MIS 320F Exam 3

3 V's that describe Big Data (Volume, Variety, Velocity):

-Volume - the amount of data we are creating as companies and individuals are greatly increasing. -Variety - Format and types of data greatly differs (e.g. Business, social, Pics, ALOT) -Velocity - New data is being created every millisecond in our world (e.g. Stock Market)

What is the relationship between transactional / operational data and Business Intelligence?

-all this data everywhere, take it and extract it and transform data,clean it up put it in same format, and put it in data warehouse. now in one place, plug in BI tool and do data mining on it. right reports off of it. -before you couldnt do BI & analytics cuz it existed in so many places. BI tools plug into databases & do analytics on data.

Dis-economies of Scale

-as development teams grow, average contribution per worker decreases and project is harder to manage decreases and project is harder to manage Brook's Law - adding more people makes the project harder -AKA - Too many cooks in the kitchen! an economic concept referring to a situation in which economies of scale no longer function for a firm. - Rather than experiencing continued decreasing costs per increase in output, firms see an increase in marginal cost when output is increased.

Information System (IS)

An integrated solution that combines five components: hardware, software, data, procedures, and the people who interact with and are impacted by the system. -Getting the right mix of these five components is critical to executing a flawless Information System rollout -software that helps you organize and analyze data. -This makes it possible to answer questions and solve problems relevant to the mission of an organization.

Iterative Development (agile)

An iteration is a set period of time within a project in which you produce a stable, executable version of the product, together with any other supporting documentation, install scripts, or similar, necessary to use this release. Also referred to as a cycle or a timebox. -In iterative development, feature code is designed, developed and tested in repeated cycles.

Phased Installation

The new system is installed in phases across the organization.

Parallel Installation

The new system runs in parallel with the old one until the new system is tested and fully operational.

Lift

This is an indicator of the strength of an association rule. Here we compare the confidence of the rule where we assume that the occurrence of the consequent item set in a transaction is independent of the occurrence of the antecedent for each rule with some benchmark value.

Just-in-time manufacturing

This manufacturing style eliminates the need for huge product storage because parts are only ordered when needed and items are only manufactured when ordered. -inventory strategy companies employ to increase efficiency and decrease waste by receiving goods only as they are needed in the production process, thereby reducing inventory costs.

Process Flow Diagram

A sequence of activities to accomplish an objective

Prototyping

A system development technique that enables users and developers to reach agreement on system requirements. It uses programmed simulation techniques to represent a model of the final system to the user for advisement and critique. The emphasis is on end-user screens and reports. Internal controls are not a priority item since this is only a model

Scope Creep

Adding features and functionality (project scope) without addressing the effects on time, costs, and resources, or without customer approval. -can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered harmful.

Contract Manufacturing

Outsourcing production to third-party firms. Firms that use contract manufacturers don't own the plants or directly employ the workers who produce the requested goods. Ex. iPremier outsourced to "Qdata". -It is a form of outsourcing. -In the food business a contract manufacturer is called copacker. -It's the production of goods by one firm, under the label or brand of another firm.

9) Why does Wal-Mart share the data it collects with its suppliers? a) Because the suppliers will not sell to Wal-Mart if it refuses to share. b) Because it is in all contracts that is you collect data about someone else's product you must share it with them. c) Because sharing the data, Wal-Mart can help its suppliers make products more cheaply, which would allow Wal-Mart to sell them for less money. d) Because Wal-Mart won't to get rid of the image of being over aggressive and using it's size to bully suppliers.

C Explanation: (C) is correct. The goal of Data Mining is to improve your business. By sharing information and trends with it's suppliers, Wal-Mart can receive the goods for a cheaper price and have a greater cost advantage over its competition.

8) Which is true? a) Confidence is the differences in likelihood between a person who buys product A and product B and a person who buys just product B b) Lift is the likelihood that a person buying product A will also buy product B c) Lift is the differences in likelihood between a person who buys product A and product B and a person who buys just product B d) Support is the likelihood that a person buying product A will also buy product

C Explanation: C. Lift is the differences in likelihood between a person who buys product A and product B and a person who buys just product B while Confidence is the likelihood that a person buying product A will also buy product B

What is true in terms of data and information? a) Data is the context surrounding the statistics collected b) Information is the raw facts and figures c) Information is derived from data d) Data is converted to knowledge, which is then converted to information

C. Explanation: Data is the raw facts and figured while information is the data presented with context to help with decision-making. The progression is from data to information to knowledge.

Incremental Development

Step by step creating and deployment. Let's make one room at a time fully built before we start the next room

Direct (Big Bang ) Installation

Install new system and discontinue old one; no backup position (risk high; cost low) -There is no backup position -advantage= less costly, only to have to support 1 system at a time -risk= not much room for error and fallback plan

Maintenance Phase

Involves performing changes, corrections, additions, and upgrades to ensure the system continues to meet the business goals.

Offshoring vs Onshore:

Offshoring - Moving operations from the country where a company is headquartered to a country where pay rates are lower but the necessary skills are available/work being done overseas Onshore - engaging another company within the same country for services/work being done locally within your country

Pilot Installation

Organization implements the entire system on a limited portion of the business.

Outsourcing vs In-house

Outsourcing - Hiring less-expensive human resources overseas. An arrangement in which work is done by people from outside your company, usually by a company that is expert in that type of work/work being done outside your firm In-house - work being done within your firm • In-House: using employees that are under the same same company • Ex: ZARA: although they are based in Spain, the store in New York hires Americans that are under ZARA's control, making them in-house employees • Outsourcing: hiring another organization to perform service to: • Save costs • Gain expertise you don't have • Less people to manage -> frees up management Refocus on core competencies

7) Data mining is a) using computers to identify hidden patterns and build models in large data sets b) mining large amounts of data from your customers c) using data to find the one business idea that will give the company a strategic advantage over it's competitors. d) using a computer to build a model that will only work with the specific data you gave it

A Explanation: (B) - is data collection, not mining; (C) - can come from data mining, but no the only purpose or goal; (D) - Over - engineering a data mining model.

What is an example of a legacy system? a) A firm, started in the 60's, decides to consolidate each of its global branches sales departments' databases to also include previous sales in its entire history b) The IT department is about to merge the data of the firm's databases, which are all on the same specs. c) The computer's software is being upgraded to the newest version of Windows. d) A firm already operates on a single platform.

A Explanation: The data from early in the firm's history would be on an older database and incompatible with the newer databases. The difference in location would also contribute to the discrepancies in platforms.

Quality Assurance (QA) - aka testing

A broad spectrum of plans, policies, and procedures that provide an administrative system to manage a laboratory's efforts to achieve quality goals. -the maintenance of a desired level of quality in a service or product, especially by means of attention to every stage of the process of delivery or production.

Core competency

A firm's resources and capabilities that serve as sources of competitive advantage over its rival.

6) What is one downside to data warehouses? a) they are a unified source of data for the entire firm b) they take years to build and can cost millions of dollars c) it is very easy to combine data from old, separate systems, into a new combined system. d) Data warehouses are designed for fast online queries and explorations.

B Explanation: (A) and (D) are directly from text as a benefit. (C) is a false statement: "it is NOT easy..."

5) What are some problems with operational data? a) all the data is stored in one place b) the data is missing values c) there are strict standards in maintenance d) there is not enough data

B Explanation: Operational data has problems with missing values or being "dirty", which could be stemmed from the lack of regulation for data maintenance. So much data is collected today that it can be stored in multiple databases.

4) What does a legacy system not do? a) gives limited access to its data b) is compatible with newer technologies c) aren't aligned with a firm's current business needs d) can make mergers more difficult

B Explanation: The difficulties of legacy systems include limiting access to its data because of its incompatibility, which leads to slowing down a business' progress. Mergers become more difficult when the systems are on different platforms and cannot consolidate.

Implementation/Production Phase

Convert business activity from old system to new. Lots of methods to Implement: -Pilot (Dad moves in alone): Organization implements entire system on limited users, If systems fails, it doesn't affect everyone, Reduces exposure risk , Anyone trying new GMAIL format? Anyone Not? -Phased (Whole family moves in, but only to the living room and kitchen): New system installed in phases, Tested after each phase, Continues until installed at entire organization -In-Parallel (Live in both houses at once - secure, but VERY expensive): Test new system runs in parallel with old system on, Expensive and time consuming (support both worlds), Data must be entered twice (old and new) , Provides easy fallback position if new one breaks -Big Bang (Move into new, demo old): Direct installation, Install new system and discontinue old, There is no backup position

Disintermediation

Cutting out marketing channel intermediaries by product or service producers, or the displacement of traditional resellers by radical new types of intermediaries (i.e. online stores replace brick & mortar stores), is cutting out the middlemen, i.e. omitting wholesalers, distributors, and/or retailers, in order to reduce costs and lag time between members in the supply chain. It is basically the moving of goods from manufacturer to customers directly. By omitting the intermediaries, customers order straight from the manufacturer either by phone or by the manufacturer's website, where the supply chain would just consist of supplier, manufacturer, and customer. In shorter terms, it shortens the supply chain so the bullwhip effect has less power.

10) What is a method that is not used by firms when collecting data about its customers? a) Loyalty Cards b) Transactional data c) In-store surveys d) Analyzing the movement of items which aren't shipped on time

D Explanation: D. is not customer-centric like the questions is inquiring. Loyalty cards track customer-buying patterns. Transactional data can be used to see which products will be bought together. In-store surveys give insight to knowledge that transactional data missed.

online analytical processing (OLAP).

Data used in OLAP reporting is usually sourced from standard relational databases, but it's calculated and summarized in advance, across multiple dimensions, with the data stored in a special database called a data cube. This extra setup step makes OLAP fast. Given this kind of speed boost, it's not surprising that data cubes for OLAP access are often part of a firm's data mart and data warehouse efforts. -In fact, OLAP users often talk about how they can "slice and dice" their data, "drilling down" inside the data to uncover new insights. And while conventional reports are usually presented as a summarized list of information, OLAP results look more like a spreadsheet, with the various dimensions of analysis in rows and columns, with summary values at the intersection

Market basket analysis (aka Association Rules):

Data-mining technique for determining sales patterns, shows products customers tend to buy together. Rules are if/then statements that help uncover relationships between seemingly unrelated data in a transactional database, relational database or other info repository. 5 Factors = association rules, probability, support, confidence & lift

Inception Phase

Define system goals, determine project scope, and assess feasibility of project.

Descriptive and Predictive methods

Descriptive (describes) Predictive (predicts) • Descriptive methods: way to understand your data Provides facts and data based on knowledge and experience. Describes what already happened • Predictive methods: look for patterns and relationships to anticipate events. Can only forecast what will happen in the future based on previous data.

Which methods are descriptive and prescriptive?

Descriptive: Association rules and Cluster analysis Prescriptive: Classification trees (aka Decision tree)

Analysis Phase

Determine and document features and functions, Involves analyzing end-user business requirements and refining project goals into defined functions and operations of the intended system, Less expensive to change system in this phase determine and Document features and Functions Interview users Approve requirements (To-Be-process) Document requirements for each piece Examine existing system Prototyping, web flows, process mapping security , scalability, org. Impact Less expensive to change system in this place

Design Phase

Develop and evaluate alternatives. Accurate requirements critical, Hardware design determined by project team, Software design depends on source, Packaged (aka "off the shelf), Custom-developed programs, Rent (SaaS), Database is designed, Procedures designed for BI system, Job descriptions created for users and operations personnel establishes descriptions of the desired features and operations of the system including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudo code, and other documentation

Push vs Pull demand

Push - Produce to stock, focused on promotions, mass market, large inventory result. customer at the end of chain. Pull - Produce to order; info substitute inventory, mass customization. customer at beginning of the chain.

True or False: The amount of data on corporate hard drives doubles every si months.

TRUE : Gartner's Research found that data doubles every six months on corporate hard drives. The power of technology today enables this exponential growth. (moores law)

Production Costs

The costs associated with the actual production of goods or services

Transaction Costs

The costs associated with the time and effort needed to search out, negotiate, and consummate an exchange.

Point-of-Sale (aka POS) systems

Transaction processing systems that capture customer purchases. These systems are critical for capturing sales data and are usually linked to inventory systems to subtract out any sold items. Ex: Cash registers and store checkout systems.

Bullwhip Effect

Unexpected distortion of the supply chain caused by repetitive variation in demand. Variability in order size and order timing increase at each stage up the supply chain, natural dynamic occurs due to multistage nature of supply chain reduces overall profitability of supply chain.

Vertical vs Horizontal Integration

Vertical - When a single firm owns several layers in its value chain. Horizontal - A strategy where a company creates or acquires production units for outputs which are alike - either complementary or competitive. One example would be when a company acquires competitors in the same industry doing the same stage of production.

Analytics

a term describing the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions.

Expert System

are AI (artificial intelligence) systems that leverage rules or examples to perform a task in a way that mimics applied human expertise. Expert systems are used in tasks ranging from medical diagnoses to product configuration. ~Produces If/then rules -E.g making medical diagnosis using WebMD: IF you have certain symptoms, THEN you have X disease/virus/infection. -E.g Longevity game (the one we played in class) After asking a series of questions such as how much do you workout, if you smoke, number of car accidents in the past, it says how long you will live.

Association Rules

are if/then statements that help uncover relationships between seemingly unrelated data in a transactional database, relational database or other information repository

Classification Tree

classification technique where we first partition data into training set and validation set. -Predictive model

Data Visualization

creation and study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information

Data Warehouse

is a set of databases designed to support decision making in an organization. It is structured for fast online queries and exploration. Data warehouses may aggregate enormous amounts of data from many different operational systems.

Data Mining

is the process of using computers to identify hidden patterns and to build models from large data sets.

Confidence

is the ratio of number of transactions with both antecedent and consequent item sets and number of transactions with antecedent item set.

Business Process Innovation

means coming up with entirely new ways of filling orders, developing products, providing customer service, or doing any other activity that an enterprise perform. an approach by an organization to create new, more efficient methods of conducting business, rather than merely improving existing methods. Example: Wal-mart's business process before: Moves inventory from distributer truck to Wal-Mart's warehouse-self and then from Wal-Mart's warehouse-self to Wal-Mart's retail delivery-warehouse truck Wal-Mart's business process after process innovation: Wal-Mart's new cross-docking process which moves inventory from distributor truck to retail-delivery truck at the warehouse, where it skips the warehouse shelf process.

Legacy system

outdated information systems that were not designed to share data, aren't compatible with newer technologies, and aren't aligned with the firm's current business needs

Knowledge Management System

system for managing knowledge in organizations for supporting creation, capture, storage and dissemination of information -ex: Accenture old project files` Increase company organizational responsiveness Ex. You land a project in consulting and want to track competitive prices in the office supply. You want to have automated price changes based on the price of competitors. You go on to the knowledge management system to know what people in your consulting company have already done related to this issue.

Business Process Improvement

systematic approach to help an organization optimize its underlying processes to achieve more efficient results. Those terms refer to achieving high performance via existing modes of operation: ensuring that work is done as it ought to be to reduce errors, costs, and delays but without fundamentally changing how that work gets accomplished. Example: The changes made in the order-to-cash process (i.e. automating some of the processes).

Business Process Management

systematic approach to making an organization's workflow more effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment

Clustering Analysis

task of grouping a set of objects in the same group are more similar to each other than to those in other groups (clusters)

Organizational Inertia

tendency of a mature organization to continue on its current trajectory. Organizational Inertia: large business organizations too stubborn in the way they do things and won't be willing to change; innovation causes disruption -Bad for companies because they are ensuring a faster death The larger the organization is, the harder it is to change

1) What risks are associated with projects such as Scope Creep?

• Adding more work onto the previously agreed upon scope means that you must increase time or resources.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of vertical integration? What are the advantages and disadvantages of contract manufacturing?

• Advantages of vertical integration: Control bottom up, fast, ability to adapt to changes to meet sudden demands quickly, manager possess a view of the entire value chain, and faster turnaround time. • Disadvantages of vertical integration: Not diversified, in house distribution=susceptible to fuel costs, risk is all on you, if one goes down, all parts go down since you own it, expansion in other countries is a threat because factories and logistic centers are not close by, and more expensive labor. • Advantages of contract manufacturing: It saves you time and costs, you can send someone else to make it that has expertise in that field, there's focus on core values of business, and sometimes it leads to better made products. • Disadvantages of contract manufacturing: There's lack of control, you rely on someone and hope they make it correctly, and partners can engage in sweatshop labor and environmental abuse.

Automation vs Transformation

• Automation -Human side-process & people -Moves work from the human side to the technology side -Processes are turned into code • Transformation -Transformation changes the human side to fit the technology side (moves in the direction of technology to human side) -> Shouldn't this say: moves in the direction of technology from human side? ←no. Since humans are adapting to the technology. Moves work in the direction from technology to human Processes are redesigned and restructured to fit the logic within software

3) What is the impact of process change as a process starts to cross between more than one division or organization in a company?

• Automatization as well as transformation of the business blurs the line between the human and technological sides of business. Basically, the process becomes more difficult to implement. • I think its pretty much just that crossing between division makes collaboration harder and there is more coordination involved therefore it is more difficult to implement changes. There are also communication issues, its like the telephone game- information may be • The more organizations a process crosses, the harder to change your process, people, and your systems

What are risks of being structured in the way Zara is? (Think Porter's Value Chain)

• Being vertically integrated comes with its pros and cons. • Pros: Control bottom up, fast, ability to adapt to changes to meet sudden demands quickly, manager possess a view of the entire value chain, and faster turnaround time. • Cons: Not diversified, in house distribution=susceptible to fuel costs, risk is all on you, if one goes down, all parts go down since you own it, expansion in other countries is a threat because factories and logistic centers are not close by, and more expensive labor.

What are the causes of the bullwhip effect? How do we reduce the bullwhip effect? How does Zara reduce it? How does disintermediation affect this challenge? How is the flow of information important to reducing it?

• Bullwhip effect variability yin order size and order timing increases at each stage up the supply chain. Natural dynamic occurs due to multistage nature of supply chain and reduces overall profitability of supply chain. Bullwhip effect can lead to excessive inventories, insufficient and excess capabilities, poor customer service, frequent revision to production schedules, and high costs for corrections. • To reduce bull whip effect you can allow all participants to access consumer demand info, consider vertical integration, or disintermediate. Zara reduces bullwhip effect by using vertical integration so it doesn't have to deal with intermediaries. Walmart allows all participants in their value chain to access its consumer and sales data so they know when to order supplies and replenish inventory. • Disintermediation reduces the bullwhip effect by eliminating the middle man therefore making the value chain process faster and cheaper. Vender managed inventory allow the manufacturer to supply and keep the inventory of the store. • Causes: • Order batching- longer time period higher the variability • Demand forecast updating: longer the lead time, the higher the variability • Price Fluctuations- can be caused by retailer unbeknownst to supplier • Rationing and shortage gaming • Effects: • Excessive inventories (lead to large discounts) Insufficient and excess capacities • Poor customer service and lost sales (long backlogs) • Frequent revision to product schedules • High costs for corrections- expedited shipments and/or overtime

6) What are methods to encourage innovation thinking (see slides) e.g: look for role models outside company or industry. Challenge what is a given or taken for granted.

• Challenge what is a given or taken for granted. • Look for role models outside your company (EX: Taco Bell, reduced the amount of on-site food preparation by out- sourcing to its suppliers, centralizing the production of key components, and concentrating on assembly rather than fabrication in the restaurants. The new approach lowered Taco Bell's costs and increased customer satisfaction by ensuring consistency and by allowing restaurant personnel to focus on customers rather than production. • Defy constraining assumptions: At its heart, every operational innovation defies an assumption about how work should be done. Zero in on the assumption that interferes with achieving a strategic goal, and then figure out how to get rid of it. Cross-docking negates the assumption that goods need to be stored in a ware- house, build-to-order that goods should be produced based on forecasts and destined for inventory • Make special case into the norm: Companies often achieve extraordinary levels of performance under extraordinary conditions; their problem is performing extraordinarily in normal situations. One way to accomplish this is to turn the special-case process into the norm. • Reverse your thinking and think outside the box: • Rethink critical dimensions of work: Designing operations entails making choices in seven areas. It requires specifying what results are to be produced and deciding who should perform the necessary activities, where they should be performed, and when. It also involves determining under which circumstances (whether) each of the activities should or should not be performed, what information should be available to the performers, and how thoroughly or intensively each activity needs to be performed. Managers looking to innovate should consider changing one or more of these dimensions to create a new operational design that delivers better performance.

In Association Rule method, how do you calculation Confidence and Lift?

• Confidence = (A + 1B both occurred) / A occurred • Lift = (Confidence) / (Benchmark confidence) • Benchmark confidence - how many people buy a product in general ~B transactions / total transactions • Derived from an "if-then" format

What is the difference between Confidence and Lift? Which would or would not drive your decision on what product to cross-sell and why?

• Confidence: if ___ happens, then____ happens • Benchmark Confidence: % B occurs overall in dataset • Lift: how much more likely a person is to buy a second item if they are already purchasing a select first item • Use the lift ratio it is more important because it shows the relationship and higher chance of selling items together • Confidence calculates the likelihood of two things happening given the antecedent and the lift is the measure of the performance of a targeting model at predicting cases. • The lift measures how many more times more often the two products occur together than expected if they were statistically independent. The lift would drive your decision on what product to cross-sell because it can tell you what is the probability that both products will be sold together.

Unlike Social Analytics (which leverages social data), Business Analytics or Intelligence leverages data from which source?

• Customers and their actions supply the data. From business systems running a company (ERP, inventory, sales, manufacturing) internal analyzing business data. • Transaction processing systems (point-of-sale system, ATM, service desk (every time there is a transaction occurring) • Use data created by other sources, business data combined with other forms with the goal of using data to make business decisions • Business intelligence systems use data created by other systems • Data mining can leverage neural networks or other advanced algorithms and statistical techniques to hunt down and expose patterns, and build models to exploit findings. • Social Analytics is describing BI that leverages more social data like Twitter and Facebook. Google Analytics derives information from data Google collects on searches and web traffic. Business Analytics or BI can really encompass business data combined with other forms with the goal again of using the data to make business decisions.

What are some problems with (transactional) operational data?

• Data is in too many places, Data is "dirty" or missing values, Data not maintained consistently. Data exists in multiple places. • Data hard to retrieve from the legacy system, too much data. Companies that have multiple databases built on incompatible systems is that they are unable to retrieve data and you can't calculate things as a whole. • multiple systems, data in different places & Stored diff places. systems can be built to talked to each other, but is tough if not compatible. • Legacy systems often limit data utilization because they were not designed to share data, aren't compatible with newer technologies, and aren't aligned with the firm's current business needs. • Most transactional databases are not set up to be simultaneously accessed for reporting and analysis. In order to run analytics the data must first be ported to a data warehouse or data mart.

What are the problems with transactional (operational) data? What is the dilemma many companies are in that have multiple databases built on different types incompatible systems.

• Data is in too many places. Data is "dirty" or missing values. Data not maintained consistently • Data hard to retrieve from the "legacy system" Too much data • Data Dilemma, can't unify it unless you convert each system to make them compatible which takes time and money.

What are the five components that make up an information system? Which is hardest to change and why?

• Hardware, software, data, procedures, and people. People and procedures are hardest to change because it is difficult to alter the way a person works.

How does Knowledge Management present a value to an organization?

• Improve decision making by publishing employee's knowledge • Create value for existing intellectual capital • Foster innovation • Improve customer service • Increase organizational responsiveness • Reduce costs

3) What are the sorts of tasks that are associated with the software PM phases known as (Inception, Analyze, Design, Build, Test, Implement)

• Inception: defining system goals • Analyze: document requirements and determine functions of new system • Design: blueprint new system, develop and evaluate alternatives by looking at accurate requirements • Build: code and construct new system • Test: confirm new system works; beta testing and test scripts. Beta testing is running the program on a limited number of future users. Test scripts - steps that a user would take along with expected results. Test hypothetical scenarios and see what happens. • Implement: convert business activity to new system

7) When does Project Management (PM) get involved on a project? What are tasks of a PM?

• Involved from the start. • Tasks: manages resources, monitors schedule and progress, manages risk and issues, handles project communication, plans hand-offs between phases (i.e are builders happy with design and user happy with product)

8) How does an iterative (aka agile) approach different in the waterfall approach of project management? Which is considered a predictive method and which is considered adaptive?

• Iterative approach breaks down processes into smaller segments which makes it easier to achieve than the waterfall approach which is more structured and all goes live at the end. Iterative progress is easier to achieve. Iterative is easier to achieve, it's a cycle before continuing with all process before going into the final phases

How does outsourcing differ from offshoring?

• Offshoring: Products or service used comes from another country • ZARA: Clothes made at base in Spain, sold here in New York • Onshore: Products or service used come from the same country • American Apparel: USA made clothing, sold in USA

6) What are different methods of installation and what are trade-offs to consider in your chosen approach?

• Pilot: MEDIUM risk & MEDIUM cost • Big Bang: HIGH risk & LOW cost • Phased: MEDIUM risk & MEDIUm cost • Parallel: LOW risk & HIGH cost

4) How is process innovation different from process improvement? Which is harder to do & why?

• Process innovation: implementation of a new or significantly improved production of delivery method • Process improvement: series of actions are taken by a process owner to identify, analyze and improve existing business processes within an organization to meet new goals and objectives, such as increasing profits and performance, etc • Process innovation is harder because its disruptive, organizational inertia and cultural lock in, top down approach, few c-levels come from ops, no real home for innovating in a company. Innovation is definitely more difficult; improvement is easier to copy.

What kinds of business intelligence systems exist?

• Query and reporting tools, data mining, OLAP cube • Reporting tools. bring it all together to 1 database. boston scientific, report to extract all sales in data warehouse. • data mining tools. systems do cluster • knowledge management systems: Accenture, internal google to look up past projects & learn from it. • expert systems

What BI tools are available to turn data into valuable information? What are examples of these and how they add value?

• Query and reporting tools- the idea behind query and reporting tools is to present users with a subset of requested data, selected, sorted, ordered, calculated, and compared, as needed. (sits on top of data warehouse)- copies data into one data system ad • Data mining- The process of using computers to identify hidden patterns in, and to build models from large data sets. • Knowledge management systems- internal surveys, feedback, help you if workforce quits, • Expert system- pulls info in an IF/THEN and predictive analysis - if have these symptoms can do predictive analysis (like WebMD) looks at data and known outcomes and feed in new data to see if they know. • How BI Tools Add value: Analyze data, Look for patterns, Use patterns to make business decisions, o share information with business partners (WebMD)

2) What is one of the biggest reasons for project failures? Also what are reasons that Software PM is so difficult?

• Resistance to change. • Difficulty determining requirments, requirments change as system develops, overall schedule and budget difficult to estimate, technology changes, the larger the team the harder to communicate, diseconomies of scale, and unexpected events (florida during hurricane season). Difficulty determining requirements Requirements change as system develops Overall schedule and budget difficult to estimate Technology changes The larger the team the harder to communicate Diseconomies of scale

What are examples of how companies can use business intelligence? (Target, Wal-mart, etc...)

• Send customers coupons for items they are likely to purchase. • Organize the store to group items that have a tendency to be bought together; allows companies to see patterns in data (ex: Target knows when you're pregnant before you do) • Target used their transactional data to determine that the teenage girl was pregnant, so they sent pregnancy related coupons to her house. ~All based off of a pregancy score that has 28 products listed (unscented lotion, calcium, magnesium, hand sanitizer, ect..) ~Target hires data scientist -> won't really know they are being stalked (customers) -> throw off trail (lawn mowers coupon) -> don't want to be creeped out. Send coupons to kids in future • Walmart determined that when a hurricane was about to strike, they needed to stock up on beer and strawberry pop tarts. USES INFO SYSTEMS FOR DATA WAREHOUSES- has 1,000 of data bases and within 15 seconds of a purchase data is sent to wal-mart warehouse and keeps track of inventory and communicates with suppliers. Uses data to track inventory,sales, and communicate with 100,000 suppliers. ~Walmart and Hurricane- Data -> information -> knowledge ~Unique products are stocked up on when hurricane (Floridians already has stocks of batteries, generators, ect.) ~Found 3 products: 1. water, 2. beer, 3. strawberry pop-tarts (had to have looked at data not gut)

1) Of the 5 parts in the Porter's Information Security (IS) Model, what parts are the hardest to change usually & why?

• The hardest steps to change are the process and people since it involves retraining humans, and not just changing a code in a computer • Processes and people (human side) are the hardest to change because people are stuck with mental models that are difficult to change. • Also, organizing and coordinating a lot of people is a complex adaptive system • IS Model: Hardware → Software → Data (on both human and technology sides) → Processes → People • The human side (processes and people) is the hardest to change. If business is going smoothly now, why change it? • People are unpredictable and the therefore there is no guarantee that something will be done properly. +People: hiring, training, education, procedure design, administration, assessment, compliance, accountability example: switching to canvas.

How does Zara's approach differ from the conventional wisdom in fashion retail? How does the firm's strategic use of information technology influence design and product offerings, manufacturing, inventory, and logistics?

• They have little inventory which means they need to sell batches ASAP. 2 weeks design to store vs. Gap=9 months. • They are vertically integrated. They use tech and information systems and fast distribution and they are close to the airport and manufacture fast and put up clothes fast. • They don't have to guess what customers want, so there's a faster turnaround speed because they are vertically integrated (60% merchandise is produced in house). They manage their supply chain with attention to the entire value chain. Has vertical integration that allows for more control and faster output Doesn't believe in ads and sales Takes 3 weeks to design and build and get into stores Just-in-time manufacturing (makes it as soon as order comes in can go on shelf, popular now not future) Process driven by customer satisfaction

What is the overall purpose of a business intelligence system?

• They provide info for improving decision making; use data created by other systems to provide reporting and analysis for organizational decision making. • To take data and make sense of it to improve decision making and performance organization (streamline data)

Why is inventory management so important? What happens when a retailer has too much inventor? What happens when a retailer has too little inventory?

• Too much inventory leads to the business having to put on sales and discount the items to free up storage space • Too little inventory leads to the company losing money since they aren't able to sell popular items

5) How can you apply the concepts of CAST & RAS to something like process innovation in Progressive or Toyota?

• Toyota: improved their process by making their assembly line more efficient, and then changed the process itself for more efficiency and cost effectiveness. • Toyota uses a bottom up strategy where the workers could be more communicative of any problems that occurred and needed to be changed. • Toyota designed a new assembly line that is innovated, but at the same time it's a complex adaptive system to manage. There is many people working to make it work. • Progressive: has had major growth because they invented a whole new process which was that there's internet, phone service, other additional services besides just car insurance, etc. • People are also staying with them longer which didn't happen much before they started their innovations. Progressive's new model was to keep the customers they did have rather than to advertise and obtain more. • They innovated a way that would improve the quality and increase their efficiency.

5) What are the tradeoffs associated with systems development? Be sure to understand the tradeoffs between scope, schedule (time), and resources (aka the triple constraint).

• Triple constraint: every project can be broken down into three areas • Scope: What/How much work do you need to get done • Schedule: How much time do you have to finish the project • Resources How much access to money, people, & equipment? • A change in one area affects the others

4) What is the user's role in the requirements phase? What happens if users do not participate in this phase?

• Users are interviewed so they can let the creators know what they are looking for in new system and how new system may impact them. Everyone needs to know and agree on the goals of the project and what exactly is being built.

Why is inventory management so important to retailers?

• When there's too much inventory, money's tied up. No money is made until inventory is sold. • When there's little inventory, you have to sell small batches ASAP (but if you run out of inventory then no money is being made which could lead to loss of customers). • Zara is selling somewhere in between not too much and not too little, enough to make a good marginal profit.

What is the bullwhip effect and how does it impact a business in a bad way?

• Where variations of inventory are amplified as you move up the supply chain from consumer to end-raw-material supplier when there is a change in consumer demand and no information is being shared about consumer demand between all members in the supply chain which will leave suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers with very high or low inventory.

What is the bullwhip effect and how does one combat it?

• Where variations of inventory are amplified as you move up the supply chain from consumer to end-raw-material supplier when there is a change in consumer demand and no information is being shared about consumer demand between all members in the supply chain which will leave suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers with very high or low inventory. • By sharing consumer demand info at all parts in the supply chain. Minimize turnaround time, by using technology. Ex: Zara vertically integrates itself by controlling all aspects of their supply chain. Walmart communicates with the members of its supply chain and shares customer info so they can be prepared for changes in demand, and thus match the supply.

How has Zara's strategic use of IT created CA?

• Zara uses PDAs to gather data to gain information which is used to make decisions that lead to higher profits. This idea of collecting and analyzing data to gather info and make decisions can be used at every stop of the business process in order to fine tune for maximum profits.

What kind of discoveries does a data mining system help us uncover? (i.e. Intuitive or non-intuitive)

• data mining systems help uncover patterns and relationships in data that help predict future outcomes • NON INTUITIVE because it is based on actual, real knowledge. (things we can't predict) such as pop-tarts during hurricane or that in South America, if you buy wine, you are more likely to buy Coca-Cola, or that people with low credit scores are more likely to have an accident • because of the way data mining is (helps businesses see spending patterns during seasons, inventory, etc.) it would help more with non-intuitive things i.e. the data has more potential to help us see how consumers are spending that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see. EX: putting bubbles in the cereal aisle where kids can reach it and this increasing the sale of bubbles and cereal - data mining can help us see if this works because it isn't something we would typically think about doing.

2) How are business processes inherent in Information Systems? How does this affect the way we design them, use them, and maintain them?

• in order to have a successful business you have to have all the things listed above. You have technology that hosts and holds information for you. Data may include inventory, purchases, and more. There's a process to pay for the things you sell, how you get it to the person who bought it. Then there are the people in your business who do each of these things. • Information systems can automate, and transform processes. • Processes are ingrained in all parts of the business value chain and IT, process comes before info systems, and technology is used to help make process more efficient or automated.

What are some techniques for data mining?

• look at past trends and building accurate forecasts, make a simple correlation between two or more items, often of the same type to identify patterns, • use classification to build up an idea of the type of customer, item, or object by describing multiple attributes to identify a particular class, using one or more attributes as your basis for identifying a cluster of correlating results, decision tree