ACCESSING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION - DATA WAREHOUSE

1. Describe the roles and purpose of data warehouses and data marts in an organization.

The purpose of the Data Warehouse in the overall Data Warehousing Architecture is to integrate corporate data. It contains the "single version of truth" for the organization that has been carefully constructed from data stored in disparate internal and external operational databases.

The amount of data in the Data Warehouse is massive. Data is stored at a very granular level of detail. For example, every "sale" that has ever occurred in the organization is recorded and related to dimensions of interest. This allows data to be sliced and diced, summed and grouped in unimaginable ways.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Data Warehouses does not contain all the data in the organization. It's purpose is to provide key business metrics that are needed by the organization for strategic and tactical decision making. Decision makers don't access the Data Warehouse directly. This is done through various front-end Data Warehouse Tools that read data from subject specific Data Marts. The Data Warehouse can be either "relational" or "dimensional". This depends on how the business intends to use the information.

 

 

2. Explain the relationship between business intelligence (BI) and a data warehouse (DW).

 

BI is a business management term that refers to the applications and technologies used to gather, provide access to, and analyses data and information about a company's operations. A DW is a repository for a company's historical data. DW can be physical or virtual, and they can be structurally relational, quasi-relational, summarized, cubes, flat files, or a combination of styles. DW is the set of technologies and techniques that you use to build and manage the data warehouse.
 

STORING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION - DATABASES

1. Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model. 

Concept of a database is that of a collection of records or pieces of information which is a structural description of the type of facts held in database known as a schema. Schema describe the objects that are represented in the database and the relationships among them. There are ways of organizing a schema modelling the database structure known as database models or data models. but nowadays, Relational model is commonly used which is all information in the form of multiple related tables each consisting of rows and columns. this model represents relationships by the use of values common to more than one table. Hierarchy model and the network model is use a more explicit representation of relationships.

 

 

2. Evaluate the advantages of the relational database model.

 

The advantages of the relational model

• increased scalability and performance
• reduced information redundancy
• increased information integrity (quality)
•  increased information security

INCREASED FLEXIBILITY

• good database that can handle changes quickly and easily
• physical view of information deals with the physical storage of information on a storage device such as a hard disk
• logical view of information focuses on how users logically access information to meet their particular business needs

INCREASED SCALABILITY & PERFORMANCE

• scalability refers to how well a system can adapt to increase demand
• performance measures how quickly a systems performs a certain process or transaction

REDUCED INFORMATION REDUNDANCY

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

INCREASED INFORMATION INTEGRITY (QUALITY)

• measures of the quality of information
• database environment, integrity constraints are rules that help ensure the quality of information 
• two types of integrity:

(1) relational integrity constraints - enforce basic & fundamental information based constraints

(2) 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

• organizational asset
• as systems become increasingly complex and more available over the internet, security becomes an even bigger issue
• offer many security features including passwords access levels, and access controls
• password provide authentication of the user

 

3. Define the database management system (DBMS) and its relationship to a website.

 

DBMS is software through which users and application programs interact with a database. The user sends requests to the DBMS and the DBMS performs the actual manipulation of the information in the database. there are two primary ways that users can interact with a DBMS, directly and indirectly. 

4. Explain why an organization would want to integrate its database.

 

By integrating its systems or building connections between its many database, its allow the organizations multiple system to automatically communicate by passing information between the databases, eliminating the need for manual information entry into multiple systems because after entering the information once, the integrations send the information immediately to all databases. the integrations not only enable the different departments to share information, but have also dramatically increased the quality of the information. without integrations, an organization will,

1. spend considerable time entering the same information in multiple system

2. suffer from the low quality and inconsistency typically embedded in redundant information 

While most integrations do not completely eliminate redundant information, they can ensure the consistency of it across multiple systems.

 

Organizational Structures That Support Strategic Initiatives

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER (CIO)

This position is responsible for:

• overseeing all uses of information technology
• ensuring the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives

Broad function of CIO include:

• Manager - ensure the delivery of all IT projects, on time and within budget.
• Leader - ensure the strategic vision of IT is in line with the strategic vision of the organization
• Communicator - advocate and communicate the IT strategy by building and strong executive relationships.

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER (CTO)

•  is responsible for ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability, and reliability of an organization's of an organization information technology

 
CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER (CSO)

 

• this position is responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems and developing strategies and IT safeguards against attacks from hackers and viruses

CHIEF PRIVACY OFFICER (CPO)

 

• is responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information within an organization

CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OFFICER (CKO)

 

• this position of CKO is responsible for collecting, maintaining and distributing the organization's knowledge.

All the above IT positions and responsibilities are critical to an organization's success. The individuals responsible for enterprise wide IT and IT-related issues must provide guidance and support to the organization's employees.

MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Metrics is a measurement by which is efficiency, performance, progress or quality of a plan, process or product can be assessed.

Efficiency IT metrics.

Measure the performance of an IT systems and many aspects of performance including throughput speed and availability of the system. It's organized the way of documenting and reporting the findings of efficiency IT metrics. It is important for evaluate and improve performance of an IT system and also make sure these system is being utilized in a proper way to ensure effectiveness of business process. An example, how far a company can use resources to achieve the goals.

Effectiveness IT metrics.

Measures how well a company or business is reaching its objectives and constantly questions as to a whether the right actions being taken to meet the given objectives. Sometimes employer make surveys in the company to know how well their employees work together as an organization to achieve their target or goals in terms to maintain satisfaction of customers. An example, how well customers of Apple products receive the similar information or updates of new products.

Effectiveness of Facebook Advertising.

One of the main reasons for which Facebook advertising can be effectiveness for your business is that you can reach hundreds of millions of Internet users in one place. More than that, you have the tools to choose the people you want to advertise to according to many different criteria, in a way that it is almost guaranteed that only the people interested in your business will view your ad. This doesn't happen with Google AdWord advertising service, for example, where targeting options are a lot less limited. 

While many people complain about Facebook’s ever-evolving privacy policies related to users’ data, businesses can benefit tremendously from all the specific information available. Facebook uses the data that people provide and makes it available to businesses for advertising purposes. And Facebook users give away a lot of information, from where they live and work, their birthday, schools attended, to interests, hobbies, favorite movies and music.

If for example, you tell Facebook that you want to advertise to highly educated men, ages 20 to 35, living in France, who enjoy fishing, Facebook will show your advertisement specifically to those people. Of course, you can choose a broader target group. But by being able to design a target group according to various criteria, the chances of converting your Facebook advertising investment into profits will increase significantly.

When you create a Facebook ad, you can pick your target group according to location (country, state and city), age, gender, education level, relationship status, language, and likes and interests. You can choose your target group at step 2 during the ad creation process and once you select the criteria, Facebook will tell you how many people are in your target group.

As a whole, the study should be encouraging for Facebook. As someone who has never clicked on a Facebook ad in five years, I was skeptical. But the study contains empirical evidence showing that certain kinds of Facebook advertising, particularly earned media, can be effective. With nearly one billion users, Facebook has achieved massive scale, and thanks to “amplification” across such a huge network, marketing messages can spread to a degree unprecedented in the history of online media. Against the backdrop of a pretty dismal few months, that’s something Facebook can look forward to.

Customer Relation Management

What is the CRM

Customer Relationship Management, is a company-wide business strategy designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by solidifying customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.

CRM is the abbreviation for customer relationship management. CRM entails all aspects of interaction that a company has with its customer, whether it is sales or service-related.  CRM is often thought of as a business strategy that enables businesses to:

•  Understand the customer

•  Retain customers through better customer experience

•  Attract new customer

•  Win new clients and contracts Increase profitably

• Decrease customer management cost

 

The goal of CRM

The idea of CRM is that it helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers. With an effective CRM strategy, a business can increase revenues by:

• ·         providing services and products that are exactly what your customers want

• ·         offering better customer service

• ·         cross selling products more effectively

• ·         helping sales staff close deals faster

• ·         retaining existing customers and discovering new ones

How Does CRM Work?

• ·         CRM works by gathering information about customers and analyzing the information collected. An example of this would be supermarket discount cards (I.E. Kroger Plus Cards, ACME cards, Giant Eagle cards, etc...). CRM closes a “relationship gap”.

• ·         CRM is also useful for customer service.

• ·         CRM products also run many automated call-centers for businesses (I.E. customer service systems).

• ·         CRM applications and practices are used to make businesses more efficient and improve customer satisfaction.

 

How CRM help understand customer?

• ·         True CRM brings together information from all data sources within an organization (and where appropriate, from outside the organization) to give one, holistic view of each customer in real time.

• ·         Once thought of as a type of software, CRM has evolved into a customer-centric philosophy that must permeate an entire organization.

• ·         There are three key elements to a successful CRM initiative: people, process, and technology.

• ·         CRM It's a strategy used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them.

• ·         There are many technological components to CRM, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a mistake.

• ·         The more useful way to think about CRM is as a process that will help bring together lots of pieces of information about customers, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness and market trends.

• ·         If customer relationships are the heart of business success, then CRM is the valve the pumps a company's life blood.

• ·         Steve Horne, president of ANALYTICi, the CRM and database division of ad agency giant Foote, Cone & Belding, says, "People like to feel special. "

• ·         Dianne Durkin, president of Loyalty Factor LLC, a training and consulting firm in Portsmouth, NH, says customers want human interaction--most of all, they want someone who understands and can respond to their needs

• ·         CRM applications are applications that run on the same principals as Microsoft Word and Excel. There are many values that can be filled in.

Conclusion

• ·         Successful Customer Relationship Management navigation is becoming increasingly important in today's competitive business world.

• ·         Customer expectations are always increasing, and business services must increase along with these expectations.

• ·         CRM is the method through which businesses can connect with their customers and therefore serve them better.

• ·         Businesses with successful CRM strategy and applications will notice a large increase in sales, customer satisfaction, and simply the overall success of the business.