WEEKLY QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER ELEVEN- Project Management

Q1. Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management. 

The Triple Constraint is a paradigm applicable to any type of project. It is used to illustrate how changes in competing demands are inter-connected, and how each has an effect on the others (Smith 2009). The Triple Constraint is useful in talking about a project's end result (Smith 2009). This is shown by using a three-point triangle:

• Time
• Cost
• Scope

  Although the limits of an overall result may be flexible; a change in one of these elements will produce a change in another (Smith 2009).

Regarding the Cost principle: the cheaper your cost, the less quality you will get (Smith 2009). For example, when labor is rushed to make up for a lower project budget.

Scope is a critical factor in a project that always effects other variables. The less a contractor has to do, the quicker it can be done, and the lower the cost will be (Smith 2009). Project Inflation happens when a client wants to increase the scope of a project without changing the cost or time (Smith 2009). 


Reference: Cindi Smith, Considering Project Management- do you manage it or does it manage you? Accessed at: http://blogs.attask.com/blog/attask-ink/0/0/the-project-management-triple-constraint-do-you-manage-it-or-does-it-manage-you Viewed on 19 October 2010.

Read more go to: http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/9793.aspx#ixzz13EF6Bfi8

Q2. Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning 

 a. PERT Chart- (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) Chart is a graphical network model that depicts a project's tasks and relationships between those tasks. A dependency is a logical relationship that exists between project tasks or between a task and a milestone. These charts allow the dependency to be defined before those tasks are scheduled. The project manager can adjust the contents of the boxes to display various project attributes such as start and finish times. The arrows indicate that one task is dependent on another task being completed. The critical path (in red usually) is a path from start to finish that passes through all tasks that are critical to completing the project in the shortest time possible.

B. A Gantt Chart is a simple bar chart that depicts project tasks agaisnt a calendar. The tasks are listed vertically and the time frame of the project is listed horizontally. A Gantt chart represents a project's schedule and shows a progression of tasks against the planned duration.

Q3. Identify the three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success 

A. People- The book argues that this is the most critical and hardest of all of the tasks. It is in people's human nature to have conflict and the project manager will need to resolve this whilst balancing the needs of the project with personal and professional needs of the team. Communication, negotiation, marketing and salesmanship are important to remain a good relationship with the client.

B. Communications- The project manager should plan what and how he/she will communicate as a formal part of the project management plan. A project manager distributes timely, accurate and meaningful information regarding project objectives that involve time, cost, scope and quality. They also communicate small wins, things in need of improvement, requests for more resources and informs of the project schedule.

C. Change-  Successful organisations have learned to anticipate and react appropriately to change. In dynamic organisations/projects, change is inevitable and an organisation must effectively manage this change. There are many challenges and complexity is an ever-changing society; effective change management is a critical core competency. This involves a set of techniques that aid in evolution, composition and policy management of the design and implementation of a system.

To learn more, see this video for advice on project management: http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Shine-as-a-Project-Manager-11827

Q4.Outline 2 reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed.

Reasons for success:

a.Strong project management- the project manager steps up and is able to create a good schedule, motivate their employees, keep to schedules and adapt to change.

b. Good communication- amongst employees and with the client.

 Reasons for Failure

a. Lack of project management- if there are no plans, no schedule, no reactions to changes, no communication amongst clients and employees then the  project is likely to fail.

b. Unrealistic expectations- if the plan is unrealistic in terms of its budget, time constraints or scope then the project is likely to fail.

WEEKLY QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER NINE- Customer Relationship Mangament

Q1.What is your understanding of CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an organisation to manage customer relationships in an efficient way (Williams 2010). For example, an enterprise might build a database about its customers that describe their relationships in detail so that management, salespeople, and the customer could  directly access information, match customer needs with product plans, remind customers of service requirements, know what products a customer had purchased etc (Williams 2010).

 CRM consists of:

• Helping an organisation to enable its marketing department to identify and target customers, manage marketing campaigns and generate quality leads for the sales team (Williams 2010).
• Assisting the organisation to improve sales by optimizing information shared by employees, and streamlining existing processes (Eg. taking orders using mobile devices) (Williams 2010)
• Formulating individual relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits.(Williams 2010)
• provide better customer service
• improve call center efficency
• cross sell products more efficenctly

For more information about CRM, the following website has several academic articles on the topic: http://www.ceoonline.com/business/customer-relationship-management.shtml

Reference: Eric Williams, Customer Relationship Management, Available: http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/definition/CRM/ Viewed 10 October 2010.

Q2.Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management.

Operational CRM supports traditional transactional processing for day-to-day front-office operations or systems that deal directly with customers. Whereas Analytical CRM supports back-office operations and strategic analysis and includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers. The main difference between the two are the direct interaction between the organisation and its customers.

To learn more, look at this video about CRM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPDiZQ0DNBw

 

Q3. Describe and differentiate the CRM technologies used by marketing departments and sales departments
Marketing Depts are able to transform by trying to sell one customer as many products as possible rather than trying to sell one product to many customers, using CRM technologies that gather and analyse customer information to create successful marketing campaigns. The book explains that a marketing campaign's success is directly proportional to the organisations ability to gather and analyse teh correct infomrtion. The 3 primary operational CRM technologies that a Marketing Dept can implement to increase customer satisfaction are:

• list generators- which compile customer information from a variety of sources and segment information for different marketing campaigns.
• campaign management- which guides users through marketing campaigns performing campaign definition, planning, scheduling, segmentation and success analysis.
• cross selling and up selling- which is the selling of additional products or services to a customer

Sales Depts take a different approach. Sales Depts had two main reasons to track customer sales information electronically. Firstly, sales representatives were struggling with a massive amount of account information that they were required to track and maintain.Secondly, companies were struggling that much of the information was in their sales representatives heads and not written down. Sales force automation helped address these two problems by automatically tracking all of the steps in the sales process.

The three primary operational CRM technologies a sales Dept can implement to increase customer satisfaction:

• sales management CRM systems- which automate each phase of the sales process, helping individual sales representatives co-ordinate and organise all of their accounts.
• contact management CRM systems- which maintains customer contact information and identifys prospective customers for future sales
• opportunity management CRM systems- which target sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales.

Q4.How could a sales department use 
operational CRM technologies?
There are 3 primary operational CRM technologies that a customer service Dept can implement to increase customer satisfaction. They include:

• Contact Centre (call center)- which customer service representatives answer the customer's questions and respond to customer's problems. Mainitaining a high level of support is essential to acquiring and retaining customers.
• knowledge management software can help these call centres by putting consistent answers at the customer services represnetatives fingertips.

•  Web Based Self Service- allows customers to use the internet to find answers to their questions and solutions to their problems
• the click to talk button is a feature which allows customers to click on the button to talk to a CSR directly from the website.

• Call Scripting Systems-access organisational databases that track similar issues or questions and automatically generate the details for the CSR who can then relay them to the customer. The system can also provide a list of questions that the CSR can ask the customer to determine the problem and solution. This can help the CSR by answering difficult questions quickly whist presenting a uniform image so that all customers receive consistent information.

For more information see: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/223364/operational_crm_leveraging_ocrm_technologies.pdf

Q5.Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses

Business intelligence (BI) is a category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help support decision making efforts (Rossetti 2006). BI applications include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting, online analytical processing, statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining (Rossetti 2006).
Business intelligence applications can be:

• Mission-critical and integral to an enterprise's operations or occasional to meet a special requirement 
• Enterprise-wide or local to one division, department, or project
• Centrally initiated or driven by user demand (Rossetti 2006).

Many organisations find it difficult to understand their strengths/ weaknesses because of the enormous volume of information.

BI allows for the ability to analyse the business more thoughoutly- such as where the business has been, where it is now, and where it will be in the future.

Value: single point of access to information for all users, BI across organisational Depts, and up to the minute information for everyone.

Reference: Luca Rossetti, Business Intelligence, Available: http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/business-intelligence Viewed 12 October 2010.

Q6.Explain the problem associated with business intelligence. Describe the solution to this business problem.

As the business increases its reliance on enterprise systems (ie CRM) then they rapidly accumulate huge amounts of data. Every single interaction is documented and entered into the system for future use and access. In most organisations it would take the account manager days to gain information about a client because there is too much information to go through, such as inventory levels, orders, client history, etc.
To improve the quality of business decisions, managers can provide existing staff with BI systems and tools to assist them in making better, more informed decisions. An example of using BI to make informed decisions includes the retail/sales team predicting sales, determining correct inventory levels and distribution schedules and loss prevention. The solution of implementing BI and tools allows business users to receive data for analysis which is reliable, consistent, understandable and easily manipulated.
 

Q7.What are two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining?

The aim of data mining is the application of statistical techniques to find patterns and relationships among data and to classify and predict. One outcome would be that they found a pattern and relationship which would give then business intelligence and information to assist the company in some way. The other option is that no pattern or relationship is found.

To learn more about data mining, see:  http://www.thearling.com/text/dmwhite/dmwhite.htm

WEEKLY QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER EIGHT- Operations Management and Supply Chain

Q1. Define the term operations management

OM is the management of systems or processes that convert or transform resources (including HR) into goods and services. OM is responsible for managing the core processes used to produce services and manufacture goods.

To learn more about this go to: http://managementhelp.org/ops_mgnt/ops_mgnt.htm

Q2. Explain operations management’s role in business

OM covers a vast number of operations in business including many interrelated activities such as forecasting, capacity planning, managing inventories, assuring quality, motivating employees, deciding where to locate facilities, etc.

The book gives the example of an airline company to show how OM teams add value. The company in this example consists of areoplanes, airport facilities and maintenance facilities. Typical OM activities include:

•  Forecasting: estimating the demand for flights, weather, landing conditions, growth/decline of airline travel to ensure efficency.
• Capacity Planing- essential for the airline to maintain cashflow and increase revenue. Under or over estimating will hurt profits
• Scheduling- the airline needs to operate on strict schedules including flights, attendance, ground maintenance.
• Managing Inventory- inventory of food, drinks, first aid equipment, in flight magazines, pillows, blankets, and life jackets is essential.
• Assuring Quality- quality is the most important in an airline where safety is the highest priority. Customers expect high quality customer service in ticketing, check in, in flight service, efficiency and courtesy.
• Motivating and Training employees- airline hostesses and pilots but be highly trained, and continually motivated. 
• Locating Facilities- the need to decide which cities to offer services, where to host maintenance facilities and where to locate major/ minor hubs.

The success of the business depends on short and long term planning and the ability of its executives and managers to make informed decisions.

To learn more see the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeeTy3YaMu0

Q3. Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology

Managers use IT to heavily influence OM decisions including productivity, costs, flexibility, quality and customer satisfaction. IT allows OM to make operational decisions because OM exerts considerable influence over the degree to which the goals/objectives of the company are realized. Many OM decisions involve many possible alternatives. EG: Whether to fly into Fiji one or twice or three times a day. This can have a very impact on revenue/ expenses. EG: If all three flights would be full then the revenue would increase, but if every flight was only 20% full then the expense wouldn't be worth the expense. OM Information Systems are critical for managers to make these well informed decisions.

Decision Support Systems and executive information systems help organizations perform what if analysis, sensitivity analysis, drill down and consolidation in order to answer these questions. Types of decisions that IT systems help decide include:

• What- What resources will be needed and in what amounts
• When- When will each resource be needed? When should the work be scheduled? When is corrective action needed?
• Where- Where will the work be performed?
• How- How will the product or service be designed? How will the work be done?
• Who- Who will perform the work?

Q4. Explain supply chain management and its role in a business

SCM involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability. The 5 main components include:

• Plan
• Source
• Make 
• Deliver
• Return

There are many steps required to do the above components. SCM software enables oragnisatiosn to generate efficencies within these steps by automating and improving the information flows throughout and among the different supply chain components.

Effective SCM can enables organisations to:

• decrease the power of its buyers
• increase its own supplier power
• increase switching costs to reduce the threat of substitute products/services
• create entry barriers to reduce the threat of new entrants
• increase effeicencies while seeking a competitive advantage through cost leadership

Today's SC is a complex web of suppliers, assemblers, logistics firms, sales/marketing channels and other business partners. Below is a picture of a sample SC.

  The book identifies 3 main links in the SC:

• materials flow from suppliers and their upstream suppliers at all levels
• transformation of materials info semi finished and finished products- the organization's own production processes
• distribution of products to customers and their downstream customers at all levels.

Businesses must embrace technologies that effectively manage and oversee their supply chains; therefore SCM is increasingly important to create efficiencies, competitive advantages, improved forecasting, improved business operations, improved transparency among the SC. Businesses have access to modeling and simulation tools,a logarithms and applications that combine information from multiple sources to build forecasts in advance.

Q5. List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain

 

 a.Plan- An oragnisation must ahve a strategic plan for managing the resources that that are used towards meeting consumer demand for goods and services. An oragnisation must develop a set of metrics to monitor the SC so that it is effeicent, costs less and dleivers high quality and high value to the customers.

b. Source- Organisations must be careful when choosing suppliers. They need to choose suppliers that are reliable to deliver the goods and services as require. The organisation will need to develop a set of pricing, delivery, and payment processes with suppliers and create metrics for monitoring and improving their relationship.

c. Make- This is when the organisation manufacture their products and services including scheduling activities necessary for production, testing, packaging, and preparation for delivery. This is the most metric intensive portion of the SC, measuring quality levels, production output and worker productivity.

d. Deliver- Aka Logistics (the set of processes that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation  and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers). Organisations must concentrate on receiving orders from customers, fulfilling orders via their warehouses, utilizing transport companies to deliver goods and implement a billing/invoicing system to facilitate payments.

e. Return- Organisations must create a system for returning/receiving defective and excess stock. They also must support these customers who have problems with excellent customer service.

 

Q6. Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain.

The notion of seamless information links within and between organisations is an essential element of integrated supply chains. IT's main role in SCM is creating the tight process and information linkages between functions within a firm (ie marketing, finance, sales, manufacturing, distribution) and between frms, which allow a synchronised flow of information and product between customers, suppliers, and transporters along the SC. IT integrates planning, decision making processes, business operating processes and information sharing for business performance management which results in higher profits. 
Internet based SC collaboration software helped Adaptec Inc reduce inventory levels and lead times.
Advances in IT are increasing visibility, consumer behavior, competition and speed of the SC.

Here is a link to an IBM commercial which is based on new technologies and supply chain management:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVEPdV_warU 

 

WEEKLY QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER SEVEN- Networks & Telecommunications

 Q1.  Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology. 
a. Ubiquity- available at any location at any time (without having to be plugged in). Ubiquity creates easier information access in a real time environment which is highly valued in today’s business and consumer markets (Turban, King, Lang 2008). 
b. Convenience- its more convenient to be able to connect wirelessly rather than having to connect to a network using wires (Turban, King, Lang 2008). 
c.  Can Support of Mobile Employees- the Mobile workers are those who work outside the concrete premises (sales team, travelling executives) and they need the same corporate data available to those employee’s working inside the offices (Turban, King, Lang 2008). 
d.  Mobile Office- Ability to work from car, airport, hotel (Turban, King, Lang 2008).
 e. Sales Force Mobilisation and Automation- Many employees who sell must travel (sales pitches, demonstrating new product to existing customer, inventory checks in customer’s stores, maintaining close working relationships).Wireless technology can keep these employees better informed of new product launches, product info, pricing schedules, order status, manufacturing status, inventory levels, and delivery schedules. This creates improved manufacturing and delivery scheduling, fewer data entry errors, less clerical and administrative costs and better decision making (Turban, King, Lang 2008).
         Reference:

    Turban, E., King, D. and Lang, J. 2008. Introduction to Electronic Commerce 2E (International Edition) Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey.


  Q2.   Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP

•      It provides voice and data telecommunication requirements between its headquarters in order to reduce cost and complexity associated with delivering these services and improve response/restoration times. 
•  With new and improved technologies, internet phone calls offer a similar quality to traditional landline calls. 
• Has produced more choices, lower prices (low per minute charge),  and new applications. 
• VoIP uses existing network and internet infrastructure to route telephone calls more efficiently and inexpensively than traditional telephone service offering cost savings, productivity gains and service enhancements. 
•  File transfer makes it easy to collaborate with colleagues over the phone; users can send copies of reports, pictures and files 
• Can to face to face time with web cameras to co-workers or clients which reduces hassle and expenses of traveling. 
• Easy to use 
• Mobility- users can work from anywhere  
• Three way calling capabilities

To Learn more about VoIP; go to: http://www.voip.com.au/



 Q3. Compare LANs and WANs


A Local Area Network (LAN) is designed to connect  group of computers in close proximity to each other such as an office building/school/home. A LAN is useful for sharing resources like files, printers, games and other applications and connects to other LANs, internet and other WANs. A Wide Area Network (WAN) spans a large geographic area (state, province, or country) and often connect to multiple smaller networks (eg: LANs).



Q4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective.


RFID uses active or passive tags in the from of chips or smart labels that can store unique identifiers and relay information to electronic readers. The components of an RFID system include a tag, an antenna, and a reader connected to a software system that collects and manages the data collected (Beggs 2010). The tag is sewn onto a garment and as the article passes by a reader, the tag is read and the information relayed to the computer; which can hold much more information than the traditional bar code (Beggs 2010).The RFID can implement their solutions throughout the whole supply chain from the originating the material, the storage, packaging, logistics, cross-border and container transportation, to inventory control and retail works (MSC 2006).Throughout each stage in the manufacturing processes the tag is automatically scanned which would send real time information to the  headquarters which informs the company were in the processes the garment is and when it will be delivered to the store. This leads to effective Supply chain visibility which is very important to effective supply chain management and can lead to a firm’s competitive advantage (Beggs 2010).
A  benefit of RFID is being able to receive goods accurately without even opening a box (Beggs 2010). When a box of garments is shipped to the warehouse or store it can be scanned and its contents confirmed which is 22 times faster than before (Beggs 2010). With  RFID technology  it is not necessary to have a physical or visual connection between the tag and the tag reader (Beggs 2010) .  This system is more accurate than if you take inventory manually which is exposes to human error. 






Sources:

Beggs, B 2010, ‘Do you know were your textiles are tonight?’ American Laundry News, Vol. 36. No 1. pp 43-53.
MSC, 2006, A breakthrough in traditional Garment Industry, Available: http://www.zymmetry.com/news/tc/17-4/rfid_eng.pdf Accessed 15 March 2010.

Q5.  Identify the advantages and disadvantage of deploying mobile technology
Benefits-

•  Ubiquity- available at any location at any time. A wireless mobile device such as a smart phone can deliver info when it is needed, regardless of users location which creates easier information access in a real time environment which is highly valued in today’s business and consumer markets.

•  Convenience- mobile devices are increasing functionality and usability while remaining the same size or smaller. Mobile devices are portable, there is no need to wait for the device to start up which enable users to connect easily/ quickly to the internet.

•  Interactivity- immediate and highly interactive.

•  Personalisation- always owned and operated by the same indv (rather than a computer shared by many) which enables personalisation- delivery of info, products and services designed to meet the needs of indv consumers. Although personalisation is still limited- they become a primary E-Comerce tool for delivering personalization info/ products/ services due to availability/ feasibility.

•   Localisation or Location Based Services- knowing where a user is physically located at any particular movement is key to offering relevant mobile services in real time. Such services are known as location based m-commerce. Localisation can be general (eg: to everyone in a certain mall) or can combine personalisation & localisation. EG: if they know a person likes Italian food and they are in a mall with Italian food- then they could send a text message.

•  They have become cheaper and more versatile- allowing everyone to own a mobile device.
•   Mobile Social Networks- EG: Facebook now on Iphones.
•   Mobile Advertising- using GPS location services to target customers
•  The mobile workforce- increasingly more business people are working away from the office and going mobile. This is driven by work trends such as telecommunicating, workers concerns about security, employees desires for a work and life balance and a general questioning about where workers need to be located to conduct their work. 

Disadvantages-

•  Accuracy of devices-  cheaper GPSs can only be accurate to 500 meters
•   Cost- benefit justification- for most users the benefits do not justify the costs to the inconvenience and time it takes to utilise the service (can easily do it old fashioned way.)
•  Invasion of privacy- people hesitant to have their whereabouts tracked
•  High cost
•  Inadequate security
•   Inadequate mobile applications development
•   Not an IT priority
•  Short battery life
•  Small screens
•  Inadequate device memory
•  Trojan horses that affect mobile phones running in Java- delivered via internet or blue tooth
•  Malicious codes
• Open air transmission of signals across multiple networks opens up new opportunities for compromising security
• Small devices are easily lost or stolen- steals valuable info
•  Dropped/ crushed/ damaged- loss of stored data
•  Technological barriers
• Small storage and speed- impossible to have massive downloads
•  Limited battery life
• Transmission interferences with appliance
• Ethical, Legal & Health Issues in M Commerce
•  Can impose isolation on a work force- no social interaction
•   Reduction in organisational transparency, difficulty in knowing what other employees do, how the org is evolving, how they fit into it- powerful implications
•   Hard to separate company/personal life on a cell phone- unless they carry 2 phones
• Health damage from cellular radio frequency- not proven
• Addiction effects of not having phone with you
•  Repetitive stress injury from texting
• Ethics of monitoring staff movement, maintaining appropriate work/ life balance 

Reference:

     Turban, E., King, D. and Lang, J. 2008. Introduction to Electronic Commerce 2E (International Edition) Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey.


To learn more about mobile technology; see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM4oOBtLY2c

WEEKLY QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER SIX- Databases and Data Warehouses

1.    List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information.

a.       Accuracy- the values are correct, the spelling is correct and everything is recorded properly.

b.      Completeness- no values are missing

c.       Consistency- all information is in agreement

d.      Uniqueness – each transaction/entity/ event is represented only once in the information.

e.      Timeliness- the information is current (ie updated hourly, weekly or daily)

2.    Define the relationship between a database and a database management system.

A Database is an organised collection of data. It is the actual infomation including the tables, fields and reports organised in a logical way. Here is a picture of one:

Whereas a DBMS is a group of programs that manipulate the actual database and provide an interface between the database/users of database and other application programs.It is the system that actually runs the database. (ie Microsoft Access)
To learn the basic concepts of DBMS see this tutourial:
www.quackit.com/database/.../database_management_systems.cfm 

3.    Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.

a.       increased flexibility- databases allow each user to access the information which best suits their individual needs

b.      increased scalability and performance- only a database can ‘scale’ to handle the massive volumes of information.

c.       Reduced information redundancy- databases ensure no duplication of information

d.      Increased information integrity or quality- integrity constraints are rules in a database that help ensure the quality of information

e.       Increased information security- databases help organisations protect its information from unauthorised users or misuse.

4.    Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model.
A Relational database is a form of logically related two dimensional tables (rows/columns).

·         Entity- is a person/place/ thing/ transaction/ event about which information is stored. (record=column)

·         Attributes- or fields or columns, are characteristics or properties of an entity class

·         To manage and organise various entity classes within the relational database model, developers must identify primary and foreign keys and use them to create logical relationships.(rows)

o   Primary key- a field that uniquely identifies a given entity in a table. They are important because they provide a way of distinguishing each entity in a table.

o   Foreign key- is a primary key of one table that appears as an attribute in another table acts to provide a logical relationship between the two tables.
To learn about the specifics of creating a relational data base go to this site:
http://www.anchor.com.au/hosting/support/CreatingAQuickMySQLRelationalDatabase

5.    Describe the benefits of a data-driven website.

a.       Development- it allows the website owner to make changes without having to rely on the developer or know about specific HTML programming. You need virtually no training to use this. and it updates products/prices automatically since it is connected to a database.

b.      Future expandability- Data driven websites allows the site to grow faster than would otherwise be possible because changing the layout, displays and functionality is easier.

c.       Minimising Human Error- data driven websites have error trapping mechanisms to ensure that required information is filled out, entered and displayed in the correct format.

d.      Cutting production and update costs- changing the content is more convenient, anyone can do it, its more affordable and it is quicker to change.

e.       More efficient- the system keeps track of templates to improve reliability and stability of the website. You are able to search/ enter a query into the database.

f.       Improved stability- content is never lost unlike static websites.

6.    Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organization.

 A data warehouse is a logical collection of information gathered by many different operational databases which helps support business analysis activities and decision making tasks. The main purpose is to aggregate information throughout an organisation into a single repository which allows employees to make decisions and undertake analysis activities. They store the same information as databases but in an aggregated form (ie totals, counts, and averages) suitable to help in decision making. Data warehouses use extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) which 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 warehouses send sub sets of information to Data marts . Note that data warehouses have an organisational focus and data marts have focused information subsets particular to the needs of a given business unit (ie Finance, Production, Operations).

To learn more about Data Warehousing it is useful to watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRhRxPuEU8 

WEEKLY QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER FIVE- Enterprise Architecture

1. What is information architecture and what is information infrastructure and how do they differ and how do they relate to each other? 

 

Information architecture identifies where and how important information is maintained and secured or used within an organisation. It is the plan of configuring IT depending on what type of business it is (brick and mortar or click and mortar).

Information infrastructure  is the actual nuts/ bolts- software, hardware, people, services, involved in implementing the architecture including; physical computer equipment. It is the actual implementation that will provide for effective Information Systems.

Rosenfield and Morville  (2002) compares this to the architecture of a building. They explain that it is:

• ·        The combination of organisation, labelling and navigation schemes with an information system

• ·        “The structural design of an information space to Facilitate task completion and intuitive access to content.” (Rosenfield and Morville  2002)

• ·        Structuring and classifying websites and intranets to mange people and information

• ·        Bringing principals of design and architecture into a digital landscape

Rosenfield and Morville  (2002) explain that it has so many definitions because it is a wide and complex concept.

Reference:  Rosenfield, L and Morville, P, Information Archetecture. Avaliable at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=OM3DvakML-MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=information+architecture&source=bl&ots=D8Mk6boh5k&sig=w9s-31GsCFkIiIkitM5Zyh7WwdQ&hl=en&ei=x8-OTLSCLs-5cf_DnLAM&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false Viewed 10 September 2010.

  

2. Describe how an organisation can implement a solid information architecture 

·     ·  

·         A. Adequate Back up and recovery systems-  which restore lost data and allow users to have confidence in your system

B. Disaster recovery- plan that says how you will deal in the events of a catastrophic disaster

C. Use of Authentication(method for confirming users' identity)/ authorisation (the process of giving someone permission to have or do something)- to ensure that information is secure

D. Be able to prove systems are safe
E. To have enough security to stop unauthorised users from accessing and changing the content.

3. List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture. 

Flexibility-systems can cope with new languages, currencies, new products/ business, can adapt to meet changing demands.

Scalability- needs to be scalable to start with, ability to meet growth requirements.

Reliability- accurate info, you must be able to rely and have confidence in the system

Availability- it has information available all the time, ensures business continuity

Performance- speed at which systems can respond to users. 

Here is a picture of one with all of the above qualities:

4. Describe the business value in deploying a service oriented architecture 

SOA is a business driven IT architectural approach that supports integrating a business as linked, repeatable tasks or services. It Ensures that IT systems can adapt quickly, economically and with ease to support changing business needs. SOA is able to increase businesses flexibility in processes & strengthen IT architecture. It is able to reuse exisiting IT investments by creating connections among disparate applications and information sources.

Here is a link to a video that further explains this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbd_1G8Kqjs

 5. What is an event? 

Events detect threats and opportunities and alert those who can act on the information. It is repetitive & happens often such as credit checks, new user, etc. It involves using IT systems to monitor a business process for events that matter such as a low stock alert in a warehouse and it automatically alerts the people best equipped to handle the issue.

6. What is a service?

 A Service contains a set of related commands that can be reused, it is more like a software product than they are a coding project. to approve customer. They must appeal to the broad audience.

 7.What emerging technologies can companies can use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?

 a. Virtualisation-a framework of dividing the resources of a computer into multiple execution environments

b. Virtual machines- type of computer application used to create a presentation of more than one operating system from within one computer. 

c. Grid computing- an aggregation of geographically dispersed computing, storage, and network resources, coordinated to deliver improved performance, higher quality of service, better utilization and easier access to data.