Chapter 1 Testbank

What are the four major components of a Business Intelligence (BI) system?

1. Data warehouse (with its source data) 2. Business Analytics (collection of tools for manipulating, mining, and analyzing the data in the data warehouse) 3. Business Performance Management (BPM) for monitoring and analyzing performance 4. User interface

Managers usually make decisions by following a four-step process. What are the steps?

1. Define the problem 2. Construct a model that describes the real-world problem 3. Identify possible solutions to the modeled problem and evaluate the solutions 4. Compare, choose, and recommend a potential solution to the problem

List and describe three levels or categories of analytics that are most often viewed as sequential and independent, but also occasionally seen as overlapping.

1. Descriptive - Knowing what is happening in the organization and understanding some underlying trends and causes of such occurrences. 2. Predictive - Aims to determine what is likely to happen in the future. 3. Prescriptive - Goal is to recognize what is going on as well as the likely forecast and make decisions to achieve the best performance possible. It provides a decision or a recommendation for a specific action.

List four of Mintzberg's Decisional roles of managers.

1. Entrepreneur 2. Disturbance Handler 3. Resource Allocator 4. Negotiator

List three developments that have contributed to facilitating growth of decision support and analytics.

1. Group communication and collaboration 2. Improved data management 3. Managing giant data warehouses and big data

The environment in which organizations operate today is becoming more and more complex. Business environment factors can be divided into four major categories. What are these categories?

1. Markets 2. Consumer Demands 3. Technology 4. Societal

Describe the types of computer support that can be used for structured, semistructured, and unstructured decisions.

1. Structured decisions are possible to abstract, analyze, and classify in specific categories. The computer support used is generally as quantitative formulas. A model and solution approach is developed and also scientific approaches are possible for the decision making. 2. Semistructured problems may involve a combination of standard solution procedures and human judgement. Management science can provide models for the structured portion of the problem while a DSS can support the unstructured portion. 3. Unstructured decisions can only be partially supported by standard computerized quantitative methods. For the most mart, a customized solution must be developed. A DSS is often used for these decisions.

33) Business intelligence (BI) can be characterized as a transformation of A) data to information to decisions to actions. B) Big Data to data to information to decisions. C) actions to decisions to feedback to information. D) data to processing to information to actions.

A) data to information to decisions to actions.

How does Amazon.com use predictive analytics to respond to product searches by the customer?

Amazon uses predictive analytics by using the information composed from big data to personalize the shopping experience for customers. The offer recommendations for products based off of what the customer has viewed previously (propensity to buy/customer segmentation). They also have fraud detection in place to create a fast and safe way to make purchases through their app/website. Finally, they use customer attrition to make sure customer satisfaction is high and competitors are low to maintain customer retention.

1) Computerized support is only used for organizational decisions that are responses to external pressures, not for taking advantage of opportunities.

Answer: FALSE

10) Due to the fact that organizations seek to store greater amounts of data than ever before, the cost per byte of computer-based data storage devices is rapidly rising.

Answer: FALSE

11) Computerized information systems help decision makers overcome human cognitive limitations in assembling and processing varied information. However, this is of little use in most analytical applications.

Answer: FALSE

13) The term decision support system is a very specific term that implies the same tool, system, and development approach to most developers.

Answer: FALSE

15) One of the four components of BI systems, business performance management, is a collection of source data in the data warehouse.

Answer: FALSE

17) The use of dashboards and data visualizations is seldom effective in finding efficiencies in organizations, as demonstrated by the Seattle Children's Hospital Case Study.

Answer: FALSE

19) Pushing programming out to distributed data is achieved solely by using the Hadoop Distributed File System or HDFS.

Answer: FALSE

2) The complexity of today's business environment creates many new challenges for organizations, such as global competition, but creates few new opportunities in return.

Answer: FALSE

6) In today's business environment, creativity, intuition, and interpersonal skills are effective substitutes for analytical decision making.

Answer: FALSE

8) Due to the fact that business environments are now more complex than ever, trial-and-error is an effective means of arriving at acceptable solutions.

Answer: FALSE

9) Group collaboration software has proved generally ineffective at improving decision-making.

Answer: FALSE

12) In the Gorry and Scott-Morton framework of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured decisions, computerized decision support can bring benefits to unstructured decisions.

Answer: TRUE

14) The access to data and ability to manipulate data (frequently including real-time data) are key elements of business intelligence (BI) systems.

Answer: TRUE

16) Actionable intelligence is the primary goal of modern-day Business Intelligence (BI) systems vs. historical reporting that characterized Management Information Systems (MIS).

Answer: TRUE

18) The use of statistics in baseball by the Oakland Athletics, as described in the Moneyball case study, is an example of the effectiveness of prescriptive analytics.

Answer: TRUE

20) Volume, velocity, and variety of data characterize the Big Data paradigm.

Answer: TRUE

3) In addition to deploying business intelligence (BI) systems, companies may also perform other actions to counter business pressures, such as improving customer service and entering business alliances.

Answer: TRUE

4) The overwhelming majority of competitive actions taken by businesses today feature computerized information system support.

Answer: TRUE

5) PCs and, increasingly, mobile devices are the most common means of providing managers with information to directly support decision making, instead of using IT staff intermediaries.

Answer: TRUE

7) In a four-step process for decision making, managers construct a model of the problem before they evaluate potential solutions.

Answer: TRUE

37) How are descriptive analytics methods different from the other two types? A) They answer "what-if?" queries, not "how many?" queries. B) They answer "what-is?" queries, not "what will be?" queries. C) They answer "what to do?" queries, not "what-if?" queries. D) They answer "what will be?" queries, not "what to do?" queries.

B) They answer "what-is?" queries, not "what will be?" queries.

28) The deployment of large data warehouses with terabytes or even petabytes of data been crucial to the growth of decision support. All the following explain why EXCEPT A) data warehouses have enabled the affordable collection of data for analytics. B) data warehouses have enabled the collection of decision makers in one place. C) data warehouses have assisted the collection of data for data mining. D) data warehouses have assisted the collection of data from multiple sources.

B) data warehouses have enabled the collection of decision makers in one place.

34) In answering the question "Which customers are most likely to click on my online ads and purchase my goods?", you are most likely to use which of the following analytic applications? A) customer profitability B) propensity to buy C) customer attrition D) channel optimization

B) propensity to buy

31) For the majority of organizations, a daily accounts receivable transaction is a(n) A) strategic decision. B) structured decision. C) unstructured decision. D) managerial control decision.

B) structured decision.

22) In the Magpie Sensing case study, the automated collection of temperature and humidity data on shipped goods helped with various types of analytics. Which of the following is an example of predictive analytics? A) real time reports of the shipment's temperature B) warning of an open shipment seal C) location of the shipment D) optimal temperature setting

B) warning of an open shipment seal

Describe and define Big Data. Why is a search engine a Big Data application?

Big data is data that cannot be stored in a single storage unit. It arrives in many different forms and are stored in chucks on different machines connected by a network. A big search engine like Google is a Big Data application because it requires generating an index of all the web pages on the internet which is too much for one machine to store and process. It is managed at a large scale through storing and processing. Dividing the data into chunks allows users to obtain information about their desired web pages at a faster rate as there are multiple machines working for the search.

________ cycle times are now extremely compressed, faster, and more informed across industries.

Business

________ is an umbrella term that combines architectures, tools, databases, analytical tools, applications, and methodologies.

Business intelligence

26) Why are analytical decision making skills now viewed as more important than interpersonal skills for an organization's managers? A) because interpersonal skills are never important in organizations B) because personable and friendly managers are always the least effective C) because analytical-oriented managers produce better results over time D) because analytical-oriented managers tend to be flashier and less methodical

C) because analytical-oriented managers produce better results over time

23) Which of the following is NOT an example that falls within the four major categories of business environment factors for today's organizations? A) globalization B) increased pool of customers C) fewer government regulations D) increased competition

C) fewer government regulations

35) In answering the question "Which customers are likely to be using fake credit cards?", you are most likely to use which of the following analytic applications? A) channel optimization B) customer segmentation C) fraud detection D) customer profitability

C) fraud detection

38) Prescriptive BI capabilities are viewed as more powerful than predictive ones for all the following reasons EXCEPT A) prescriptive BI gives actual guidance as to actions. B) understanding the likelihood of certain events often leaves unclear remedies. C) only prescriptive BI capabilities have monetary value to top-level managers. D) prescriptive models generally build on (with some overlap) predictive ones.

C) only prescriptive BI capabilities have monetary value to top-level managers.

27) Business environments and government requirements are becoming more complex. All of the following actions to manage this complexity would be appropriate EXCEPT A) hiring more sophisticated and computer-savvy managers. B) deploying more sophisticated tools and technique. C) seeking new ways to avoid government compliance. D) avoiding expensive trial and error to find out what works.

C) seeking new ways to avoid government compliance.

40) Big Data often involves a form of distributed storage and processing using Hadoop and MapReduce. One reason for this is A) centralized storage creates too many vulnerabilities. B) the "Big" in Big Data necessitates over 10,000 processing nodes. C) the processing power needed for the centralized model would overload a single computer. D) Big Data systems have to match the geographical spread of social media.

C) the processing power needed for the centralized model would overload a single computer.

29) Which of the following statements about cognitive limits of organizational decision makers is true? A) Only top managers make decisions where cognitive limits are strained. B) The most talented and effective managers do not have cognitive limitations. C) All organizational decision-making requires data beyond human cognitive limits. D) Cognitive limits affect both the recall and use of data by decision makers.

D) Cognitive limits affect both the recall and use of data by decision makers.

39) Which of the following statements about Big Data is true? A) Data chunks are stored in different locations on one computer. B) Hadoop is a type of processor used to process Big Data applications. C) MapReduce is a storage filing system. D) Pure Big Data systems do not involve fault tolerance.

D) Pure Big Data systems do not involve fault tolerance.

32) All of the following may be viewed as decision support systems EXCEPT A) an expert system to diagnose a medical condition. B) a knowledge management system to guide decision makers. C) a system that helps to manage the organization's supply chain management. D) a retail sales system that processes customer sales transactions.

D) a retail sales system that processes customer sales transactions.

25) Which of the following activities permeates nearly all managerial activity? A) planning B) controlling C) directing D) decision-making

D) decision-making

30) For the majority of organizations, evaluating the credit rating of a potential business partner is a(n) A) strategic decision. B) structured decision. C) unstructured decision. D) managerial control decision.

D) managerial control decision.

21) In the Magpie Sensing case study, the automated collection of temperature and humidity data on shipped goods helped with various types of analytics. Which of the following is an example of prescriptive analytics? A) real time reports of the shipment's temperature B) warning of an open shipment seal C) location of the shipment D) optimal temperature setting

D) optimal temperature setting

24) Organizations counter the pressures they experience in their business environments in multiple ways. Which of the following is NOT an effective way to counter these pressures? A) reactive actions B) anticipative actions C) adaptive actions D) retroactive actions

D) retroactive actions

36) When Sabre developed their Enterprise Data Warehouse, they chose to use near-real-time updating of their database. The main reason they did so was A) to provide a 360 degree view of the organization. B) to aggregate performance metrics in an understandable way. C) to be able to assess internal operations. D) to provide up-to-date executive insights.

D) to provide up-to-date executive insights.

________ analytics help managers understand current events in the organization including causes, trends, and patterns.

Descriptive

The filing system developed by Google to handle Big Data storage challenges is known as the ________ Distributed File System.

Hadoop

The programming algorithm developed by Google to handle Big Data computational challenges is known as ________.

MapReduce

________ analytics help managers understand probable future outcomes.

Predictive

________ analytics help managers make decisions to achieve the best performance in the future.

Prescriptive

An older and more diverse workforce falls under the ________ category of business environment factors.

Societal

What storage system and processing algorithm were developed by Google for Big Data?

The storage system and processing algorithm used by Google was originally called Google File System. It was later developed as a project known as Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). This allows data to be stored in chunks on different machines connected by a network, putting a copy of one or two of this chunk in different locations of the network (both logically and physically).

________ technology enables managers to access and analyze information anytime and from anyplace.

Wireless

Organizations using BI systems are typically seeking to ________ the gap between the organization's current and desired performance.

close

Group communication and ________ involves decision makers who are likely to be in different locations.

collaboration

The desire by a customer to customize a product falls under the ________ category of business environment factors.

consumer demand

Sabre used executive ________ to present performance metrics in a concise way to its executives.

dashboards

A(n) ________ is a major component of a Business Intelligence (BI) system that holds source data.

data warehouse

The fraud ________ analytic application helps determine fraudulent events and take action.

detection

Mintzberg defines the ________ as a managerial role that involves searching the environment for new opportunities

entrepreneur

A(n) ________ problem such as setting budgets for products is one that has some structured elements and some unstructured elements also.

semistructured

A(n) ________ problem such as new technology development is one that has very few structured elements.

unstructured

A(n) ________ is a major component of a Business Intelligence (BI) system that is usually browser based and often presents a portal or dashboard.

user interface

The Google search engine is an example of Big Data in that it has to search and index billions of ________ in fractions of a second for each search.

web pages