Week 11: Clear - Solutions to Some of the Problems in Paradise

Data Asset - Data and Information

Every business today faces the expense and other issues associated with analyzing information and  collecting, storing, and retrieving data.  As a result of incompatible systems, transaction processing systems and live operational data, even the information itself possess problems for every business, website, call center, etc. 

This week's material discussed solutions used to handle the issues mentioned above:

Gallaugher.  Information Systems, Chapter 11, Figure 11.2*

                        

 

1. Data Warehouse - a set of databases designed to support decision making in organizations as it stores current and historical data. 
2. Data Mart - a single database or databases focused solely on addressing the concerns of a specific problem, question or business unit. 
3. Data Mining - using computers to identify hidden patterns in, and to build models from, large data sets.  To use this process to look for trends and patterns the data must be accurate, organized and consistent. 
4. Business Intelligence (BI) - combining data exploration, ad hoc queries, aspects of reporting and sophisticated data modeling and analysis.  As a result, users have access to various reports:

Gallaugher. Information Systems, Chapter 11, Figure 11.3*

• Reports are no longer just "canned" - easy to use and all parameters are predetermined by the programmers, but users have access to 
•  "ad hoc" reports - puts users in control as users create their own reports as needed.  This type of report is harder to use as knowledge of the system and the information is necessary. 
• "Dashboards" - another BI tool, gives an at-a-glance view of critical indicators that allow managers to get graphical performance metrics more quickly. 
• "OLAP (Online Analytical Processing)" - this is one of the most valuable BI tools and is a method of querying and reporting that takes data from standard relational databases, calculates and summarizes it and then stores it in a special database called a data cube (a special database used to store data in OLAP reporting).  

Data and Information are mong the most valuable assests available and there will always be the need for solutions to store and handle it properly.  Without data and information, businesses cannot make the proper analysis necessary to forecast and prepare for future trends and patterns.  

Turning data into useful information which can be used to answer questions, to solve problems and to help reveal innovative ways firms can improve, is the key benefit.  This benefit is the reason firms are willing to weather the storm to continue the quest for more effective and cost efficient solutions.




*Wrtten consent for reused with attribution granted in front cover of textbook.