allowing each user to access the information in whatever way best suits his or her needs.
• The distinction between logical and physical views is important in understanding flexible database user views.
• The physical views of information deals with the physical storage of information on a storage device such as a hard disk.
• The logical views of information focuses on how users logically access information to meet their particular business.

 Increased Scalability and Performance

- A database must scale to meet increased demand,while maintaining acceptable performance levels.
- Scalability refers to how well a system can adapt to increased demand.
- Performance measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transaction.

Reduced Information Redundancy

-Redundancy is the duplication of information, or storing the same information in multiple places.
-Redundant information occurs because organizations frequently capture and store the same information in multiple locations.
-The primary problem with redundant information is that it is often inconsistent which make it difficult to determine which values are the most current or most accurate.

Increased Information Integrity (Quality)

- Information integrity is a measures the quality of information
- Within a database environment, integrity constraints are rules that help ensure the quality of information. It can be defined and built into the database design.
Two types of integrity constraints are :
❅Relational integrity constraints- rules that enforce basic and fundamental information based constraints.
 ❅Business-critical integrity constraints- enforce business rules vital to an organization's success and often require more insight and knowledge than relational integrity constraints.

Increased Information Security

- Information is an organizational asset.
- Database offer many security features such as
        * Passwords - provide authentication of the user
        * Access levels - determines who has access to the different types of information
        * Access control - determines types of user access such as customer service representitatives might read-only access

➤DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

☀ A database management systems (DBMS) is software through which users and application programs interact with a database.

                           

➤ DATA-DRIVEN WEB SITES

☀ A data-driven website is an interactive website keep constantly updated and relevant to the needs of its costumer through the use of a database.

Data-Driven Website Advantages :

• Development : Allows the website owner to make changes any time
• Content management : A static website requires a programmer to make updates.
• Future expandability : Having a data-driven website enables the site to grow faster than would be possible with a static site.
• Minimizing human error : A well- designed, data-driven Web site will have "error typing" mechanisms to ensure that required information is filled out correctly.
• Cutting production and update costs : A data-driven Web site can be updated and "published" by any competent data entry or administrative person.
• More efficient : The system keeps track of the templates.
• Improved stability : There is peace of mind, knowing the content is never lost-even if your programmer is.

Integrating Information Among Multiple Database

- An integration allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other.
- A forward integration takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream processes. This type of integration always use by the organization.
- A backward integration - takes information entered into a given systems and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes.

                          


                          

CHAPTER 9 : Enabling the Organization-Decision Making

➤ Decision Making 

☀ Reasons for Growth of Decision Making Information Systems

• People need to analyze large amounts of information – Improvements in technology itself, innovations in communication, and globalization have resulted in a dramatic increase in the alternatives and dimensions people need to consider when making a decision or appraising an opportunity.
• People must make decisions quickly – Time is of the essence and people simply do not have time to sift through all the information manually
• People must apply sophisticated analysis techniques, such as modeling and forecasting, to  make good decisions – Information systems substantially reduce the time required to perform these sophisticated analysis techniques
• People must protect the corporate asset of organizational information – Information systems offer the security required to ensure organizational information remains safe

☀ Model – A simplified representation or abstraction of reality.

☀ IT systems in an enterprise.


                             

➤Transaction Processing Syste

☀ Moving up through the organizational pyramid users move from requiring transactional information to analytical information.
                         

• Transaction processing system – the basic business system that serves the operational level (analysis) in an organization.

• Online transaction processing (OLTP) – the capturing of transaction and event information using technology to (1) process the information according to defined business rules, (2) store the information, (3) update existing information to reflect the new information.

• Online analytical processing (OLAP) – the manipulation of information to create business intelligence in support of strategic decision making.

➤ Decision support systems (DSS)

☀ Models information to support managers and business professionals during the decision-making         process.

Three quantitative models used by DSS include;

• Sensitivity analysis – the study of the impact that changes in one (or more) parts of the model have on other parts of the model.

• What-if analysis – checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution.

• Goal-seeking analysis – finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output.

➤ Executive Information System 

☀ A specialized DSS that supports senior level executives within the organization.

Most EISs offering the following capabilities;

• Consolidation – involves the aggregation of information and features simple roll-ups to complex groupings of interrelated information.

• Drill-down – enables users to get details, and details of information.

• Slice-and-dice – looks at information from different perspectives.

Digital dashboard – integrates information from multiple components and presents it in a united display.

                         

➤ Data Mining

Data-mining software includes many forms of AI such as neural networks and expert systems.

Common forms of data-mining analysis capabilities include :

• Cluster analysis-a technique used to divide an information set into mutually exclusive groups such that the members of each group are as close together as possible to one another and the different groupss are as far apart as possible.

-CRM systems depend on cluster analysis to segment customer information and identify behavioral traits.

• Association detection-reveals the degree which variables are related and the nature and the frequency of these relationships in the information.

-Market basket analysis - analyzes such item as Websites and checkout scanner information to detect customers' buying behavior and predict future behavior by identifying affinities among customers' choices of product and services.

• Statistical analysis-performs such as function as information corelations, distributions , calculations , and variance analysis.

-Forecast-predictions made on the basis of time-series information
-Time series information- time-stamped information colllected at a particular frequency

➤ Artificial intelligence (AI)

☀ The ultimate goal of AI is the ability to build a system that can mimic human intelligence.

 Intelligent system – various commercial applications of artificial intelligence
 Artificial intelligence (AI) – simulates human intelligence such as the ability to reason and learn.

Four most common categories of AI include;

• Expert system – computerized advisory programs that imitate the reasoning processes of experts in solving difficult problems
• Neural network – attempts to emulate the way the human brain works

- Fuzzy logic – a mathematical method of handling imprecise or subjective information

• Genetic algorithm – an artificial intelligent system that mimics the evolutionary, survival-of-the-fittest process to generate increasingly better solutions to a problem 
• Intelligent agent – special-purposed knowledge-based information system that accomplishes specific tasks on behalf of its users

-Multi-agent systems
-Agent-based modelling

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 granularity 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 granularity of organizational information.

                               

➤ THE VALUE OF TRANSACTIONAL AND ANALYTICAL 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
• You never want to find yourself using technology to help you make a bad decision faster
• Characteristics of high-quality information include :

Low quality information example :

                             

➤ UNDERSTANDING THE COSTS OF POOR INFORMATION

⏩The four primary sources of low quality information include :

• Online customers intentionally enter inaccurate information to protect their privacy 
• Information from different systems have different entry standards and formats 
• Call center operators enter abbreviated or erroneous information by accident or to save time 
• 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 identify selling opportunities 
• Marketing to nonexistent customers 
• Difficulty tracking revenue due to inaccurate invoices 
• Inability to build strong customer relationships

➤UNDERSTANDING THE BENEFITS OF GOOD INFORMATION

⏩High quality information can significantly improve the chances of making a good decision

⏩Good decisions can directly impact an organization’s bottom line