ENABLING ORGANIZATION - DECISION MAKING

Assalamualaikum peeps. We meet again. For today's post I will talk about decision making system. But first we need to know what is a MODEL? 

A model is a simplified representation or abstraction of reality. Decision making information systems work by building models out of organizational information to lend insight into important business issues and opportunities. There are 3 common types of decision making information system used in organization today.

The first is transaction processing system which the basic business system that serves the operational level in an organization. The most common example of TPS is an operational accounting system such as payroll system. 

Next is decision support system, such as BostonCoach's,models information to support managers and business professionals during decision making process. Three quantitative models are typically used by this system, which is sensitivity analysis, what-if analysis, and goal-seeking analysis. 

The last decision making system is executive information systems which is a specialized DSS that supports senior-level executives within organization. Consolidation, drill down, and slice and dice are a few of the capabilities offered by this system. 

 Thats what i have basically learnt in chapter 9 of MGT 300. Thanks for reading. :D

ACCESSING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION - DATA WAREHOUSE

Assalamualaikum bloggers. For this time, I will talk about data warehouse. It is a logical collection of information gathered from many different operational databases that supports business analysis activities and decision making tasks. Data warehouse is needed to aggregate information throughout an organization into a single repository in such a way that employees can make decisions and undertake business analysis activities.

 

Data warehouse compiles information from internal database or transactional/operational databases and external databases through extraction, transformation and loading (ETL), which is a process that extracts information from internal and external databases, transforms the information using a common set of enterprise definitions, and loads the information into a data warehouse. Data warehouse then sends subsets of the information to data marts, which contains a subset of data warehouse information. 

Most data warehouse and data marts are multidimensional database. A cube is the common term for the representation of multidimensional information. 

Yet, there should be business intelligence which is applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information to support decision making efforts. To enable business intelligence, TECHNOLOGY, PEOPLE and CULTURE should be used to gain sustainable competitive advantages. 

Goodbye. Thanks for reading. :)

STORING ORGANIZATIONAL DATABASES

Assalamualaikum peeps. In a world full of technology, there are many different models for organizing informations in a database. First we need to know what is DATABASE? It maintains information about various types of objects, events, people and places. 

In a hierarchical database model, information is organized into a tree-like structure that allows repeating information using parent/child relationships in such a way that it cannot have too many relationships. It is widely used in the first mainframe database management systems.

Next, there is a network database model. It is a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships where the hierarchichal model structures data as a tree of records, with each record having one parent record and many children, the network model allows each records forming a lattice structure. 

Last but not least, there is the relational database model. It is a type of database that stores information in the form of logically related two dimensional tables. 

That's all for today's post. Thanks for reading. :)

VALUING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION

Hello there mate. For this post, I will talk about the value of organizational information. Information is everywhere in business. Organizational information comes at different levels and in different formats and 'granularities'.Information granularity refers to the extent of detail within the information. 

 

Next, we need to know the value of transactional and analytical information. Transactional information encompasses all of the information contained within a single business process or unit of work, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of daily operational tasks. The example of transactional information is withdrawing cash from ATM.

As for analytical information encompasses all organizational information and its primary purpose is to support the performing of managerial analysis task. Sales and trends are the examples of analytical information. 

Furthermore, we should know the value of timely information. Real time information means immediate, up to date information. Real time systems provide real time information in response to query requests. 

Last but not least is the value of quality information. There are 5 common characteristics of high quality information that we should know, which is: 

1. Accuracy

2. Completeness

3. Consistency

4. Uniqueness

5. Timeliness 

 This post is related to what I have learnt in chapter 6 of MGT300. Later peeps. :)

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES THAT SUPPORT STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Hello peeps. For today's lesson, i will talk about organizational structures that support strategic initiatives. So lets see what is the roles of information technology and its responsibilities. As we should know, information technology is a  relatively new functional area having been around formally in most organizations only for about 40 years.

There are 5 IT - related strategic positions that we should know in an organization : 

1. Chief information officer (CIO) - Responsible for overseeing all uses of IT and ensuring strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives.

2. Chief technology officer (CTO) - Ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability and reliability of organization's information technology.

3. Chief security officer (CSO) - Ensuring security of IT system and developing strategies and IT safeguards against attacks from hackers and viruses.

4. Chief privacy officer (CPO) - Ensuring the ethical and legal use of information within an organization.

5. Chief knowledge officer (CKO) - Collecting, maintaining and distributing the organization's knowledge.

One of the challenge today is effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel. Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing as for IT personnel have the technological expertise. So in order to improve the communication, business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT. While for IT personnel must understand the business if the organization is going to determine which technologies can benefit the business. 

Besides that, we should know about ethics which is the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people. There are 5 issues affected by technology advances which is : 

1. Intellectual property - Intagible creative work that is embodied in physical form.

2. Copyright - Legal protection afforded an expression of an idea.

3. Fair use doctrine - In certain situations,it is legal to use copyrighted material.

4. Pirated software - Unauthorized use, duplication, distribution or sale of copyrighted software.

5. Counterfeit software - Manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as much. 

This is what I have learnt in chapter 5 of MGT300. Thanks for reading. :)

MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Assalamualaikum peeps. For today's post, let us learn on how to measure the success of strategic initiatives. From what i have learnt, we need to know the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization to measure the success of strategic initiatives. But what is efficiency and effectiveness? 

Efficiency and effectiveness metrics are two primary types of IT metrics. Efficiency IT metrics measure the performance of the IT system including throughput, speed and availability. There are 5 types of efficiency IT metrics which is : 

1. Throughput - Amount of information that can travel through a system.
2. Transaction speed - Amount of time a system takes to perform transaction.
3. System availability- Number of hours a system is available for users.
4. Information accuracy - System generates correct results when executing same transaction many times. 
5. Response time - Time it takes to respond to user interactions. 

As for effectiveness IT metrics, it measure the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversion rates and sell through increases. There are 4 effectiveness IT metrics that we need to know that is : 

1. Usability - The ease with which people perform transaction.
2. Customer satisfaction - Measured by such benchmark such as survey.
3. Conversion rates - Number of customers an organization 'touches' for the first time and persuades to purchase its products or services.
4. Financial - Such as return on investment. 

Besides that, we need to know about balanced scorecard, which is a management system in addition to a measurement system, that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both internal business processes and external outcomes in order to improve strategic performance and results. 

This post is about what i have learnt in chapter 4 of MGT 300. Hope we meet again in the future.   :)

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES FOR IMPLEMENTING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Assalamualaikum friends. For this post, I would love to talk about the high profile strategic initiatives that an organization can undertake to help it gain competitive advantages and business efficiencies. There are 4 strategies that can be taken,which is : 

Supply Chain Management - It involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability. This must include the 4 basic components of SCM which is supply chain strategy,supply chain partners,supply chain operation, and supply chain logistics.

Customer Relationship Management - It involves managing all aspects of a customer's relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization's profitability. It must include accounting system, order fulfillment system, inventory system and customer service system. 

Business Process Reengineering - It is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises. In order to finding opportunity using BPR, there are 7 principles that must be follow which is ; 

1. Organize around outcomes.
2. Identify all organization's processes.
3. Integrate information processing into real work.
4. Treat geographically resources.
5. Link parallel activities in the workflow.
6. Put the decision point where the work is performed and control them.
7. Capture information once at the source.

Enterprise Resource Planning - It integrates all departments and functions through an organization into a single IT system so that employees can make decisions by viewing enterprises information on all business operations.

Thats all for today's post. I think this is what i have learned in chapter 3 of MGT 300. Thanks for reading.   :)