CHAPTER 6 DATABASES AND DATA WAREHOUSES
1. List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information.
Characteristics of high-quality information include:
• Accuracy- Accuracy is the degree to which information on a map or in a digital database matches true or accepted values. Accuracy is an issue pertaining to the quality of data and the number of errors contained in a dataset or map. In discussing a GIS database, it is possible to consider horizontal and vertical accuracy with respect to geographic position, as well as attribute, conceptual, and logical accuracy.
o The level of accuracy required for particular applications varies greatly.
o Highly accurate data can be very difficult and costly to produce and compile
Completeness- Having all necessary or normal parts, components, or steps; entire.
Consistency- Consistency is one of the ACID properties that ensures that any changes to values in an instance are consistent with changes to other values in the same instance. A consistency constraint is a predicate on data which serves as a precondition, post-condition, and transformation condition on any transaction. The Database Management System(DBMS) assumes that the consistency holds for each transaction in instances. On the other hand, ensuring this property of the transaction is the responsibility of the user.
Uniqueness - n computing, a unique type guarantees that an object is used in a single-threaded way, with at most a single reference to it. If a value has a unique type, a function applied to it can be made to update the value in-place in the object code. In-place updates improve the efficiency of functional languages while maintaining referential transparency. Unique types can also be used to integrate functional and imperative programming.
Timeliness- Occurring at a suitable or opportune time; well-timed.
2. Define the relationship between a database and a database management system.
A database is the heart of an organisation, it stores key business information like;
Sales Data – customers, sales, contacts
Inventory Data – orders, stock, delivery
Student Data – names, addresses, grades
All businesses use a database of some type. Effective managers know the value of extracting of important data.
A structured collection of related data
A filing cabinet, an address book, a telephone directory, a timetable, etc.
In Access, your Database is your collection of related tables
Database management systems (DBMS) – software through which users and application programs interact with a database.
Database advantages from a business perspective include
Increased flexibility
Increased scalability and performance
Reduced information redundancy
Increased information integrity (quality)
Increased information security
3. Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.
• Reduced data redundancy
• Reduced updating errors and increased consistency
• Greater data integrity and independence from applications programs
• Improved data access to users through use of host and query languages
• Improved data security
• Reduced data entry, storage, and retrieval costs
• Facilitated development of new applications program
• A database gives users access to data, which they can view, enter, or update, within the limits of the access rights granted to them. Databases become all the more useful as the amount of data stored continues to grow.
• A database can be local, meaning that it can be used on one machine by one user only, or it can be distributed, meaning that the information is stored on remote machines and can be accessed over a network.
• The primary advantage of using databases is that they can be accessed by multiple users at once.
4. Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model.
The fundamental assumption of the relational model is that all data is represented as mathematical n-ary relations, an n-ary relation being a subset of the Cartesian product of ndomains. In the mathematical model, reasoning about such data is done in two-valued predicate logic, meaning there are two possible evaluations for each proposition: either true or false(and in particular no third value such as unknown, or not applicable, either of which are often associated with the concept of NULL). Some think two-valued logic is an important part of the relational model, while others think a system that uses a form of three-valued logic can still be considered relational.[citation needed][who?]
Data are operated upon by means of a relational calculus or relational algebra, these being equivalent in expressive power.
The relational model of data permits the database designer to create a consistent, logical representation of information. Consistency is achieved by including declared constraints in the database design, which is usually referred to as the logical schema. The theory includes a process of database normalization whereby a design with certain desirable properties can be selected from a set of logically equivalent alternatives. The access plans and other implementation and operation details are handled by the DBMS engine, and are not reflected in the logical model. This contrasts with common practice for SQL DBMSs in which performance tuning often requires changes to the logical model.
The basic relational building block is the domain or data type, usually abbreviated nowadays to type. A tuple is an unordered set of attribute values. An attribute is an ordered pair ofattribute name and type name. An attribute value is a specific valid value for the type of the attribute. This can be either a scalar value or a more complex type.
A relation consists of a heading and a body. A heading is a set of attributes. A body (of an n-ary relation) is a set of n-tuples. The heading of the relation is also the heading of each of its tuples.
A relation is defined as a set of n-tuples. In both mathematics and the relational database model, a set is an unordered collection of items, although some DBMSs impose an order to their data. In mathematics, a tuple has an order, and allows for duplication. E.F. Codd originally defined tuples using this mathematical definition.[6] Later, it was one of E.F. Codd's great insights that using attribute names instead of an ordering would be so much more convenient (in general) in a computer language based on relations[citation needed]. This insight is still being used today. Though the concept has changed, the name "tuple" has not. An immediate and important consequence of this distinguishing feature is that in the relational model theCartesian product becomes commutative.
A table is an accepted visual representation of a relation; a tuple is similar to the concept of row, but note that in the database language SQL the columns and the rows of a table are ordered.[citation needed]
A relvar is a named variable of some specific relation type, to which at all times some relation of that type is assigned, though the relation may contain zero tuples.
The basic principle of the relational model is the Information Principle: all information is represented by data values in relations. In accordance with this Principle, a relational database is a set of relvars and the result of every query is presented as a relation.
The consistency of a relational database is enforced, not by rules built into the applications that use it, but rather by constraints, declared as part of the logical schema and enforced by the DBMS for all applications. In general, constraints are expressed using relational comparison operators, of which just one, "is subset of" (⊆), is theoretically sufficient. In practice, several useful shorthands are expected to be available, of which the most important are candidate key (really, superkey) and foreign key constraints.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_model
5. Describe the benefits of a data-driven website.
A data-driven website is a site that can easily and quickly be updated by its managers to display requested information to the website user in the most effective way. Conversely, astatic website offers its users information that is rarely updated, but a data-driven website will constantly be updated with more recent and accurate information. The benefits of a data-driven website are numerous. The first and major benefit is that changing the content of the website can be done without specialized knowledge or expertise. Managing the website can be done with minimal training. The website administrator/master does not need to know HTML or programming in order to make any changes and updating a data-driven websites only takes a couple of clicks all in a few seconds. The second benefit is the level of speed when the website manager makes changes. When hosting a data-driven website, changing the content is done almost in real-time. Thirdly, data-driven websites inherently have a great deal of scalability. To this end, expanding a website is very simple which leaves plenty of room for growth. The graphics, layout or interactivity of a website can be changed anytime. This is great for companies that start out small then turn into medium size businesses and later evolve to become large corporations. The fourth advantage includes reduced error rate. Data entry employees are bound to make mistakes when making changes. Anyone that is designated with maintaining a website can also makes lots of errors. As a result, the system will experience inconsistencies, bugs, and flaws that will slow down the interactivity of the website and possibly corrupt the integrity of the information posted on the website. Fixing all of these problems will require significant efforts and resources. Fortunately, data-driven websites solve this dilemma by making it easy to fix any issues with the system. Of course, this makes an online customer very happy when they don’t have to deal with the mistakes of the website creators. The fifth advantage is the efficiency that is created when implementing a data-driven website. In a society that experiences frequent changes in trends and patterns, updating new information can by extensive. For this reason, companies using data-driven websites can make modifications very productively. Creating or storing the background template, layout, design, interface and structure of the website needs to only be done once. When a website administrator leaves the company, someone else can replace him without needing to search hard for another website administrator. This will increase the reliability and stability of the website along with the company’s reputation and goodwill.
http://sites.google.com/site/b188sjsu/Home/database/data-driven-website
6. Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organisation?
Data warehouse – a logical collection of information, gathered from many different operational databases, that supports business analysis activities and decision-making tasks.
The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to aggregate information throughout an organisation into a single repository for decision-making purposes.
Data warehouses are optimized for speed of data analysis. Frequently data in data warehouses are denormalised via a dimension-based model. Also, to speed data retrieval, data warehouse data are often stored multiple times—in their most granular form and in summarized forms called aggregates. Data warehouse data are gathered from the operational systems and held in the data warehouse even after the data has been purged from the operational systems.
A data warehouse provides a common data model for all data of interest regardless of the data's source. This makes it easier to report and analyze information than it would be if multiple data models were used to retrieve information such as sales invoices, order receipts, general ledger charges, etc.
Prior to loading data into the data warehouse, inconsistencies are identified and resolved. This greatly simplifies reporting and analysis.
Information in the data warehouse is under the control of data warehouse users so that, even if the source system data is purged over time, the information in the warehouse can be stored safely for extended periods of time.
Because they are separate from operational systems, data warehouses provide retrieval of data without slowing down operational systems.
Data warehouses can work in conjunction with and, hence, enhance the value of operational business applications, notably customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Data warehouses facilitate decision support system applications such as trend reports (e.g., the items with the most sales in a particular area within the last two years), exception reports, and reports that show actual performance versus goals.
A data mart is a subset of an organizational data store, usually oriented to a specific purpose or major data subject, that may be distributed to support business needs.[1] Data marts are analytical data stores designed to focus on specific business functions for a specific community within an organization. Data marts are often derived from subsets of data in a data warehouse, though in the bottom-up data warehouse design methodology the data warehouse is created from the union of organizational data marts. It’s used for following puposes:
Easy access to frequently needed data
Creates collective view by a group of users
Improves end-user response time
Ease of creation
Lower cost than implementing a full Data warehouse
Potential users are more clearly defined than in a full Data warehouse
A data mart can contain star schemas and other tables for more than one warehouse pack. For example, a single data mart might contain data for the following reporting needs:
• Single customer analysis for performance engineers
• Infrastructure analysis for network analysts
• Summarized, overall customer health for service level agreement management
httphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_warehouse
://publib.boulder.ibm.com/tividd/td/TEDW/SC32-1497-00/en_US/HTML/srfmst157.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mart
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Chapter 11 Systems Development and Project Management
CHAPTER 11 SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
1. Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management.
A project’s vision needs to be clear, concise and comprehensible, but it also has to be the same to all stakeholders. It is imperative that everyone be on the same page. From a business perspective, everyone has to be aligned with the direction of the overall business and the project’s overall objectives. It is key for members of an organization who desire to make meaningful contributions to understand the company’s investment and selection strategy for projects and how it determines and prioritizes the project pipeline. Projects consume vast amounts of resources. It is imperative to understand how the organization allocates its scarce and valuable resources on order to get the big picture. Time, cost and scope are interdependent variables. All projects are limited in some way by these three constraints. The Project Management Institute calls the framework for evaluating these competing demands the triple constraint. The relationship between these variables is such that if any one of the three factors changes, atleast one other factor is likely to be affected. For example, moving up a projects finish date could result in either increasing costs to hire more staff or decreasing the scope to eliminate features or functions. Increasing a project’s scope to include additional customer requests could result in extending the project’s time to completion or increasing the project’s cost or both in order to accommodate the new scope changes. Project quality is affected by the project manager’s ability to balance these competing demands. High quality projects deliver the agreed upon product or service on time and on budget.
Project management is the science of making intelligent trade-offs between time, cost and scope. All three of the factors combined determine a project’s quality. A successful project is typically on time, within budget, meets the business’s requirements and fulfills the customer’s needs.
Increased Scope = increased time + increased cost
Tight Time = increased costs + reduced scope
Tight Budget = increased time + reduced scope.
2. Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning?
• Pert Chart- A PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) chart is a graphical network model that depicts a project’s tasks and the relationships between those tasks. A dependency is a logical relationship that exists between the project tasks, or between a project task and a milestone. PERT charts define dependency between project tasks before those tasks are scheduled. The boxes in Figure represent project tasks, and the project manager can adjust the contents of the boxes to display various project attributes such as schedule The arrows indicate that one task is dependent on the start or completion of another task. The critical path (often indicated in red) is a path from the start to the finish that passes through all the tasks that are critical to completing the project in the shortest amount of time. PERT charts frequently display a projects critical path.
• Gantt chart – a simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a calendar
3. Identify the three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success?
A project manager must focus on managing three primary areas to ensure success:
Managing People- Managing people is one of the hardest and most critical tasks a project manager undertakes. Resolving conflicts within the team and balancing the needs of the project with the personal and professional needs of the team are two of the challenges facing project managers. More and more project managers are the main (and sometimes sole) interface with the client during the project. As such, communication, negotiation, marketing and salesmanship are just as important to the project manager as the financial and analytical acumen. Many times, the people management side of project management makes the difference in pulling off a successful project. Project managers not only need to ‘manage’ the stakeholders and the project, the need to manage the development team.
All teams undergo a life cycle. This cycle needs to be understood and managed as it is often critical to a project’s success (and the success of subsequent projects).
Managing communications- While many companies develop unique project management frameworks based on familiar project management standards, or adopt specific methodologies such as PRINCE all of them agree that communication is the key to excellent project management. This is quite easy to state, but not easy to accomplish. It is extremely helpful if a project manager plans what and how he or she will communicate as a formal part of the project management plan. This is most often referred to as a communications plan. A project manager distributes timely, accurate and meaningful information regarding project objectives that involve time, cost, scope and quality, and the status of each. The project manager also shares small wins and the project progresses, informs others of needed corrections, makes requests known for additional resources and keeps all stakeholders informed of the project schedule. The use of planning and scheduling tools such as Microsoft Project, blogs, wikis, and task tracking tools such as Flyspray aid in communicating information to the team about the project’s status.
Managing change- Change, whether it comes in the form of crisis, a market shift or a technological development, is challenging for all organizations. Successful organizations and successful people learn to anticipate and react appropriately to change. Snap-on tools, an internationally recognized maker of tools and equipment for specialists such as car mechanics, is successful at managing change. The company increased profits by 12 per cent while sales were down 6.7 per cent. Dynamic organizational change is inevitable and an organisation must effectively manage change as it evolves. With the numerous challenges and complexities that organisations face in today’s rapidly changing environment, effective change management this becomes a critical core competency. Change management is a set of techniques that aid in evolution, composition and policy management of the design and implementation of a system. A change management system includes a collection of procedures to document a change request and define steps necessary to consider the change based on the expected impact of change. Most change management systems require that a change request form be initiated by one or more project stakeholders (systems owners, users, customers, analysts, developers). Ideally, these changes request are considered by a change control board (CCB) that is responsible for approving or rejecting all change requests. The CCB’s composition typically includes a representative form each business area that has a stake in the project. The CCB’s decision to accept or reject each change is based on an impact analysis of the change. Change is dynamic and ongoing. Change is an opportunity, not a threat. Realizing that change is the norm rather than an exception will help an organisation stay ahead. Becoming a change leader and accepting the inevitability of change can help ensure that an organisation can survive and even thrive in times of change.
4. Outline 2 reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed.
The two reasons of failure rates are:
Failure to align project with organizational objectives
Poor scope
Unrealistic expectations
Lack of executive sponsorship
Lack of project management
Inability to move beyond individual and personality conflicts
Politics
Reasons for Success:
Project Sponsorship at executive level
Good project charter
Strong project management
The right mix of team players
Good decision making structure
Good communication
Team members are working toward common goals
1. Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management.
A project’s vision needs to be clear, concise and comprehensible, but it also has to be the same to all stakeholders. It is imperative that everyone be on the same page. From a business perspective, everyone has to be aligned with the direction of the overall business and the project’s overall objectives. It is key for members of an organization who desire to make meaningful contributions to understand the company’s investment and selection strategy for projects and how it determines and prioritizes the project pipeline. Projects consume vast amounts of resources. It is imperative to understand how the organization allocates its scarce and valuable resources on order to get the big picture. Time, cost and scope are interdependent variables. All projects are limited in some way by these three constraints. The Project Management Institute calls the framework for evaluating these competing demands the triple constraint. The relationship between these variables is such that if any one of the three factors changes, atleast one other factor is likely to be affected. For example, moving up a projects finish date could result in either increasing costs to hire more staff or decreasing the scope to eliminate features or functions. Increasing a project’s scope to include additional customer requests could result in extending the project’s time to completion or increasing the project’s cost or both in order to accommodate the new scope changes. Project quality is affected by the project manager’s ability to balance these competing demands. High quality projects deliver the agreed upon product or service on time and on budget.
Project management is the science of making intelligent trade-offs between time, cost and scope. All three of the factors combined determine a project’s quality. A successful project is typically on time, within budget, meets the business’s requirements and fulfills the customer’s needs.
Increased Scope = increased time + increased cost
Tight Time = increased costs + reduced scope
Tight Budget = increased time + reduced scope.
2. Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning?
• Pert Chart- A PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) chart is a graphical network model that depicts a project’s tasks and the relationships between those tasks. A dependency is a logical relationship that exists between the project tasks, or between a project task and a milestone. PERT charts define dependency between project tasks before those tasks are scheduled. The boxes in Figure represent project tasks, and the project manager can adjust the contents of the boxes to display various project attributes such as schedule The arrows indicate that one task is dependent on the start or completion of another task. The critical path (often indicated in red) is a path from the start to the finish that passes through all the tasks that are critical to completing the project in the shortest amount of time. PERT charts frequently display a projects critical path.
• Gantt chart – a simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a calendar
3. Identify the three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success?
A project manager must focus on managing three primary areas to ensure success:
Managing People- Managing people is one of the hardest and most critical tasks a project manager undertakes. Resolving conflicts within the team and balancing the needs of the project with the personal and professional needs of the team are two of the challenges facing project managers. More and more project managers are the main (and sometimes sole) interface with the client during the project. As such, communication, negotiation, marketing and salesmanship are just as important to the project manager as the financial and analytical acumen. Many times, the people management side of project management makes the difference in pulling off a successful project. Project managers not only need to ‘manage’ the stakeholders and the project, the need to manage the development team.
All teams undergo a life cycle. This cycle needs to be understood and managed as it is often critical to a project’s success (and the success of subsequent projects).
Managing communications- While many companies develop unique project management frameworks based on familiar project management standards, or adopt specific methodologies such as PRINCE all of them agree that communication is the key to excellent project management. This is quite easy to state, but not easy to accomplish. It is extremely helpful if a project manager plans what and how he or she will communicate as a formal part of the project management plan. This is most often referred to as a communications plan. A project manager distributes timely, accurate and meaningful information regarding project objectives that involve time, cost, scope and quality, and the status of each. The project manager also shares small wins and the project progresses, informs others of needed corrections, makes requests known for additional resources and keeps all stakeholders informed of the project schedule. The use of planning and scheduling tools such as Microsoft Project, blogs, wikis, and task tracking tools such as Flyspray aid in communicating information to the team about the project’s status.
Managing change- Change, whether it comes in the form of crisis, a market shift or a technological development, is challenging for all organizations. Successful organizations and successful people learn to anticipate and react appropriately to change. Snap-on tools, an internationally recognized maker of tools and equipment for specialists such as car mechanics, is successful at managing change. The company increased profits by 12 per cent while sales were down 6.7 per cent. Dynamic organizational change is inevitable and an organisation must effectively manage change as it evolves. With the numerous challenges and complexities that organisations face in today’s rapidly changing environment, effective change management this becomes a critical core competency. Change management is a set of techniques that aid in evolution, composition and policy management of the design and implementation of a system. A change management system includes a collection of procedures to document a change request and define steps necessary to consider the change based on the expected impact of change. Most change management systems require that a change request form be initiated by one or more project stakeholders (systems owners, users, customers, analysts, developers). Ideally, these changes request are considered by a change control board (CCB) that is responsible for approving or rejecting all change requests. The CCB’s composition typically includes a representative form each business area that has a stake in the project. The CCB’s decision to accept or reject each change is based on an impact analysis of the change. Change is dynamic and ongoing. Change is an opportunity, not a threat. Realizing that change is the norm rather than an exception will help an organisation stay ahead. Becoming a change leader and accepting the inevitability of change can help ensure that an organisation can survive and even thrive in times of change.
4. Outline 2 reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed.
The two reasons of failure rates are:
Failure to align project with organizational objectives
Poor scope
Unrealistic expectations
Lack of executive sponsorship
Lack of project management
Inability to move beyond individual and personality conflicts
Politics
Reasons for Success:
Project Sponsorship at executive level
Good project charter
Strong project management
The right mix of team players
Good decision making structure
Good communication
Team members are working toward common goals
Chapter 9 Customer Relationship Management and Business Intelligence
CHAPTER 9 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
1. What is your understanding of CRM?
Customer relationship management (CRM) involves managing all aspects of a customer’s relationship with an organisation to increase customer loyalty and retention as well as an organisation’s profitability. As organisations begin to migrate from the traditional product-focused organisation toward customer-driven organizations, they are recognising their customers as experts, not just revenue generators. Organisations are quickly realizing that without customers they simply would not exist, and it is critical they do everything they can to ensure their customers’ satisfaction. In an age when product differentiation is difficult, CRM is one of the most valuable assets a company can acquire. The sooner a company embraces CRM the better if it will be and the harder it will be for competitors to steal loyal and devoted customers.
2. Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management.
The two primary components of a CRM strategy are operational CRM and analytical CRM. Operational CRM supports traditional transactional processing for day to day front-office operations or systems that deal directly with the customers. Analytical CRM supports back-office operations and strategic analysis and includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers. The primary difference between operational CRM and analytical CRM is the direct interaction between the organisation and it’s customers. The enterprise CRM includes front office-operational CRM includes: Sales systems, Marketing Systems and Customer service Systems. The back office-analytical CRM includes: Collaborative CRM system, Data warehouse and Data mining.
3. Describe and differentiate the CRM technologies used by marketing departments and sales departments?
The CRM technologies used for marketing departments are:
List generators compile customer information from a variety of sources and segment the information for different marketing campaigns. Information sources include website visits, website questionnaires, online and off-line surveys, flyers, toll-free numbers, current customer lists and so on. After compiling the customer list, an organisation can use criteria to filter and sort the list for potential customers. Filter and sort criteria can include such things as household income, education level and age. List generators provide the marketing department with a solid understanding of the type of customer it needs to target for marketing campaigns.
Campaign management systems guide users through marketing campaigns performing such task as campaign definition, planning, scheduling, segmentation and success analysis. These advanced systems can even calculate quantifiable results for return on investment (ROI) for each campaign and track the results in order to analyse and understand how the company can fine-tune future campaigns.
Cross-selling is selling additional products or services to a customer. Up-selling is increasing the value of the sale. For example, Mc Donald’s performs cross-selling by asking customers if they would like ‘fries with that’. Mc Donald’s performs up-selling by asking customers if they would like to super-size their meals. CRM systems offer marketing department all kinds of information about their customers and their products, which can help them identify cross-selling and up-selling marketing campaigns.
The CRM technologies used for sales departments are:
Sales management automates each phase of the sales process, helping individual sales representatives co-ordinate and organize all of their accounts. Features include calendars to help plan customer meetings, alarm reminders signaling important tasks, customizable multimedia presentations and document generation. These systems can even provide an analysis of the sales cycle and calculate how each individual sales representative is performing during the sales process.
Contact management maintains customer contact information and identifies prospective customers for future sales. Contact management systems include such features as maintaining organizational charts, detailed customer notes and supplemental sales information. One of the more successful campaigns driven by the CRM system allowed 3M to deliver direct mail to targeted government agencies and emergency services in response to the US anthrax attacks in 2002. All inquiries to the mail campaign were automatically assigned to a sales representative who followed up with a quote. In little more than a week, the company had received orders for 35000 respirator masks.
Opportunity management CRM systems target sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales. Opportunities management systems determine potential customers and competitors and define selling efforts, including budgets, and schedules. Advanced opportunity management systems can even calculate the probability of a sale, which can save sales representatives significant time and money when attempting to find new customers. The primary difference between contact management and opportunity management is that contact management deals with existing customers and opportunity management deals with new customers.
4. How could a sales department use operational CRM technologies?
Sales departments were the first to begin developing CRM systems. Sales departments had two primary reasons to track customer sales information electronically. First, sales representatives were struggling with the overwhelming amount of customer account information they were required to maintain and track. Second, companies were struggling with the issue that much of their vital customer and sales information remained in the heads of their sales representatives. One of the first CRM components built to help address these issues was the sales force automation component. Sales force automation (SFA) is a system that automatically tracks all of the steps in the sales process. SFA products focus on increasing customer satisfaction, building customer relationships and improving product sales by tracking all sales information. Leads and potential customers are the lifeblood of all sales organizations., whether the products they are peddling are computers, clothing or cars. The three primary operational CRM technologies a sales department can implement to increase customer satisfaction are:
Sales management automates each phase of the sales process, helping individual sales representatives co-ordinate and organize all of their accounts. Features include calendars to help plan customer meetings, alarm reminders signaling important tasks, customizable multimedia presentations and document generation. These systems can even provide an analysis of the sales cycle and calculate how each individual sales representative is performing during the sales process.
Contact management maintains customer contact information and identifies prospective customers for future sales. Contact management systems include such features as maintaining organizational charts, detailed customer notes and supplemental sales information. One of the more successful campaigns driven by the CRM system allowed 3M to deliver direct mail to targeted government agencies and emergency services in response to the US anthrax attacks in 2002. All inquiries to the mail campaign were automatically assigned to a sales representative who followed up with a quote. In little more than a week, the company had received orders for 35000 respirator masks.
Opportunity management CRM systems target sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales. Opportunities management systems determine potential customers and competitors and define selling efforts, including budgets, and schedules. Advanced opportunity management systems can even calculate the probability of a sale, which can save sales representatives significant time and money when attempting to find new customers. The primary difference between contact management and opportunity management is that contact management deals with existing customers and opportunity management deals with new customers.
5. Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses?
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments or associated costs and incomes.
BI technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of Business Intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.
Business Intelligence often aims to support better business decision-making. Thus a BI system can be called a decision support system (DSS). Though the term business intelligence is often used as a synonym for competitive intelligence, because they both support decision making, BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes while competitive intelligence, is done by gathering, analyzing and disseminating information with or without support from technology and applications, and focuses on all-source information and data (unstructured or structured), mostly external to, but also internal to a company, to support decision making.
Although there could be many factors that could affect the implementation process of a BI system, research by 'Naveen K. Vodapalli' shows that the following are the critical success factors for business intelligence implementation:
a. Business-driven methodology & project management
b. Clear vision & planning
c. Committed management support & sponsorship
d. Data management & quality
e. Mapping solutions to user requirements
f. Performance considerations of the BI system
g. Robust & expandable framework
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArOFlLzblHo
6. Explain the problem associated with business intelligence. Describe the solution to this business problem?
Organizations need to have an agreed and documented business intelligence (BI) and
performance management (PM) strategy to enable them to deliver real business value from BI technology investments. The important thing is not the format and presentation of the strategy itself, but rather the collaborative process of building and agreeing a BI and PM strategy that identifies a shared set of goals based on an appraisal of the current situation. Gartner analysts often hear about cases where BI has produced a poor return on investment (ROI) — many of these can be attributed
directly to an organization’s lack of a BI strategy. Many organizations have defined an application architecture for their operational and transactional applications. However, they have not taken the same architectural approach to BI applications. BI applications, and the technology infrastructure that supports them, are often required to provide
capabilities that service multiple user types, provide for a variety of planning and analytic functions and allow information to be acquired from multiple
sources.
Taking a siloed technology or opportunistic/ tactical approach can lead to inconsistent results, inflexible applications and infrastructure, and higher cost of ownership. Most BI deployments view the end user as thedesign point. The goal is to deliver the right information to the right user at the right time. The problem is, most BI deployments require the user to stop operating in their traditional work space and
move to another environment to view information.
Most users are just too busy “putting out fires” to stop and browse through the reports in a data warehouse. Increasingly, BI and PM initiatives will think of the process itself as the design point. Technology options for BI and PM applications are at different stages of maturity. Some emerging technologies, such as interactive visualization and in-memory analytics, have been embraced by hundreds of customers and are ready for mainstream adoption. Others, such as BI integrated search, content analytics and BI via software-as-a-service, have not been widely adopted yet, but warrant closer examination. DM&I initiatives include establishing an enterprise wide data integration and quality improvement program, creating a robust data warehouse infrastructure, and implementing a comprehensive metadata strategy.
Technology advancements in these areas can influence or even completely revise a solution strategy and can make obsolete existing best practices in favor of new practices, and organizations must understand and plan for the impact of these changes. not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. The BI and performance management space is now dominated by megavendors, and further consolidation is likely as these vendors build out their portfolios.
The megavendors are driving the convergence of the BI platform and CPM suites markets, and are also increasingly moving into other areas of performance management. These areas have distinctly different customer bases and these different customer constituencies will complicate standardization decisions as vendors attempt to sell suites that combine BI and performance management functionality. Users must understand the shifting market dynamics and the capabilities of service providers to support their BI and PM initiatives. Previous research has shown that one of the biggest barriers to the success of BI is a lack of skills surrounding the use of information, tools
and applications that are available as part of its implementation.
Organizations need to develop and organize the program management, development and user skills necessary to turn business intelligence and performance management into a core competency. Using the term “business intelligence and performance management initiative” implies a change from the status quo. Executing change requires the ability of leaders to convince others that the change is justified. Often it is the leaders of ITcentric BI deployments that first envision the use of information to improve the company’s ability to make decisions and improve performance. Unfortunately, IT rarely has the political power to enforce this change. As a result, the key issue of building the business case for BI and PM is paramount to convincing executives to sponsor such a change.
One of the fatal flaws of BI is believing: “If we build it, they will come.” Indeed, lack of adoption is one of the most common and visible signs of failure. The situation often confounds leaders of IT-centric BI teams. They collect the requirements directly from the users and build solutions that exactly match their requirements. Yet the users still don’t come.
Unless they view the reports as strategic, and make reviewing them a part of their workflow, most business workers are too busy “putting out fires” to stop and review reports. Most organizations equate BI with information delivery. However, the real value of BI is strongly linked to achieving business goals and improving business performance. A growing range of analytic applications is emerging that leverage BI technologies to better understand and manage business performance.
Based on this trend, BI capabilities will become more pervasive in operational and workplace applications, as organizations seek to use BI to lead, support decisions, explore, measure, manage and optimize their businesses, and thereby drive business transformation.
Building dashboards for most organizations has been relatively straightforward. This is because the measures in most report-centric BI deployments
can be swiftly turned into a performance metric by providing a target goal and displaying the measure in an easy to consume graphic, such as a dial or traffic light. Performing this task transforms a report into a dashboard. BI and PM initiatives need to go further, linking the measures together with a cause and- effect relationship, enabling a user to perform root-cause analysis. BI projects rarely focus on governance because they usually evolve from departmental and workgroup applications. Contrast this with top-down-driven enterprise resource planning (ERP) application deployments that have strict security controls, and a formal process for application life cycle management which ensures proper development and testing before moving to production. This problem will be exacerbated when BI and PM projects are more widely adopted by a broader user community — inside and outside the company.
http://www.gartner.com/it/content/660400/660408/key_issues_bi_research.pdf
4. What are two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining?
Data mining is the application of statistical techniques to find patterns and relationships among data and to classify and predict.
Data mining represents a convergence of disciplines
Data-mining techniques emerged from statistics and mathematics and from artificial intelligence and machine-learning fields in computer science.
Benefits of BI include:
Single point of access to information for all users
BI across organisational departments
Up-to-the-minute information for everyone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence
1. What is your understanding of CRM?
Customer relationship management (CRM) involves managing all aspects of a customer’s relationship with an organisation to increase customer loyalty and retention as well as an organisation’s profitability. As organisations begin to migrate from the traditional product-focused organisation toward customer-driven organizations, they are recognising their customers as experts, not just revenue generators. Organisations are quickly realizing that without customers they simply would not exist, and it is critical they do everything they can to ensure their customers’ satisfaction. In an age when product differentiation is difficult, CRM is one of the most valuable assets a company can acquire. The sooner a company embraces CRM the better if it will be and the harder it will be for competitors to steal loyal and devoted customers.
2. Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management.
The two primary components of a CRM strategy are operational CRM and analytical CRM. Operational CRM supports traditional transactional processing for day to day front-office operations or systems that deal directly with the customers. Analytical CRM supports back-office operations and strategic analysis and includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers. The primary difference between operational CRM and analytical CRM is the direct interaction between the organisation and it’s customers. The enterprise CRM includes front office-operational CRM includes: Sales systems, Marketing Systems and Customer service Systems. The back office-analytical CRM includes: Collaborative CRM system, Data warehouse and Data mining.
3. Describe and differentiate the CRM technologies used by marketing departments and sales departments?
The CRM technologies used for marketing departments are:
List generators compile customer information from a variety of sources and segment the information for different marketing campaigns. Information sources include website visits, website questionnaires, online and off-line surveys, flyers, toll-free numbers, current customer lists and so on. After compiling the customer list, an organisation can use criteria to filter and sort the list for potential customers. Filter and sort criteria can include such things as household income, education level and age. List generators provide the marketing department with a solid understanding of the type of customer it needs to target for marketing campaigns.
Campaign management systems guide users through marketing campaigns performing such task as campaign definition, planning, scheduling, segmentation and success analysis. These advanced systems can even calculate quantifiable results for return on investment (ROI) for each campaign and track the results in order to analyse and understand how the company can fine-tune future campaigns.
Cross-selling is selling additional products or services to a customer. Up-selling is increasing the value of the sale. For example, Mc Donald’s performs cross-selling by asking customers if they would like ‘fries with that’. Mc Donald’s performs up-selling by asking customers if they would like to super-size their meals. CRM systems offer marketing department all kinds of information about their customers and their products, which can help them identify cross-selling and up-selling marketing campaigns.
The CRM technologies used for sales departments are:
Sales management automates each phase of the sales process, helping individual sales representatives co-ordinate and organize all of their accounts. Features include calendars to help plan customer meetings, alarm reminders signaling important tasks, customizable multimedia presentations and document generation. These systems can even provide an analysis of the sales cycle and calculate how each individual sales representative is performing during the sales process.
Contact management maintains customer contact information and identifies prospective customers for future sales. Contact management systems include such features as maintaining organizational charts, detailed customer notes and supplemental sales information. One of the more successful campaigns driven by the CRM system allowed 3M to deliver direct mail to targeted government agencies and emergency services in response to the US anthrax attacks in 2002. All inquiries to the mail campaign were automatically assigned to a sales representative who followed up with a quote. In little more than a week, the company had received orders for 35000 respirator masks.
Opportunity management CRM systems target sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales. Opportunities management systems determine potential customers and competitors and define selling efforts, including budgets, and schedules. Advanced opportunity management systems can even calculate the probability of a sale, which can save sales representatives significant time and money when attempting to find new customers. The primary difference between contact management and opportunity management is that contact management deals with existing customers and opportunity management deals with new customers.
4. How could a sales department use operational CRM technologies?
Sales departments were the first to begin developing CRM systems. Sales departments had two primary reasons to track customer sales information electronically. First, sales representatives were struggling with the overwhelming amount of customer account information they were required to maintain and track. Second, companies were struggling with the issue that much of their vital customer and sales information remained in the heads of their sales representatives. One of the first CRM components built to help address these issues was the sales force automation component. Sales force automation (SFA) is a system that automatically tracks all of the steps in the sales process. SFA products focus on increasing customer satisfaction, building customer relationships and improving product sales by tracking all sales information. Leads and potential customers are the lifeblood of all sales organizations., whether the products they are peddling are computers, clothing or cars. The three primary operational CRM technologies a sales department can implement to increase customer satisfaction are:
Sales management automates each phase of the sales process, helping individual sales representatives co-ordinate and organize all of their accounts. Features include calendars to help plan customer meetings, alarm reminders signaling important tasks, customizable multimedia presentations and document generation. These systems can even provide an analysis of the sales cycle and calculate how each individual sales representative is performing during the sales process.
Contact management maintains customer contact information and identifies prospective customers for future sales. Contact management systems include such features as maintaining organizational charts, detailed customer notes and supplemental sales information. One of the more successful campaigns driven by the CRM system allowed 3M to deliver direct mail to targeted government agencies and emergency services in response to the US anthrax attacks in 2002. All inquiries to the mail campaign were automatically assigned to a sales representative who followed up with a quote. In little more than a week, the company had received orders for 35000 respirator masks.
Opportunity management CRM systems target sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales. Opportunities management systems determine potential customers and competitors and define selling efforts, including budgets, and schedules. Advanced opportunity management systems can even calculate the probability of a sale, which can save sales representatives significant time and money when attempting to find new customers. The primary difference between contact management and opportunity management is that contact management deals with existing customers and opportunity management deals with new customers.
5. Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses?
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments or associated costs and incomes.
BI technologies provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations. Common functions of Business Intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.
Business Intelligence often aims to support better business decision-making. Thus a BI system can be called a decision support system (DSS). Though the term business intelligence is often used as a synonym for competitive intelligence, because they both support decision making, BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes while competitive intelligence, is done by gathering, analyzing and disseminating information with or without support from technology and applications, and focuses on all-source information and data (unstructured or structured), mostly external to, but also internal to a company, to support decision making.
Although there could be many factors that could affect the implementation process of a BI system, research by 'Naveen K. Vodapalli' shows that the following are the critical success factors for business intelligence implementation:
a. Business-driven methodology & project management
b. Clear vision & planning
c. Committed management support & sponsorship
d. Data management & quality
e. Mapping solutions to user requirements
f. Performance considerations of the BI system
g. Robust & expandable framework
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArOFlLzblHo
6. Explain the problem associated with business intelligence. Describe the solution to this business problem?
Organizations need to have an agreed and documented business intelligence (BI) and
performance management (PM) strategy to enable them to deliver real business value from BI technology investments. The important thing is not the format and presentation of the strategy itself, but rather the collaborative process of building and agreeing a BI and PM strategy that identifies a shared set of goals based on an appraisal of the current situation. Gartner analysts often hear about cases where BI has produced a poor return on investment (ROI) — many of these can be attributed
directly to an organization’s lack of a BI strategy. Many organizations have defined an application architecture for their operational and transactional applications. However, they have not taken the same architectural approach to BI applications. BI applications, and the technology infrastructure that supports them, are often required to provide
capabilities that service multiple user types, provide for a variety of planning and analytic functions and allow information to be acquired from multiple
sources.
Taking a siloed technology or opportunistic/ tactical approach can lead to inconsistent results, inflexible applications and infrastructure, and higher cost of ownership. Most BI deployments view the end user as thedesign point. The goal is to deliver the right information to the right user at the right time. The problem is, most BI deployments require the user to stop operating in their traditional work space and
move to another environment to view information.
Most users are just too busy “putting out fires” to stop and browse through the reports in a data warehouse. Increasingly, BI and PM initiatives will think of the process itself as the design point. Technology options for BI and PM applications are at different stages of maturity. Some emerging technologies, such as interactive visualization and in-memory analytics, have been embraced by hundreds of customers and are ready for mainstream adoption. Others, such as BI integrated search, content analytics and BI via software-as-a-service, have not been widely adopted yet, but warrant closer examination. DM&I initiatives include establishing an enterprise wide data integration and quality improvement program, creating a robust data warehouse infrastructure, and implementing a comprehensive metadata strategy.
Technology advancements in these areas can influence or even completely revise a solution strategy and can make obsolete existing best practices in favor of new practices, and organizations must understand and plan for the impact of these changes. not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. The BI and performance management space is now dominated by megavendors, and further consolidation is likely as these vendors build out their portfolios.
The megavendors are driving the convergence of the BI platform and CPM suites markets, and are also increasingly moving into other areas of performance management. These areas have distinctly different customer bases and these different customer constituencies will complicate standardization decisions as vendors attempt to sell suites that combine BI and performance management functionality. Users must understand the shifting market dynamics and the capabilities of service providers to support their BI and PM initiatives. Previous research has shown that one of the biggest barriers to the success of BI is a lack of skills surrounding the use of information, tools
and applications that are available as part of its implementation.
Organizations need to develop and organize the program management, development and user skills necessary to turn business intelligence and performance management into a core competency. Using the term “business intelligence and performance management initiative” implies a change from the status quo. Executing change requires the ability of leaders to convince others that the change is justified. Often it is the leaders of ITcentric BI deployments that first envision the use of information to improve the company’s ability to make decisions and improve performance. Unfortunately, IT rarely has the political power to enforce this change. As a result, the key issue of building the business case for BI and PM is paramount to convincing executives to sponsor such a change.
One of the fatal flaws of BI is believing: “If we build it, they will come.” Indeed, lack of adoption is one of the most common and visible signs of failure. The situation often confounds leaders of IT-centric BI teams. They collect the requirements directly from the users and build solutions that exactly match their requirements. Yet the users still don’t come.
Unless they view the reports as strategic, and make reviewing them a part of their workflow, most business workers are too busy “putting out fires” to stop and review reports. Most organizations equate BI with information delivery. However, the real value of BI is strongly linked to achieving business goals and improving business performance. A growing range of analytic applications is emerging that leverage BI technologies to better understand and manage business performance.
Based on this trend, BI capabilities will become more pervasive in operational and workplace applications, as organizations seek to use BI to lead, support decisions, explore, measure, manage and optimize their businesses, and thereby drive business transformation.
Building dashboards for most organizations has been relatively straightforward. This is because the measures in most report-centric BI deployments
can be swiftly turned into a performance metric by providing a target goal and displaying the measure in an easy to consume graphic, such as a dial or traffic light. Performing this task transforms a report into a dashboard. BI and PM initiatives need to go further, linking the measures together with a cause and- effect relationship, enabling a user to perform root-cause analysis. BI projects rarely focus on governance because they usually evolve from departmental and workgroup applications. Contrast this with top-down-driven enterprise resource planning (ERP) application deployments that have strict security controls, and a formal process for application life cycle management which ensures proper development and testing before moving to production. This problem will be exacerbated when BI and PM projects are more widely adopted by a broader user community — inside and outside the company.
http://www.gartner.com/it/content/660400/660408/key_issues_bi_research.pdf
4. What are two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining?
Data mining is the application of statistical techniques to find patterns and relationships among data and to classify and predict.
Data mining represents a convergence of disciplines
Data-mining techniques emerged from statistics and mathematics and from artificial intelligence and machine-learning fields in computer science.
Benefits of BI include:
Single point of access to information for all users
BI across organisational departments
Up-to-the-minute information for everyone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence
Chapter 8 Operations Management and Supply Chain Management
CHAPTER 8 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
1. Define the term operations management?
Operations management is the management of systems or processes that transform or process that convert or transform resources (including human resources) into goods and services. Operations management is responsible for managing the core processes used to manufacture goods and produce services. Essentially, the creation of goods or services involves transforming or converting inputs into outputs. Various inputs such as capital, labour and information are used to create goods or services using one or more transformation processes (e.g. sorting, transporting and cutting).
2. Explain operations management’s role in business?
The scope of OM ranges across the organization and includes many interrelated activities, such as forecasting, capacity, planning, scheduling, managing inventories, assuring quality, motivating employees, deciding where to locate facilities and more. Operations management focuses on carefully managing the processes to produce and distribute products and services. Usually, small businesses don't talk about "operations management", but they carry out the activities that management schools typically associate with the phrase "operations management."
Major, overall activities often include product creation, development, production and distribution. (These activities are also associated with Product and Service Management. However product management is usually in regard to one or more closely related product -- that is, a product line. Operations management is in regard to all operations within the organization.) Related activities include managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage, logistics and evaluations. A great deal of focus is on efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Therefore, operations management often includes substantial measurement and analysis of internal processes. Ultimately, the nature of how operations management is carried out in an organization depends very much on the nature of products or services in the organization, for example, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, etc.
Operations management is about how organizations produce or deliver the goods and services that provide the reason for their existence. Operations can be seen as one of the many functions. The operations function can be described as that part of the organization devoted to the production or delivery of goods and services. Not every organization will have a functional department called ‘operations’ but they will all undertake operations activities because every organization produces good and/or services. The operations role participates in a wide variety of decision areas in the organization, example:
• Business planning: What strategy should be followed?
• Product Design: What product/service should the organization provide?
• Resource Planning: What labour, materials and plant are required?
• Location and layout: Where and how do we operate?
• Job design: How do people and technology work together?
• Quality control: Are standards being met?
3. Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology?
Managers can use IT to heavily influence OM decisions including productivity, costs, flexibility, quality, and customer satisfaction. One of the greatest benefits of IT on OM is in making operational decisions because OM exerts considerable influence over the degree to which the goals and objectives of the organization are realized. Most OM decisions involve many possible alternatives that can have varying impacts on revenues and exepenses. Om information systems are critical for managers to be able to make well informed decisions.
Decision support systems and executive information systems can help ann organization perform what-if analysis, sensitivity analysis, drill-dwon and consolidation, Numerous managerial and strategic key decisions are based on OM information systems that affect the entire organisastion, including:
• What: What resources will be needed and in what amounts?
• When: When will each resource be needed? When should the woerl be scheduled? When should materials and other supplies be ordered? 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 (organization, methods, equipment)? How will resources be allocated?
• Who: Who will perform the work?
4. Explain supply chain management and its role in a business?
A supply chain consists of all parties involved, directly or indirectly, in the procurement of a product or raw material. Supply chain management (SCM) involves the management of information flows between and among stage4s in a supply chain to maximize toal supply chain effectiveness and profitability. The five basic components of supply chain management are:
• Plan
• Source
• Make
• Deliver
• Return
Dozens of steps are required to achieve and carry out each of the above components SCM software can enable an organization to generate efficiencies within these steps by automating and improving the information flows throughout and among the different supply chain components. Effective and efficient supply chain management systems can enable an organization to:
• Decrease the power of it’s buyers
• Increase it’s own supplier power
• Increase switching costs to reduce the threat of substitute products or services
• Create entry barriers thereby reducing the threat of new entrants
• Increase efficiencies while seeking a competitive advantage through cost leadership
• Supply Chain Management (SCM) – involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability
• Visibility - knowing immediately what is transacting at the customer end of the supply chain, instead of waiting days or weeks for this information to flow upstream, allows the organisation to react immediately.
• A supply chain is a network of organizations and facilities that transforms raw materials into products delivered to customers.
• Customers order from retailers, who in turn order from distributors, who in turn order from manufacturers, who in turn order from suppliers.
• The supply chain also includes transportation companies, warehouses, and inventories and some means for transmitting messages and information among the organizations involved.
5. List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain?
• Plan: This is the strategic portion of supply chain management. A company must have a plan for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for products or services. A big piece of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, cost less, and delivers high quality and value to customers.
• Source: Companies must carefully choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for making products. Companies must also develop a set of pricing, delivery, and payment processes with suppliers and create metrics for monitoring and improving the relationships.
• Make: This is the step where companies manufacture their products or services. This can include scheduling the activities necessary for production, testing, packaging and preparing for delivery. This is by far the most metric- intensive portion of the supply chain, measuring quality of levels, production output and worker productivity.
• Deliver: This step is commonly referred to as logistics. Logistics is the set of processes that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers, fulfill the orders via a network of warehouses, pick transportation companies to deliver the products, and implement a billing and invoicing system to facilitate payments.
• Return: This is typically the most problematic step in the supply chain. Companies must create a network for receiving defective and excess products and support customers who have problems with delivered products.
6. Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain?
As companies evolve into extended organizations, the roles of supply chain participants are changing. It is now common for suppliers to be involved in product development and distributors to act as consultants in brand marketing. The notion of virtually seamless information links within and between organizations is an essential element of integrated supply chains. Information technology’s primary role in SC is creating the integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions and within a firm- such as marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing and distribution- and between firms, which allow the smooth, synchronized flow of both information and product between customers, suppliers and transportation providers across the supply chain. Information technology integrates planning, decision making processes, business operating processes and information sharing for business performance management. Considerable evidence shows that this type of supply chain integration results in superior supply chain capabilities and profits.
Adaptec, Inc. manufactures semiconductors and markets them to the world’s leading PC, server and end-user markets through more than 115 distributors and thousands of value-added resellers worldwide. Adaptec designs and manufactures products at various third-party locations around the world. The company uses supply chain integration software over the Internet to synchronize planning. Adaptec personnel at the company’s geographically dispersed locations communicate in real time and exchange designs, test results and production and shipment information. Internet-based supply chains collaboration software helped the company reduce inventory levels and lead times.
Although people have been talking about the integrated supply chain for along time, it has been recently that advances in information technology have made it possible to bring the idea to life and truly integrate the supply chain. Visibility, consumer behavior, competition and speed are a few of the changes resulting from advances in information technology that are driving supply chains.
http://managementhelp.org/ops_mgnt/ops_mgnt.htm
1. Define the term operations management?
Operations management is the management of systems or processes that transform or process that convert or transform resources (including human resources) into goods and services. Operations management is responsible for managing the core processes used to manufacture goods and produce services. Essentially, the creation of goods or services involves transforming or converting inputs into outputs. Various inputs such as capital, labour and information are used to create goods or services using one or more transformation processes (e.g. sorting, transporting and cutting).
2. Explain operations management’s role in business?
The scope of OM ranges across the organization and includes many interrelated activities, such as forecasting, capacity, planning, scheduling, managing inventories, assuring quality, motivating employees, deciding where to locate facilities and more. Operations management focuses on carefully managing the processes to produce and distribute products and services. Usually, small businesses don't talk about "operations management", but they carry out the activities that management schools typically associate with the phrase "operations management."
Major, overall activities often include product creation, development, production and distribution. (These activities are also associated with Product and Service Management. However product management is usually in regard to one or more closely related product -- that is, a product line. Operations management is in regard to all operations within the organization.) Related activities include managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage, logistics and evaluations. A great deal of focus is on efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Therefore, operations management often includes substantial measurement and analysis of internal processes. Ultimately, the nature of how operations management is carried out in an organization depends very much on the nature of products or services in the organization, for example, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, etc.
Operations management is about how organizations produce or deliver the goods and services that provide the reason for their existence. Operations can be seen as one of the many functions. The operations function can be described as that part of the organization devoted to the production or delivery of goods and services. Not every organization will have a functional department called ‘operations’ but they will all undertake operations activities because every organization produces good and/or services. The operations role participates in a wide variety of decision areas in the organization, example:
• Business planning: What strategy should be followed?
• Product Design: What product/service should the organization provide?
• Resource Planning: What labour, materials and plant are required?
• Location and layout: Where and how do we operate?
• Job design: How do people and technology work together?
• Quality control: Are standards being met?
3. Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology?
Managers can use IT to heavily influence OM decisions including productivity, costs, flexibility, quality, and customer satisfaction. One of the greatest benefits of IT on OM is in making operational decisions because OM exerts considerable influence over the degree to which the goals and objectives of the organization are realized. Most OM decisions involve many possible alternatives that can have varying impacts on revenues and exepenses. Om information systems are critical for managers to be able to make well informed decisions.
Decision support systems and executive information systems can help ann organization perform what-if analysis, sensitivity analysis, drill-dwon and consolidation, Numerous managerial and strategic key decisions are based on OM information systems that affect the entire organisastion, including:
• What: What resources will be needed and in what amounts?
• When: When will each resource be needed? When should the woerl be scheduled? When should materials and other supplies be ordered? 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 (organization, methods, equipment)? How will resources be allocated?
• Who: Who will perform the work?
4. Explain supply chain management and its role in a business?
A supply chain consists of all parties involved, directly or indirectly, in the procurement of a product or raw material. Supply chain management (SCM) involves the management of information flows between and among stage4s in a supply chain to maximize toal supply chain effectiveness and profitability. The five basic components of supply chain management are:
• Plan
• Source
• Make
• Deliver
• Return
Dozens of steps are required to achieve and carry out each of the above components SCM software can enable an organization to generate efficiencies within these steps by automating and improving the information flows throughout and among the different supply chain components. Effective and efficient supply chain management systems can enable an organization to:
• Decrease the power of it’s buyers
• Increase it’s own supplier power
• Increase switching costs to reduce the threat of substitute products or services
• Create entry barriers thereby reducing the threat of new entrants
• Increase efficiencies while seeking a competitive advantage through cost leadership
• Supply Chain Management (SCM) – involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability
• Visibility - knowing immediately what is transacting at the customer end of the supply chain, instead of waiting days or weeks for this information to flow upstream, allows the organisation to react immediately.
• A supply chain is a network of organizations and facilities that transforms raw materials into products delivered to customers.
• Customers order from retailers, who in turn order from distributors, who in turn order from manufacturers, who in turn order from suppliers.
• The supply chain also includes transportation companies, warehouses, and inventories and some means for transmitting messages and information among the organizations involved.
5. List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain?
• Plan: This is the strategic portion of supply chain management. A company must have a plan for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for products or services. A big piece of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that it is efficient, cost less, and delivers high quality and value to customers.
• Source: Companies must carefully choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for making products. Companies must also develop a set of pricing, delivery, and payment processes with suppliers and create metrics for monitoring and improving the relationships.
• Make: This is the step where companies manufacture their products or services. This can include scheduling the activities necessary for production, testing, packaging and preparing for delivery. This is by far the most metric- intensive portion of the supply chain, measuring quality of levels, production output and worker productivity.
• Deliver: This step is commonly referred to as logistics. Logistics is the set of processes that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers, fulfill the orders via a network of warehouses, pick transportation companies to deliver the products, and implement a billing and invoicing system to facilitate payments.
• Return: This is typically the most problematic step in the supply chain. Companies must create a network for receiving defective and excess products and support customers who have problems with delivered products.
6. Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain?
As companies evolve into extended organizations, the roles of supply chain participants are changing. It is now common for suppliers to be involved in product development and distributors to act as consultants in brand marketing. The notion of virtually seamless information links within and between organizations is an essential element of integrated supply chains. Information technology’s primary role in SC is creating the integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions and within a firm- such as marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing and distribution- and between firms, which allow the smooth, synchronized flow of both information and product between customers, suppliers and transportation providers across the supply chain. Information technology integrates planning, decision making processes, business operating processes and information sharing for business performance management. Considerable evidence shows that this type of supply chain integration results in superior supply chain capabilities and profits.
Adaptec, Inc. manufactures semiconductors and markets them to the world’s leading PC, server and end-user markets through more than 115 distributors and thousands of value-added resellers worldwide. Adaptec designs and manufactures products at various third-party locations around the world. The company uses supply chain integration software over the Internet to synchronize planning. Adaptec personnel at the company’s geographically dispersed locations communicate in real time and exchange designs, test results and production and shipment information. Internet-based supply chains collaboration software helped the company reduce inventory levels and lead times.
Although people have been talking about the integrated supply chain for along time, it has been recently that advances in information technology have made it possible to bring the idea to life and truly integrate the supply chain. Visibility, consumer behavior, competition and speed are a few of the changes resulting from advances in information technology that are driving supply chains.
http://managementhelp.org/ops_mgnt/ops_mgnt.htm
Chapter 7 Networks, Telecommunications and Mobile Technology
CHAPTER 7 NETWORKS, TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
1. Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology?
Wireless fidelity (wi-fi) is a means of linking computers using infrared or radio signals. Wi-fi, or what is sometimes referred to as wireless LANs, represents only a small proportion of LANs in operation today, but rapidly growing proportion, Wi-fi technology has obvious advantages for people on the move who would like access to the Internet I airports, restaurants and hotels. Wi-fi is also gaining acceptance as a home or neighborhood network, permitting an assortment of laptop and desktop computers to share a single broadband access point to the Internet. Wireless LANs are also moving into the corporate and commercial world, especially in older buildings and confined spaces where it would be difficult or impossible to establish a wired LAN or where mobility is paramount. Even in newer buildings, wireless LANs are often being employed as overlay networks. In such cases, wi-fi is installed in addition to wired LANs so that employees can easily move their laptops from office to office and can connect to the network in places such as lunchrooms and patios. Public and private enterprises are always in pursuit of ideas that can make them more efficient and flexible, qualities that have a direct effective on both profitability and performance. As wireless networking moves into the mainstream, many organizations find that the addition of mobile network components offers undeniable business benefits, both direct and indirect.
Seen directly, wireless solutions can improve the connectedness of a workforce and enhance decision making by providing faster access to more current information. They can also be easier to maintain and configure, reducing the need for IT staff. Indirectly mobile solutions can improve worker satisfaction by providing easier, more flexible access options. They can even improve public perception, and introduce new, ‘cutting edge’ mechanisms for customer interaction.
2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP?
Voice over IP (VoIP) uses TCP/IP technology to transmit voice calls over Internet technology. As at February 2009, there were 269 VoIP providers in Australia and 10 in New Zealand. The telecommunications industry is experiencing great benefits from combining VoIP with emerging standards that allow for easier development, interoperability among systems and application integration. This is a big change for an industry that had relied on proprietary systems to keep customers paying for upgrades and new features. The VoIP and open standards combination has produced more choices, lower prices, and new applications.
Many VoIP companies typically offer calling within the country of origin for a fixed fee and a low per-minute charge for international calls. Since VoIP uses existing network and Internet infrastructure to route telephone calls more efficiently and inexpensively than traditional phone service, VoIP offers businesses significant cost savings, productivity gains and service enhancements.
Voice over IP systems promise to increase productivity while lowering costs--a win-win situation for businesses. The basis of this claim is the technology’s convergence of voice and data onto a single unified network. Users enjoy easier access to information, greater flexibility, and more advanced functionality. And the streamlined infrastructure is easier and cheaper to maintain.
Increased Productivity
Computer IP networks simply offer more agility than traditional wired phone circuitry. This efficiency translates into significant productivity gains for users in the following ways:
Access
Business VoIP users can take the office with them wherever they go, accessing the system via any internet connection. This anytime, anywhere access is crucial for a mobile workforce, accommodating workers stationed abroad, in transit, or simply telecommuting from home. With VoIP, users can check voicemail and email, access project data, and place calls--all over a single network, using a single communication device.
Integration
VoIP technology integrates with other communication technology, such as Customer Relationship Management software and Outlook. CRM integration is essential to increasing productivity across sales and support functions. The system can automatically retrieve customer data on an incoming call--thus service representatives have a caller’s history at their fingertips, and sales has the necessary information to target a pitch or track a customer’s order status. And everyone can benefit from unified messaging, which delivers voicemail messages to the user’s email inbox. Nortel’s CallPilot Unified Messaging, for example, combines voicemail, fax, and email into a single location accessible by internet or phone.
Flexibility
Business VoIP--especially hosted service--scales immediately to a business’ needs. Users can make changes to the system without relying on IT support, either by making changes directly on an Internet dashboard or by placing a call to a hosted service provider. The online interface allows users to set call-routing preferences, install new phones, and even add new functionality. Rearranging desktop phones is simply a matter of unplugging and moving them to another outlet--there’s no PBX circuit-switching or re-wiring necessary.
Functionality
Many advanced functions that are either a luxury or unavailable on PBX systems come standard with VoIP. These features include advanced call forwarding and electronic messaging, custom auto-attendant, three-way conferencing, videoconferencing, and Advanced Call Distribution (ACD) functions such as skills-based call routing.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Overall, the telecommunications industry estimates that businesses cut their telecommunications costs by about 30% when they switch to VoIP. Some of the factors in the cost savings include:
Lower startup costs
Business VoIP systems do not require the initial investment in PBX and other expensive equipment. Hosted service providers offer the lowest cost of entry; vendors such as Packet8 and Speakeasy offer monthly subscriptions designed for small, growing businesses. System hardware for a hosted plan amounts to no more than a set of IP phones and a voice gateway connected to the router.
Lower maintenance costs
A streamlined communications infrastructure dramatically reduces maintenance costs. Aside from the inherent benefit of consolidating communications into a single network, a data network is more flexible and cheaper to maintain than circuitry and phone lines. Hosted service providers take care of the VoIP system hardware off-premises, and on-premises systems feature user-friendly Web interfaces for easy maintenance.
Lower monthly phone bills
Since calls travel over the broadband connection rather than the PSTN, per-call and long-distance costs virtually disappear. BlueTrack, Inc. reported a 77% savings on monthly telecom bills when the company switched to Vocalocity. Hosted service providers such as Packet8 also lower costs by providing advanced functionality a la carte, allowing smaller businesses to invest only in the features they need.
3. Compare LANs and WANs?
Local Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs) are generic terms referring to two important basic types of networks. Let me try to summarize the characteristics of each, and then discuss their importance to the network engineer.
LAN/WAN Comparison
Local Area Networks (LANs) Wide Area Networks (WANs)
Most commonly: Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI Leased lines, serial links, ISDN, X.25
Advantage: speed distance
Cost center: dense installation (about one interface per room) length of long-haul lines (about one interface per 100 miles)
Current Speed: 10-100 Mbps (mostly 10 Mbps) 0.01 to 45 Mbps (mostly clustered around 1 Mbps)
Common uses: File sharing Email and file transfer (including Web)
Common problems: Cable disruption by users Cable disruption by backhoes
Conceptually: A bunch of lines hooking users together A bunch of lines hooking cities together
The Internet can be thought of as a bunch of LANs interconnected by WANs. An average packet will run across a company's local Ethernet (LAN), up an ISDN or leased line or PPP link (WAN) to an Internet Service Provider. The ISP has Ethernet too (LAN), that transports the packet to the right router for delivery to a cross-country provider (WAN). The packet begins bouncing from one LAN site to another over WAN links.
A good networking design must answer both the LAN and WAN needs of its users. WAN links tend to operate with tight bandwidth margins, but many LAN applications depend on lots of surplus bandwidth. This is especially true of Ethernet, which begins to show performance degradation once you exceed about 20% "theoretical capacity", don't expect standard Ethernet to carry more than about 2 Mbps. A network's biggest startup cost is the labor needed to install it.
4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective?
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) continues to evolve as a major technology for tracking goods and assets around the world. RFID uses radio waves to identify 'things' automatically and in real time. For the supply chain and operations it provides increased levels of product and asset visibility. For example, it can help hospitals track and locate expensive equipment more quickly to improve patient care. Retailers are looking at using the technology to automatically receive shipments, and have greater visibility into the merchandize in the back rooms and on the store shelves.
The basic components of any RFID system include:
• Tags
• Readers
• Electronic Product Code
• Object Naming Service and EPC IS
• Privacy
Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense (DoD), along with some other major retailers, now require their suppliers to begin RFID-tagging pallets and cases that are shipped into their selected distribution centers and stores. These mandates are about to impact a large number of manufacturers and distributors around the world. While businesses are looking to use the technology in many scenarios across various industries, the retailer mandates are the main driving force behind the current interest in the technology.
Today, companies looking to adopt RFID have to deal with three key challenges:
1. RFID Hardware—Selecting tags (chips assembled with an antenna on a label), Readers, and antennae (devices that communicate with the tags); placing RFID tags on the products; placing and configuring readers and antennae in the stores, warehouses, and other locations.
2. Software Infrastructure—Capturing and managing data from the RFID Readers, integrating the data into decision support systems, and sharing data with trading partners for business collaboration.
3. Evolving business processes—Supporting finer granularity, more real-time product data, automating supply chain execution, and developing new business processes for exploiting RFID technology.
A simple Supply Chain consists of end-customers or consumers who buy goods or services from a retailer at a store or through other channels, such as an e-commerce website. The retailer may stock the goods and tools to provide the services from a wholesaler or a distributor. The distributor normally buys goods in large quantities from a manufacturer who makes the goods in a factory or a production facility. The manufacturer buys raw materials from suppliers. A typical supply chain has one or more of each of these entities. There could be multiple tiers of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. As materials move from the initial supplier in the chain to the end-customer, value and costs are added at each node. As you get closer to the retailer, the supply chain becomes more complex, with different products sourced from many different business partners; a retailer like Wal-Mart sells thousands of products sourced from thousands of direct suppliers.
Businesses strive to make their supply chains more efficient by improving the information sharing throughout the supply chain. A retailer has to constantly share its forecast, which is based on many factors such as sea to as wireless LANs, represen2C and advertising. At each node in the supply chain, forecast and actual sales from the next node are collected, and planning may be done on what and how much to make, which drives what and how much to buy from the previous node. Today large demands are placed on manufacturers, distributors, and retailers along the chain to maximize efficiency, minimize cost, and provide the best value to the end-customer. These suppliers are all learning how to apply new technologies within their sectors to improve business earnings. One such technology is RFID.
Many large retailers have a complex and labor-intensive receiving process. As products arrive from manufacturers, a physical scan is required to read the barcode on the pallet and on each case (box) on the pallet. What was received has to be checked against the Advanced Ship Notice already sent by the supplier, and any discrepancies must be identified and resolved. The pallet is then put away as is, or it is unloaded and individual cases are stored away. As the distribution center (DC) receives orders from stores, new pallets may need to be assembled by loading the cases from the storage facility and shipped to the stores. Large DCs have huge conveyor belts on which cases from unloaded pallets are placed and routed to appropriate store palletization areas. Many of these retailers now require their selected suppliers to RFID-tag pallets and cases. Their goal is to automate the receiving into DCs and stores, to achieve significant labor savings, reduced data-related errors, and improved product availability. However, for the suppliers, this is simply a cost of doing business, unless the retailers share detailed product movement information with suppliers.
While RFID can impact many different areas of the supply chain, the following section presents fictitious scenarios between a supplier, a manufacturer, and a retailer, and identifies various processes that can benefit from enabling RFID.
4. Identify the advantages and disadvantage of deploying mobile technology?
ADVANTAGES
• Increased employee productivity – Utilize mobile broadband connectivity to ensure the productivity and efficiency of remote or traveling employees
• Expanded wireless access – Employ Custom Network Solutions to enhance in-building wireless coverage for more flexible connectivity
• Increased revenue – Enable easy deployment of ATM locations with wireless ATM solutions for secure transaction processing and additional convenience
• Increased employee availability – Reach employees more efficiently with UC, combining multiple communications seamlessly into one device
• Reduced costs – Avoid costly setup and maintenances fees required of hard-wired phone or Internet
• Enhanced customer experience – Provide customers a higher level of service in real time, resulting in increased customer satisfaction with strengthened trust for a long-term relationship
DISADVANTAGES
• WIRELESS TELEPHONY APPLICATION DELAYED
• LACK OF COOKIES FOR SESSION MANAGEMENT
• PREMATURE ENCRYPTION ENDPOINT
• SMALL DOWNLOADABLE UNIT SIZE
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/01721/wireless/wap.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=8mkH_jG5w7s
http://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/Wirelesscasestudies.pdf
http://freesoft.org/CIE/Topics/13.htm
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms954628.aspx
http://www.teledata.com/PDF_Resources/Resources/Not%20ShoreTel%20-%20Why%20VOIP%20makes%20Business%20Sense.pdf
http://www.aba.com/NR/rdonlyres/9B9355AC-FB65-4680-8602-9CCCB99D29AB/66144/FinwhitepaperFINAL210095877.pdf
http://www.google.com.au/imghp
1. Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology?
Wireless fidelity (wi-fi) is a means of linking computers using infrared or radio signals. Wi-fi, or what is sometimes referred to as wireless LANs, represents only a small proportion of LANs in operation today, but rapidly growing proportion, Wi-fi technology has obvious advantages for people on the move who would like access to the Internet I airports, restaurants and hotels. Wi-fi is also gaining acceptance as a home or neighborhood network, permitting an assortment of laptop and desktop computers to share a single broadband access point to the Internet. Wireless LANs are also moving into the corporate and commercial world, especially in older buildings and confined spaces where it would be difficult or impossible to establish a wired LAN or where mobility is paramount. Even in newer buildings, wireless LANs are often being employed as overlay networks. In such cases, wi-fi is installed in addition to wired LANs so that employees can easily move their laptops from office to office and can connect to the network in places such as lunchrooms and patios. Public and private enterprises are always in pursuit of ideas that can make them more efficient and flexible, qualities that have a direct effective on both profitability and performance. As wireless networking moves into the mainstream, many organizations find that the addition of mobile network components offers undeniable business benefits, both direct and indirect.
Seen directly, wireless solutions can improve the connectedness of a workforce and enhance decision making by providing faster access to more current information. They can also be easier to maintain and configure, reducing the need for IT staff. Indirectly mobile solutions can improve worker satisfaction by providing easier, more flexible access options. They can even improve public perception, and introduce new, ‘cutting edge’ mechanisms for customer interaction.
2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP?
Voice over IP (VoIP) uses TCP/IP technology to transmit voice calls over Internet technology. As at February 2009, there were 269 VoIP providers in Australia and 10 in New Zealand. The telecommunications industry is experiencing great benefits from combining VoIP with emerging standards that allow for easier development, interoperability among systems and application integration. This is a big change for an industry that had relied on proprietary systems to keep customers paying for upgrades and new features. The VoIP and open standards combination has produced more choices, lower prices, and new applications.
Many VoIP companies typically offer calling within the country of origin for a fixed fee and a low per-minute charge for international calls. Since VoIP uses existing network and Internet infrastructure to route telephone calls more efficiently and inexpensively than traditional phone service, VoIP offers businesses significant cost savings, productivity gains and service enhancements.
Voice over IP systems promise to increase productivity while lowering costs--a win-win situation for businesses. The basis of this claim is the technology’s convergence of voice and data onto a single unified network. Users enjoy easier access to information, greater flexibility, and more advanced functionality. And the streamlined infrastructure is easier and cheaper to maintain.
Increased Productivity
Computer IP networks simply offer more agility than traditional wired phone circuitry. This efficiency translates into significant productivity gains for users in the following ways:
Access
Business VoIP users can take the office with them wherever they go, accessing the system via any internet connection. This anytime, anywhere access is crucial for a mobile workforce, accommodating workers stationed abroad, in transit, or simply telecommuting from home. With VoIP, users can check voicemail and email, access project data, and place calls--all over a single network, using a single communication device.
Integration
VoIP technology integrates with other communication technology, such as Customer Relationship Management software and Outlook. CRM integration is essential to increasing productivity across sales and support functions. The system can automatically retrieve customer data on an incoming call--thus service representatives have a caller’s history at their fingertips, and sales has the necessary information to target a pitch or track a customer’s order status. And everyone can benefit from unified messaging, which delivers voicemail messages to the user’s email inbox. Nortel’s CallPilot Unified Messaging, for example, combines voicemail, fax, and email into a single location accessible by internet or phone.
Flexibility
Business VoIP--especially hosted service--scales immediately to a business’ needs. Users can make changes to the system without relying on IT support, either by making changes directly on an Internet dashboard or by placing a call to a hosted service provider. The online interface allows users to set call-routing preferences, install new phones, and even add new functionality. Rearranging desktop phones is simply a matter of unplugging and moving them to another outlet--there’s no PBX circuit-switching or re-wiring necessary.
Functionality
Many advanced functions that are either a luxury or unavailable on PBX systems come standard with VoIP. These features include advanced call forwarding and electronic messaging, custom auto-attendant, three-way conferencing, videoconferencing, and Advanced Call Distribution (ACD) functions such as skills-based call routing.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Overall, the telecommunications industry estimates that businesses cut their telecommunications costs by about 30% when they switch to VoIP. Some of the factors in the cost savings include:
Lower startup costs
Business VoIP systems do not require the initial investment in PBX and other expensive equipment. Hosted service providers offer the lowest cost of entry; vendors such as Packet8 and Speakeasy offer monthly subscriptions designed for small, growing businesses. System hardware for a hosted plan amounts to no more than a set of IP phones and a voice gateway connected to the router.
Lower maintenance costs
A streamlined communications infrastructure dramatically reduces maintenance costs. Aside from the inherent benefit of consolidating communications into a single network, a data network is more flexible and cheaper to maintain than circuitry and phone lines. Hosted service providers take care of the VoIP system hardware off-premises, and on-premises systems feature user-friendly Web interfaces for easy maintenance.
Lower monthly phone bills
Since calls travel over the broadband connection rather than the PSTN, per-call and long-distance costs virtually disappear. BlueTrack, Inc. reported a 77% savings on monthly telecom bills when the company switched to Vocalocity. Hosted service providers such as Packet8 also lower costs by providing advanced functionality a la carte, allowing smaller businesses to invest only in the features they need.
3. Compare LANs and WANs?
Local Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs) are generic terms referring to two important basic types of networks. Let me try to summarize the characteristics of each, and then discuss their importance to the network engineer.
LAN/WAN Comparison
Local Area Networks (LANs) Wide Area Networks (WANs)
Most commonly: Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI Leased lines, serial links, ISDN, X.25
Advantage: speed distance
Cost center: dense installation (about one interface per room) length of long-haul lines (about one interface per 100 miles)
Current Speed: 10-100 Mbps (mostly 10 Mbps) 0.01 to 45 Mbps (mostly clustered around 1 Mbps)
Common uses: File sharing Email and file transfer (including Web)
Common problems: Cable disruption by users Cable disruption by backhoes
Conceptually: A bunch of lines hooking users together A bunch of lines hooking cities together
The Internet can be thought of as a bunch of LANs interconnected by WANs. An average packet will run across a company's local Ethernet (LAN), up an ISDN or leased line or PPP link (WAN) to an Internet Service Provider. The ISP has Ethernet too (LAN), that transports the packet to the right router for delivery to a cross-country provider (WAN). The packet begins bouncing from one LAN site to another over WAN links.
A good networking design must answer both the LAN and WAN needs of its users. WAN links tend to operate with tight bandwidth margins, but many LAN applications depend on lots of surplus bandwidth. This is especially true of Ethernet, which begins to show performance degradation once you exceed about 20% "theoretical capacity", don't expect standard Ethernet to carry more than about 2 Mbps. A network's biggest startup cost is the labor needed to install it.
4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective?
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) continues to evolve as a major technology for tracking goods and assets around the world. RFID uses radio waves to identify 'things' automatically and in real time. For the supply chain and operations it provides increased levels of product and asset visibility. For example, it can help hospitals track and locate expensive equipment more quickly to improve patient care. Retailers are looking at using the technology to automatically receive shipments, and have greater visibility into the merchandize in the back rooms and on the store shelves.
The basic components of any RFID system include:
• Tags
• Readers
• Electronic Product Code
• Object Naming Service and EPC IS
• Privacy
Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense (DoD), along with some other major retailers, now require their suppliers to begin RFID-tagging pallets and cases that are shipped into their selected distribution centers and stores. These mandates are about to impact a large number of manufacturers and distributors around the world. While businesses are looking to use the technology in many scenarios across various industries, the retailer mandates are the main driving force behind the current interest in the technology.
Today, companies looking to adopt RFID have to deal with three key challenges:
1. RFID Hardware—Selecting tags (chips assembled with an antenna on a label), Readers, and antennae (devices that communicate with the tags); placing RFID tags on the products; placing and configuring readers and antennae in the stores, warehouses, and other locations.
2. Software Infrastructure—Capturing and managing data from the RFID Readers, integrating the data into decision support systems, and sharing data with trading partners for business collaboration.
3. Evolving business processes—Supporting finer granularity, more real-time product data, automating supply chain execution, and developing new business processes for exploiting RFID technology.
A simple Supply Chain consists of end-customers or consumers who buy goods or services from a retailer at a store or through other channels, such as an e-commerce website. The retailer may stock the goods and tools to provide the services from a wholesaler or a distributor. The distributor normally buys goods in large quantities from a manufacturer who makes the goods in a factory or a production facility. The manufacturer buys raw materials from suppliers. A typical supply chain has one or more of each of these entities. There could be multiple tiers of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. As materials move from the initial supplier in the chain to the end-customer, value and costs are added at each node. As you get closer to the retailer, the supply chain becomes more complex, with different products sourced from many different business partners; a retailer like Wal-Mart sells thousands of products sourced from thousands of direct suppliers.
Businesses strive to make their supply chains more efficient by improving the information sharing throughout the supply chain. A retailer has to constantly share its forecast, which is based on many factors such as sea to as wireless LANs, represen2C and advertising. At each node in the supply chain, forecast and actual sales from the next node are collected, and planning may be done on what and how much to make, which drives what and how much to buy from the previous node. Today large demands are placed on manufacturers, distributors, and retailers along the chain to maximize efficiency, minimize cost, and provide the best value to the end-customer. These suppliers are all learning how to apply new technologies within their sectors to improve business earnings. One such technology is RFID.
Many large retailers have a complex and labor-intensive receiving process. As products arrive from manufacturers, a physical scan is required to read the barcode on the pallet and on each case (box) on the pallet. What was received has to be checked against the Advanced Ship Notice already sent by the supplier, and any discrepancies must be identified and resolved. The pallet is then put away as is, or it is unloaded and individual cases are stored away. As the distribution center (DC) receives orders from stores, new pallets may need to be assembled by loading the cases from the storage facility and shipped to the stores. Large DCs have huge conveyor belts on which cases from unloaded pallets are placed and routed to appropriate store palletization areas. Many of these retailers now require their selected suppliers to RFID-tag pallets and cases. Their goal is to automate the receiving into DCs and stores, to achieve significant labor savings, reduced data-related errors, and improved product availability. However, for the suppliers, this is simply a cost of doing business, unless the retailers share detailed product movement information with suppliers.
While RFID can impact many different areas of the supply chain, the following section presents fictitious scenarios between a supplier, a manufacturer, and a retailer, and identifies various processes that can benefit from enabling RFID.
4. Identify the advantages and disadvantage of deploying mobile technology?
ADVANTAGES
• Increased employee productivity – Utilize mobile broadband connectivity to ensure the productivity and efficiency of remote or traveling employees
• Expanded wireless access – Employ Custom Network Solutions to enhance in-building wireless coverage for more flexible connectivity
• Increased revenue – Enable easy deployment of ATM locations with wireless ATM solutions for secure transaction processing and additional convenience
• Increased employee availability – Reach employees more efficiently with UC, combining multiple communications seamlessly into one device
• Reduced costs – Avoid costly setup and maintenances fees required of hard-wired phone or Internet
• Enhanced customer experience – Provide customers a higher level of service in real time, resulting in increased customer satisfaction with strengthened trust for a long-term relationship
DISADVANTAGES
• WIRELESS TELEPHONY APPLICATION DELAYED
• LACK OF COOKIES FOR SESSION MANAGEMENT
• PREMATURE ENCRYPTION ENDPOINT
• SMALL DOWNLOADABLE UNIT SIZE
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/01721/wireless/wap.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=8mkH_jG5w7s
http://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/Wirelesscasestudies.pdf
http://freesoft.org/CIE/Topics/13.htm
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms954628.aspx
http://www.teledata.com/PDF_Resources/Resources/Not%20ShoreTel%20-%20Why%20VOIP%20makes%20Business%20Sense.pdf
http://www.aba.com/NR/rdonlyres/9B9355AC-FB65-4680-8602-9CCCB99D29AB/66144/FinwhitepaperFINAL210095877.pdf
http://www.google.com.au/imghp
CHAPTER 5 ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURES
CHAPTER 5 ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURES
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 (IA) is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems. Among these activities are library systems, Content Management Systems, web development, user interactions, database development, programming, technical writing, enterprise architecture, and critical system software design. Information architecture has somewhat different meanings in these different branches of IS or IT architecture. Most definitions have common qualities: a structural design of shared environments, methods of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, and online communities, and ways of bringing the principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape. The term information architecture describes a specialized skill set which relates to the interpretation of information and expression of distinctions between signs and systems of signs.
In the context of information systems design, information architecture refers to the analysis and design of the data stored by information systems, concentrating on entities, their attributes, and their interrelationships. It refers to the modeling of data for an individual database and to the corporate data models an enterprise uses to coordinate the definition of data in several (perhaps scores or hundreds) of distinct databases. The "canonical data model" is applied to integration technologies as a definition for specific data passed between the systems of an enterprise. At a higher level of abstraction it may also refer to the definition of data stores.
An information infrastructure is defined by (Hanseth, 2002) as "a shared, evolving, open, standardized, and heterogeneous installed base" and by (Pironti, 2006) as all of the people, processes, procedures, tools, facilities, and technology which supports the creation, use, transport, storage, and destruction of information. Infrastructure architecture - includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment that, when combined, provides the underlying foundation to support the organisation’s goals – this must be dynamic as it will change as the organisation changes.
2. Describe how an organisation can implement solid information architecture?
Information architecture has become synonymous with information architecture for the web. However, as more organizations are adopting content management systems to manage both web and enterprise content, there is a new area of information architecture emerging—the information architecture of content management. One of the key factors for a successful content management implementation is a solid information architecture. Too often organizations implement content management without identifying the authors' needs, without looking closely at the content to determine how it could be most effectively structured to support user/customer needs, and without analyzing their current and desired content life cycle. This results in resistance to adoption, increased costs, and failure to achieve the desired results. Information architecture can make a significant contribution to the success of your content management solution.
The components of information architecture:
There are a number of components of information architecture that are key in building a solid base for a content management implementation. They include analysis, content models, granularity, metadata, reuse and repository architectures, reuse management, and content management.
Analysis
Good information architecture requires that you start with a thorough analysis of your organizations' needs, your current and desired content life cycle, your customers' needs, the state of your current content, and your technological requirements. During the analysis phase, you need to look at your content very closely to determine how it's put together and the types of content it contains. This will help you to determine opportunities for reuse. You also need to talk to the people who create and use the content to learn what their issues are. This will help you to determine problem areas in work processes that can be addressed in workflow.
Content models
One of the most critical phases of your information architecture is building the content models on which your content management strategy is based. Content modeling involves identifying and documenting the structure of your content in detail. During the content modeling phase, you determine the elements required for each information product (or output) and how each information product will be designed for optimum usability and reuse. Content models define the structure and organization of your information products, indicating which individual elements they contain, their frequency, and their usage (e.g., is an element optional or mandatory). Models become the road map for your content and are used to develop DTDs/schemas (if you are using XML), or content frameworks and templates.
Granularity of content
Designing the granularity of your content can sometimes be problematic. Authors typically like content very granular so they know exactly what to put into an element (e.g., overview, procedure step). Very granular content usually results from more semantic models (models with tags that indicate the meaning of the element such as “overview” instead of tags with generic names such as “body” or “para”). Highly semantic models are more problematic for style sheet designers because all unique elements require an individual style. Because semantic names by their nature are unique, all semantically-named elements require their own styles.
Granularity also affects how you reuse content. Content that is too granular can be difficult to manage in your content management system, but content that is not granular enough may not be as reusable. Accordingly, CMS developers may push back on the level of granularity, opting for content that is not granular. Analysis of reusability, authoring processes, and tools is important when determining granularity and as you develop your information architecture, you will make changes to your granularity as you determine the optimum level of granularity for everyone.
Metadata
There are typically two types of metadata: categorization metadata and element metadata. Users tend to retrieve information based on categorization metadata, whereas authors tend to retrieve information based on element metadata. Categorization metadata is used extensively on web sites to categorize content for effective retrieval. It is also used extensively in document management to classify documents for storage. Authors, on the other hand, use element metadata to classify elements of content for reuse, retrieval, and tracking. Care should be taken to ensure that you can retrieve your elements once stored. Your ability to reuse information is only as good as your ability to find it. And if you employ systematic reuse (see Reuse architecture) your metadata must be very thorough so that the system can correctly find and populate the content into the required information products and into the required places within information products. Like granularity, metadata design also continues to develop as you refine your architecture.
Reuse architecture
Content can be reused within an information product, across information products, and potentially across the enterprise. Traditionally, the most common form of reuse has been opportunistic, meaning that authors make a decision whether to reuse content or not. However, opportunistic reuse is also the least efficient because it requires that authors know a reusable element exists and what it is called, then find the element and reuse it in their information product. In addition, if authors are not aware that an element already exists, they may recreate it causing multiple elements to proliferate in your content management system. This also makes it difficult to know which of the multiple elements is the definitive one.
Alternatively, systematic reuse is automatic reuse. Once specific content has been identified as reusable in a specific location, it is automatically inserted (auto-populated) into the appropriate locations. Authors do not have to determine if the reusable content exists or search for, retrieve it, and insert it into the appropriate places. Systematic reuse ensures that content is automatically reused where necessary, thus reducing the burden on authors. When designing your reuse architecture, considerable analysis of information products is required to decide which elements are systematically reusable and where.
Once you've decided which elements are systematically reusable, you create content and structure reuse maps as part of your reuse architecture. The content reuse maps identify where content can and should be reused and if it should be reused identically or can be used derivatively (with change). Content reuse maps are used by your content management system to programmatically (automatically) ensure that content is reused. In addition to identifying content reuse, you need to identify structural reuse as part of your reuse architecture. Structural reuse identifies where common structures are reused. For example, you might have a product description element in a brochure, but you would also have a product description element on the web. Even though those product description elements may be structurally the same, they may contain different content. Structure reuse maps are used by DTD/template developers in creating consistent structures for authors to follow.
Repository architecture
The repository architecture defines how you will structure your repository. For example you may have “building block” directories that include content that is frequently reused (e.g., glossary, procedures, product descriptions) and the remainder of your content stored in information product directories (e.g., all brochures) that are further organized by product. Or you may decide to organize your content by product with each of the information products as a subset of the product. You need to determine what is the most effective repository structure for your needs. Note, however, that the identified structure is not a physical file structure. Content is stored in the database, not in directories. The repository structure enables your authors to easily find information.
Reuse management
An area of information architecture that is frequently overlooked is that of reuse management. If authors opportunistically reuse content and create derivatives of the content, it quickly becomes difficult to identify which element is the definitive one. Your content management system will end up looking like your current file structure and you will have no clear idea of what is source content, where content is reused, and if there are multiple versions of the same piece of content. Reuse management means creating rules to manage your reusable content. The reuse rules are formalized in your content management system through workflow and in your system configuration.
Content control
Content control, as part of your information architecture, identifies how your content should be managed. You need to determine how content should be controlled through its life cycle and what security should be applied to it. Content control is tightly integrated with your reuse management strategy and business practices and like reuse management, it is formalized in workflow.
http://www.rockley.com/TheRockleyReport/V1I1/Information%20Architecture.htm
3. List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture?
The five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture are:-
•Reliability- High Accuracy and low Accuracy puts the organisation at risk.
•Scalability- Systems ability to meet growth requirements and involves Capacity planning
•Flexibility- Able to meet changing business demands andthis might involve multinational challenges.
•Availability- High availability 99.999% uptime and ensures business continuity
•Performance- How quickly a system performs a certain task and growing pressure on systems to be faster
4. Describe the business value in deploying service oriented architecture?
•Service oriented architecture (SOA) is a business-driven IT architectural approach that supports integrating a business as linked, repeatable tasks or services
•SOA ensures IT systems can adapt quickly, easily, and economically to support rapidly changing business needs
•Using meta data and existing applications, users can re-use applications (services) many times for different tasks, making development cheaper and more flexible.
•A SOA allows enterprises to plug in new services or upgrade existing services in a granular fashion.
•Respond more quickly and cost-effectively to changing market-conditions
•The key technical concepts of SOA are:
a.services
b.interoperability
c.loose coupling
•Service oriented architecture begins with a service
•(SOA) service - can be a business task, such as checking a potential customer's credit rating only opening a new account
•Services are “like” software products
•A Web service provides one way of implementing the automated aspects of a given business or technical service.
5. What is an event?
Event – is an electronic message indicating that something has happened, it detect threats and opportunities and alerts those who can act on the information.
6. What is a service?
Service – contains a set of related commands that can be re-used, it is more like a software product than they are a coding project
• Need to be reusable if they are going to have an impact on productivity.
7. What emerging technologies can companies use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?
• Grid computing
• Virtualisation
• Service oriented architecture (SOA)
• VoiP
• Lan (Local Area Network)
• Wan (Wide Area Network)
• Man (Metropolitan Area Network)
• VPN (Virtual private network)
• VAN (Value-added network)
• Wireless local area network (wLAN)
• Cellular phones and pagers
• Cordless phone peripherals
• Satellite television
• Wi MAX wireless broadband
• Security sensor
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 (IA) is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems. Among these activities are library systems, Content Management Systems, web development, user interactions, database development, programming, technical writing, enterprise architecture, and critical system software design. Information architecture has somewhat different meanings in these different branches of IS or IT architecture. Most definitions have common qualities: a structural design of shared environments, methods of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, and online communities, and ways of bringing the principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape. The term information architecture describes a specialized skill set which relates to the interpretation of information and expression of distinctions between signs and systems of signs.
In the context of information systems design, information architecture refers to the analysis and design of the data stored by information systems, concentrating on entities, their attributes, and their interrelationships. It refers to the modeling of data for an individual database and to the corporate data models an enterprise uses to coordinate the definition of data in several (perhaps scores or hundreds) of distinct databases. The "canonical data model" is applied to integration technologies as a definition for specific data passed between the systems of an enterprise. At a higher level of abstraction it may also refer to the definition of data stores.
An information infrastructure is defined by (Hanseth, 2002) as "a shared, evolving, open, standardized, and heterogeneous installed base" and by (Pironti, 2006) as all of the people, processes, procedures, tools, facilities, and technology which supports the creation, use, transport, storage, and destruction of information. Infrastructure architecture - includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment that, when combined, provides the underlying foundation to support the organisation’s goals – this must be dynamic as it will change as the organisation changes.
2. Describe how an organisation can implement solid information architecture?
Information architecture has become synonymous with information architecture for the web. However, as more organizations are adopting content management systems to manage both web and enterprise content, there is a new area of information architecture emerging—the information architecture of content management. One of the key factors for a successful content management implementation is a solid information architecture. Too often organizations implement content management without identifying the authors' needs, without looking closely at the content to determine how it could be most effectively structured to support user/customer needs, and without analyzing their current and desired content life cycle. This results in resistance to adoption, increased costs, and failure to achieve the desired results. Information architecture can make a significant contribution to the success of your content management solution.
The components of information architecture:
There are a number of components of information architecture that are key in building a solid base for a content management implementation. They include analysis, content models, granularity, metadata, reuse and repository architectures, reuse management, and content management.
Analysis
Good information architecture requires that you start with a thorough analysis of your organizations' needs, your current and desired content life cycle, your customers' needs, the state of your current content, and your technological requirements. During the analysis phase, you need to look at your content very closely to determine how it's put together and the types of content it contains. This will help you to determine opportunities for reuse. You also need to talk to the people who create and use the content to learn what their issues are. This will help you to determine problem areas in work processes that can be addressed in workflow.
Content models
One of the most critical phases of your information architecture is building the content models on which your content management strategy is based. Content modeling involves identifying and documenting the structure of your content in detail. During the content modeling phase, you determine the elements required for each information product (or output) and how each information product will be designed for optimum usability and reuse. Content models define the structure and organization of your information products, indicating which individual elements they contain, their frequency, and their usage (e.g., is an element optional or mandatory). Models become the road map for your content and are used to develop DTDs/schemas (if you are using XML), or content frameworks and templates.
Granularity of content
Designing the granularity of your content can sometimes be problematic. Authors typically like content very granular so they know exactly what to put into an element (e.g., overview, procedure step). Very granular content usually results from more semantic models (models with tags that indicate the meaning of the element such as “overview” instead of tags with generic names such as “body” or “para”). Highly semantic models are more problematic for style sheet designers because all unique elements require an individual style. Because semantic names by their nature are unique, all semantically-named elements require their own styles.
Granularity also affects how you reuse content. Content that is too granular can be difficult to manage in your content management system, but content that is not granular enough may not be as reusable. Accordingly, CMS developers may push back on the level of granularity, opting for content that is not granular. Analysis of reusability, authoring processes, and tools is important when determining granularity and as you develop your information architecture, you will make changes to your granularity as you determine the optimum level of granularity for everyone.
Metadata
There are typically two types of metadata: categorization metadata and element metadata. Users tend to retrieve information based on categorization metadata, whereas authors tend to retrieve information based on element metadata. Categorization metadata is used extensively on web sites to categorize content for effective retrieval. It is also used extensively in document management to classify documents for storage. Authors, on the other hand, use element metadata to classify elements of content for reuse, retrieval, and tracking. Care should be taken to ensure that you can retrieve your elements once stored. Your ability to reuse information is only as good as your ability to find it. And if you employ systematic reuse (see Reuse architecture) your metadata must be very thorough so that the system can correctly find and populate the content into the required information products and into the required places within information products. Like granularity, metadata design also continues to develop as you refine your architecture.
Reuse architecture
Content can be reused within an information product, across information products, and potentially across the enterprise. Traditionally, the most common form of reuse has been opportunistic, meaning that authors make a decision whether to reuse content or not. However, opportunistic reuse is also the least efficient because it requires that authors know a reusable element exists and what it is called, then find the element and reuse it in their information product. In addition, if authors are not aware that an element already exists, they may recreate it causing multiple elements to proliferate in your content management system. This also makes it difficult to know which of the multiple elements is the definitive one.
Alternatively, systematic reuse is automatic reuse. Once specific content has been identified as reusable in a specific location, it is automatically inserted (auto-populated) into the appropriate locations. Authors do not have to determine if the reusable content exists or search for, retrieve it, and insert it into the appropriate places. Systematic reuse ensures that content is automatically reused where necessary, thus reducing the burden on authors. When designing your reuse architecture, considerable analysis of information products is required to decide which elements are systematically reusable and where.
Once you've decided which elements are systematically reusable, you create content and structure reuse maps as part of your reuse architecture. The content reuse maps identify where content can and should be reused and if it should be reused identically or can be used derivatively (with change). Content reuse maps are used by your content management system to programmatically (automatically) ensure that content is reused. In addition to identifying content reuse, you need to identify structural reuse as part of your reuse architecture. Structural reuse identifies where common structures are reused. For example, you might have a product description element in a brochure, but you would also have a product description element on the web. Even though those product description elements may be structurally the same, they may contain different content. Structure reuse maps are used by DTD/template developers in creating consistent structures for authors to follow.
Repository architecture
The repository architecture defines how you will structure your repository. For example you may have “building block” directories that include content that is frequently reused (e.g., glossary, procedures, product descriptions) and the remainder of your content stored in information product directories (e.g., all brochures) that are further organized by product. Or you may decide to organize your content by product with each of the information products as a subset of the product. You need to determine what is the most effective repository structure for your needs. Note, however, that the identified structure is not a physical file structure. Content is stored in the database, not in directories. The repository structure enables your authors to easily find information.
Reuse management
An area of information architecture that is frequently overlooked is that of reuse management. If authors opportunistically reuse content and create derivatives of the content, it quickly becomes difficult to identify which element is the definitive one. Your content management system will end up looking like your current file structure and you will have no clear idea of what is source content, where content is reused, and if there are multiple versions of the same piece of content. Reuse management means creating rules to manage your reusable content. The reuse rules are formalized in your content management system through workflow and in your system configuration.
Content control
Content control, as part of your information architecture, identifies how your content should be managed. You need to determine how content should be controlled through its life cycle and what security should be applied to it. Content control is tightly integrated with your reuse management strategy and business practices and like reuse management, it is formalized in workflow.
http://www.rockley.com/TheRockleyReport/V1I1/Information%20Architecture.htm
3. List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture?
The five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture are:-
•Reliability- High Accuracy and low Accuracy puts the organisation at risk.
•Scalability- Systems ability to meet growth requirements and involves Capacity planning
•Flexibility- Able to meet changing business demands andthis might involve multinational challenges.
•Availability- High availability 99.999% uptime and ensures business continuity
•Performance- How quickly a system performs a certain task and growing pressure on systems to be faster
4. Describe the business value in deploying service oriented architecture?
•Service oriented architecture (SOA) is a business-driven IT architectural approach that supports integrating a business as linked, repeatable tasks or services
•SOA ensures IT systems can adapt quickly, easily, and economically to support rapidly changing business needs
•Using meta data and existing applications, users can re-use applications (services) many times for different tasks, making development cheaper and more flexible.
•A SOA allows enterprises to plug in new services or upgrade existing services in a granular fashion.
•Respond more quickly and cost-effectively to changing market-conditions
•The key technical concepts of SOA are:
a.services
b.interoperability
c.loose coupling
•Service oriented architecture begins with a service
•(SOA) service - can be a business task, such as checking a potential customer's credit rating only opening a new account
•Services are “like” software products
•A Web service provides one way of implementing the automated aspects of a given business or technical service.
5. What is an event?
Event – is an electronic message indicating that something has happened, it detect threats and opportunities and alerts those who can act on the information.
6. What is a service?
Service – contains a set of related commands that can be re-used, it is more like a software product than they are a coding project
• Need to be reusable if they are going to have an impact on productivity.
7. What emerging technologies can companies use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?
• Grid computing
• Virtualisation
• Service oriented architecture (SOA)
• VoiP
• Lan (Local Area Network)
• Wan (Wide Area Network)
• Man (Metropolitan Area Network)
• VPN (Virtual private network)
• VAN (Value-added network)
• Wireless local area network (wLAN)
• Cellular phones and pagers
• Cordless phone peripherals
• Satellite television
• Wi MAX wireless broadband
• Security sensor
Monday, April 5, 2010
CHAPTER 4 ETHICS AND INFORMATION SECURITY
CHAPTER 4 ETHICS AND INFORMATION SECURITY
1. Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology?
• Intellectual property- The collection of rights that protect creative an intellectual effort.
• Copyright- The executive right to do so, or omit to do so, certain acts with intangible property such as a song, video game and some types of proprietary documents.
• Fair use doctrine- In certain situations, it is legal to use copyrighted material.
• Pirated software- The unauthorized use, duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted software.
• Counterfeit software- Software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and solid as such.
2. Describe the relationship between an ‘email- privacy policy’ and an ‘Internet use policy’?
Organisations can mitigate the risks of email and instant messaging communication tools by implementing and adhering to an email privacy policy. Email privacy policy details the extent to which email messages may be read by others. On the other hand, internet use policy contains general principles to guide the proper use of the internet within an organization. The policy
• Describes the available Internet services
• Defines the purpose and restriction of Internet access
• Complements the ethical computer use policy
• Describes user responsibilities
• States the ramification for violations
3. Summarize the five steps to creating an information security plan?
a) Develop the information security policies- Identify who is responsible and accountable for designing and implementing the organization’s information security policies.
b) Communicate the information security policies- Train all employees on the policies and establish clear expectations for following the policies.
c) Identify critical information assets and risks- Require the use of user ID’s, passwords and antivirus software on all systems.
d) Test and re-evaluate risks- Continually perform security review, audits, background checks and security assessments.
e) Obtain stakeholder support- Gain the approval and support of the information security policies from the board of directors and all stakeholders.
4. What do the terms authentication and authorization mean, how do they differ, provide some examples of each term?
Authentication is a method for confirming users’ identities. Once a system determines the authentication of a user, it can then determine the access privileges (or authorization) for that user. Example includes password based authentication and device based authentication whereas, authorisation is the process of giving someone permission to do or have something. Examples include using group permissions or the difference between a normal user and the superuser on a unix system. In a multiple user computer systems, user access or authorization determines such things as file access, hours of access and amount of allocated storage space. Authentication and authorization techniques are broken down into three categories, and the most secure type involves a combination of all three:
• Something the user knows, such as a user ID and password.
• Something the user has, such as a smart card or token.
• Something that is part of the user, such as a fingerprint or voice signature.
For further reference http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/workshops/security/auth.html
5. What are the five main types of Security risks, suggest one method to prevent the severity of risk?
a) Human Error- Not malicious, by humans.
b) Natural Disasters- Floods, earthquakes and terrorist attack.
c) Technical Failures- Software Bugs and hardware crashes.
d) Deliberate Acts- Sabotage and white collar crime.
e) Management Failure- Lack of procedure, documentation and training.
Prevention:
• Strong Password- letters and numbers
• Password Policy- change passwords regularly
FOR ALL REFERENCES TO IMAGES
http://www.westga.edu/assetsDept/policy/securecomp.JPG
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10468_13/tour/b10374/img/mgt1_09.gif&imgrefurl=http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10468_13/tour/b10374/security006.htm&usg=__s67PokUpdXeHPp9reqSkdqINFho=&h=375&w=498&sz=33&hl=en&start=2&itbs=1&tbnid=FhU_PkoAYcoD4M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAUTHENTICATION%2BAND%2BAUTHORIZATION%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.filetransit.com/images/screen/70d4d972aa696706dd66a099cd4f0b68_Network_Security_Map_Poster.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.filetransit.com/screenshot.php%3Fid%3D26800&usg=__sKbLkK6NvkWQiiwxJspGGt1aDU4=&h=499&w=700&sz=72&hl=en&start=13&itbs=1&tbnid=uzS0dMdhpYRspM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSECURITY%2BRISKS%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1
http://blog.wordtothewise.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/PrivacyPolicy_car1.jpg
http://thejournal.com/images/news/20080814-chart3.jpg
1. Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology?
• Intellectual property- The collection of rights that protect creative an intellectual effort.
• Copyright- The executive right to do so, or omit to do so, certain acts with intangible property such as a song, video game and some types of proprietary documents.
• Fair use doctrine- In certain situations, it is legal to use copyrighted material.
• Pirated software- The unauthorized use, duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted software.
• Counterfeit software- Software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and solid as such.
2. Describe the relationship between an ‘email- privacy policy’ and an ‘Internet use policy’?
Organisations can mitigate the risks of email and instant messaging communication tools by implementing and adhering to an email privacy policy. Email privacy policy details the extent to which email messages may be read by others. On the other hand, internet use policy contains general principles to guide the proper use of the internet within an organization. The policy
• Describes the available Internet services
• Defines the purpose and restriction of Internet access
• Complements the ethical computer use policy
• Describes user responsibilities
• States the ramification for violations
3. Summarize the five steps to creating an information security plan?
a) Develop the information security policies- Identify who is responsible and accountable for designing and implementing the organization’s information security policies.
b) Communicate the information security policies- Train all employees on the policies and establish clear expectations for following the policies.
c) Identify critical information assets and risks- Require the use of user ID’s, passwords and antivirus software on all systems.
d) Test and re-evaluate risks- Continually perform security review, audits, background checks and security assessments.
e) Obtain stakeholder support- Gain the approval and support of the information security policies from the board of directors and all stakeholders.
4. What do the terms authentication and authorization mean, how do they differ, provide some examples of each term?
Authentication is a method for confirming users’ identities. Once a system determines the authentication of a user, it can then determine the access privileges (or authorization) for that user. Example includes password based authentication and device based authentication whereas, authorisation is the process of giving someone permission to do or have something. Examples include using group permissions or the difference between a normal user and the superuser on a unix system. In a multiple user computer systems, user access or authorization determines such things as file access, hours of access and amount of allocated storage space. Authentication and authorization techniques are broken down into three categories, and the most secure type involves a combination of all three:
• Something the user knows, such as a user ID and password.
• Something the user has, such as a smart card or token.
• Something that is part of the user, such as a fingerprint or voice signature.
For further reference http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/workshops/security/auth.html
5. What are the five main types of Security risks, suggest one method to prevent the severity of risk?
a) Human Error- Not malicious, by humans.
b) Natural Disasters- Floods, earthquakes and terrorist attack.
c) Technical Failures- Software Bugs and hardware crashes.
d) Deliberate Acts- Sabotage and white collar crime.
e) Management Failure- Lack of procedure, documentation and training.
Prevention:
• Strong Password- letters and numbers
• Password Policy- change passwords regularly
FOR ALL REFERENCES TO IMAGES
http://www.westga.edu/assetsDept/policy/securecomp.JPG
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10468_13/tour/b10374/img/mgt1_09.gif&imgrefurl=http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10468_13/tour/b10374/security006.htm&usg=__s67PokUpdXeHPp9reqSkdqINFho=&h=375&w=498&sz=33&hl=en&start=2&itbs=1&tbnid=FhU_PkoAYcoD4M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAUTHENTICATION%2BAND%2BAUTHORIZATION%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.filetransit.com/images/screen/70d4d972aa696706dd66a099cd4f0b68_Network_Security_Map_Poster.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.filetransit.com/screenshot.php%3Fid%3D26800&usg=__sKbLkK6NvkWQiiwxJspGGt1aDU4=&h=499&w=700&sz=72&hl=en&start=13&itbs=1&tbnid=uzS0dMdhpYRspM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSECURITY%2BRISKS%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1
http://blog.wordtothewise.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/PrivacyPolicy_car1.jpg
http://thejournal.com/images/news/20080814-chart3.jpg
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