IS 340
Management
Information Systems
I.
Case Study Managing in the Digital World: Providing Business Intelligence to eBay
Customers students should read through this case. It provides a good synopsis of many of the
ways eBay uses its information for customers benefit.
Note: The main thought of this chapter is:
Providing effective business
intelligence means delivering the right information to the right decision-maker
at the right time. In order to provide
good business intelligence (in order for it to be useful) you must have good
data/information, and it must be available when and where it is needed.
II.
Business Intelligence the use of information systems to gather and
analyze information from internal and external sources in order to make better
business decisions; also the information gained from the use of such systems.
A. Why Organizations Need Business Intelligence
although a companys overall direction is decided at the executive/strategic
level, the business processes outlined at that level are often not implemented
because the information needed to monitor and control these processes is simply
not available. Although this information
exists, it is not located where it can be found and utilized at the time it is
needed or by the persons who actually need it.
Providing effective business intelligence means delivering the right
information to the right decision- maker at the right time. Business intelligence also enables
organizations to better respond to ongoing threats and opportunities and to
better plan for the future.
1. Responding to threats and opportunities
external factors such as globalization can create threats (global competition)
or opportunities (new markets), but also creates new challenges in gaining the
right information to manage these new opportunities.
2. Effective planning is continuous in the
past businesses lacked the information and tools to continuously plan for the
future; everything was based on historical data. In todays highly competitive and rapidly
changing business environment (THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IS ALWAYS CHANGING!!)
businesses must continuously monitor and analyze business processes to utilize
a continuous planning process that is always up-to-date.
Inset: When Things Go Wrong Bad Intelligence
Misinformation Goes Viral Through Twitter
B. Databases:
Providing Inputs into Business Intelligence Applications good outputs
require good inputs; there must be agreement within the organization of what is
desired from the system in order to provide the proper inputs to create that
output.
Data and
Knowledge some of an organizations most important assets
Databases
(collections of related data organized to facilitate data searches)
1. Enabling Interactive Web Sites Using
Databases organizations engaged in e-commerce make extensive use of databases
to provide dynamic and customized (rather than static) information on their Web
pages.
2. Databases:
Foundation Concepts
a. Database Management System (DBMS) a
software application to create, store, organize, and retrieve data from one or
more databases
b. Entity (a table) anything about which you
collect data
c. Attribute (a column) a description of an
entity
d. Record (a row) a single instance of an
entity in a table
3. Databases:
Advantages (see Database section
of the Technology Briefing)
a.
Control Redundancy
b. Eliminate Inconsistencies
c. Promote Data/Program Independence
4. Databases:
Effective Management
a. Data Model Entity-Relationship Diagram
(ERD)
b. Normalization technique for constructing
the data properly; HOW data is organized is of major importance to any
database system
c. Data Dictionary holds the Metadata and
Business Rules
d. Metadata data about the data
e. Business Rules how a firm goes about doing
business, shown by the relationships between the various data in an ERD
Inset: The Future of Medical Records
5. Entering and Querying Data much data today
is captured automatically rather than manually
a. Form used for capturing data for input;
usually about a single entity instance
b. Report used to display output; usually about multiple entity instances
c.
Query a question asked of the database
to get a response
d. SQL Structured Query Language a very
popular language used to query a database
6. Online Transaction Processing immediate
automated response to users requests; OLTP is a BIG part of interactive
electronic commerce applications on the Internet
a. Operational Systems systems used to
interact with customers and run a business in real time
7. Operational Systems and Business Intelligence
operational systems can generate major amounts of data to be used as input to
business intelligence applications
a. Informational Systems designed to support
decision-making based on stable point-in-time or historical data
8. Master Data Management Master Data is data
deemed most important in the operation of a business; to make sound decisions
all departments need to work from the same definitions, assumptions, and
underlying data
9. Data Warehouses a single repository that
integrates multiple large databases; it is suitable for direct querying,
analysis, and processing
10. Data Marts a data warehouse that is limited
in scope; may focus on only a single (or
small group of) product(s), cutomer(s), vendor(s),
etc.
Inset: The Demise of Broadcast TV people are
moving toward interactive, online TV consumption rather than traditional TV
viewing
III. Business Intelligence Components
A. Information and Knowledge Discovery
Information and knowledge discovery tools are used to extract information from
existing data, sometimes finding new information they did not know.
1. Ad Hoc Queries and Reports users need the
right information at the right time
a. Scheduled Reports printed regularly (on a
schedule)
b. Ad Hoc Reports printed as needed, not on a
set schedule
c. Drill-Down Reports go deeper into a certain
area to examine that area in detail
d. Exception Reports generated when something
unusual happens (positive or negative)
e. Key Indicator Reports provide a summary of
critical information on a recurring schedule
2. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) quickly
conducting complex, multidimensional analyses of data stored in a database;
uses software tools (programs) to go beyond data summaries and aggregations of
simple data queries.
a. Measures (also called Facts) and Dimensions
used to categorize data from a retrieval;
Measures/Facts the facts to be analyzed; Dimensions a
way to summarize the data (sizes, time/date/year, geographic region, etc.)
b. Cubes, Slicing, Dicing OLAP arranges data
as Cubes; Cube a data structure that allows multiple dimensions to be
added to a two-dimensional table; Slicing and Dicing analyzing the
subsets of a Cube.
3. Data Mining discovering hidden predictive
relationships/patterns/trends/rules among the data; usually run against data
warehouses.
a. Association Discovery a data mining
application used to find associations or correlations among sets of items (80%
of transaction involving diapers include baby formula); Sequence Discovery
discover associations over time
b. Clustering and Classification Clustering
grouping related records based on similar attribute values (airline
passengers grouped by distance flown); Classification groups known in
advance are segmented into clustered classes
4. Unstructured Data Analysis some studies
show that 50% 80% of all enterprise information consists of Un-structured or
Semi-structured data; making decision based solely on Structured data can be
dangerous
a. Text Mining and Web Content Mining
1. Text Mining extracting information from textual documents
2. Web Content Mining analyzing content of Web pages
5. Web Usage Mining analyzing usage of Web pages to
determine patterns in data usage
B. Business Analytics to Support Decision Making supporting
human and automated decision making
1. Business Analytics augments business
intelligence by using predictive analysis to identify trends or predict
business outcomes
2. Decision Support Systems supports organizational
decision-making, many times allows what-if analysis
a. Architecture of a DSS uses models to
manipulate data
1. Inputs Data and models
2. Processing Interactive processing of data
and models; simulations, optimizations, forecasts
3. Outputs Summary reports, trends,
simulations
3. Intelligent Systems Artificial Intelligence
(AI) enabling
information technologies to simulate human intelligence/reasoning/learning
a. Expert Systems (ES) mimics/simulates human reasoning in
limited problem domains; usually rule-based
1. Fuzzy Logic allows ES systems to use
approximations or subjective values when information about a problem is
incomplete
2. Architecture of an ES
a. Knowledge Base the stored information
b. Inference Engine the program that matches
the use inputs with the information in the knowledge base
c. Interface the way the user interacts with
the ES, accepts user inputs and presents results to the user
b. Neural Networks attempts to approximate the functioning of the
human brain; may be trained
c. Intelligent Agent Systems an intelligent agent (or bot, for
software robot) is a program that runs in the background, then provides a
service when a specific event occurs; a
number of types of agents include User, Buyer, Monitoring and Sensing,
Data-Mining, Web crawlers, and Destructive agents.
4. Knowledge Management Systems generating value from an
organizations knowledge/information assets
Knowledge Assets all the underlying
skills, routines, practices, principles, formulas, methods, heuristics, and
intuitions, whether explicit or tacit, than an organization possesses
Explicit Knowledge Assets knowledge
that can be documented, archived, codified, often with the help of an
information system
Tacit Knowledge Assets processes and
procedures located in a persons mind (not documented) on how to effectively
perform a particular task
Best Practices procedures and
processes widely accepted as being among the most effective/efficient for
accomplishing a particular task
a. Benefits of Knowledge Management Systems
the free flow of information/knowledge through an organization enhances
innovation and creativity
1.
Employees must share their knowledge (not keep it to themselves)
2.
Identify what knowledge is needed, Why it is needed, and Who has the
knowledge
3.
What Business Objective(s) is served by this knowledge?
b.
How Organizations Utilize a Knowledge Management System who has the
knowledge and how is that knowledge used?
The goal of successful Knowledge Management is to facilitate the
exchange of knowledge across the organization
Knowledge Portal
the way an organization goes about sharing its knowledge with employees,
customers, and the suppliers
C. Information Visualization the display of complex data
relationships using a variety of graphical methods enabling managers to quickly
grasp the results of the analysis.
1. Digital Dashboards used to graphically present summary
information to managers and executives for decision-making
2. Visual Analytics business intelligence
systems can provide a wide variety of analyses to support decision making;
however, people still have to interpret the outputs from these systems, which
is becoming more difficult with increasing complexity. Visual Analytics combines various analysis
techniques and interactive visualization to solve complex problems.
3. Geographic Information Systems a system for creating, storing,
analyzing, and managing geographically referenced information
Inset: Ethical Dilemma Stealing WiFi
Inset: Industry Analysis Health Care