Term
| How much do business invest in IT? |
|
Definition
| In 1987, US corporations had an investment of about $1,500 per employee in information technology. BY 2004, this investment had more than tripled. |
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Term
| What are the benefits of investing in IT? |
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Definition
| MIT Study of 367 large American companies 1988-1992 showed return of 50% a year on investment, BUT, their study also showed a high variance around the positive mean AND, there is a high signal-to-noise ratio when you try to link IT investment to external measures of firm performance, such as stock market valuations. |
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Term
| What are the risks of investing in IT? |
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Definition
| By various estimates, a very high proportion of IT projects fail, in the sense that they do not deliver the benefits that management anticipated and for which they authorized the investment. One study (McAfee 2003) found failure rates of 30-75% |
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Term
| How does IT affect business activity jobs and skills? |
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Definition
| 1969 vs. 1999: the percentage of people in blue color jobs and administrative support jobs both declined sharply over that period, with the difference being made up in highly skilled positions - technicians, professionals, and managers - and to a lesser extent in service and sales positions. Without IT manual jobs would have increased (they declined) and more complex jobs would not have expanded as much |
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Term
| How does IT affect business activity product and process innovation? |
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Definition
i. Emerging information technologies play an integral role in corporate innovation. In 79% of innovative companies only 36% of non-innovative companies
ii. IT departments play a key role in corporate innovation 74% lead business 73% are involved in new product or service development. |
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Term
| How does IT affect business activity competitiveness? |
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Definition
| Change markets, (less CDs more mp3s, more cell phones less land lines, spend online not retail, online newspapers) FOr example if one car puts a DVD player in another feels they must too, it can determine winners and losers (Wal-Mart v. K-mart) |
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Term
| How does IT affect business activity globalization? |
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Definition
| IT has sped up the process of globalization though things such as the internet. It has allowed people to keep in contact more easily than ever before and allows products to be sold on a world market. |
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Term
| What are information goods? |
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Definition
| Anything that can be digitized, i.e. encoded as a string of bits |
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Term
| What are their important characteristics of information goods? |
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Definition
1. Costly to produce, cheap to reproduce
2. Easy to copy, hard to protect
3. Value = Experience (often)
4. Compete for attention |
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Term
|
Definition
| Data density has doubled approximately every 18 months |
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Term
| What are Moore's laws impact on IT? |
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Definition
| It drives down the costs of IT and makes new uses of IT feasible |
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Term
| How odes it drive change in the economy as a whole? |
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Definition
| A direct implication of Moore's law is that semi-conductors will get smaller, cheaper, and faster. IT costs have been on the decline, which allows new uses of IT to be feasible. |
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Term
| What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of computer vs. human beings? |
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Definition
| If you know call me at (248) 790-7748 |
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Term
| What are computers better at (relative to humans)? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| What are people better at (relative to computers)? |
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Definition
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Term
| What is a general purpose technology? What are its characteristics? |
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Definition
| A General Purpose Technology (GPT) is a technology that initially has much scope for improvement and eventually comes to be widely used, to have many uses, and too have... many technological complementarities. There is a parallel with the introduction of electricity and carbon fiber. GPTs open up new opportunities, but are not final and complete solutions . As previously noted, they still have a lot of room for improvement. |
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Term
| Give examples of complements typically associated with IT. |
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Definition
1. Higher worker skills
2. Greater interdependence
3. New work flows
4. Re-allocated decision rights |
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Term
|
Definition
| Function IT assists with the execution of discrete tasks. They are individual tools to help you with individual tasks. Some examples of FIT are spreadsheets and CAD/CAM. FIT can be adopted without any complements, but the impact increases when complements are in place. Function IT allows increased experimentation capacity, greater precision, and labor substitution. Function IT are used to provide enhanced capability for workers to perform certain functions. |
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Term
|
Definition
Enterprise IT defines multi-party interactions. IT has well defined processes associated with it and is embedded in software. Some examples of EIT imposes complements throughout the firm- the sue of complements is mandatory. EIT does define tasks, sequences, and data. EIT allows for a re-design of the business process, standardization of work flow, and monitoring of activities. EIT helps create facilitate relationships between various parties that are involved in a single process.
Ex. Software for enterprise resource planning, customer resource management, and supply chain management |
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Term
|
Definition
| Network IT facilitates interactions without specifying parameters. IT does not tell the user how to use it, which distinguishes it from Enterprise IT. Some examples of NIT are email, such as Lotus Notes, and wikis. Another example of NIT is facebook, which allows people to collaborate. NIT does not impose complements, it simply allows them to emerge. IN addition, unlike EIT, NIT does not specify tasks, sequences, or data. The challenge with NIT is getting people to use it. Network IT facilitates collaboration, allows expression of judgment and foster emergence. IT is sued to help bring an organization to a more centrally focused mindset, and to standardize relationships among member of a business firm. |
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Term
| What is the difference between an IT capability and an IT benefit? |
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Definition
Capability: an ability that can be developed and sued; something you can do; "GE has the capability to design jet engines"
Benefit- a payment or an entitlement; something of value revived; "GE's benefit from the deal included a payment of $2 billion and rights to use the patent." |
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Term
| What responsiblites do general business leaders have with respect to IT? |
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Definition
1. Selection- picking the right IT to provide needed business capabilities
2. Adoption- putting IT into productive use
3. Exploitation- getting the maximum benefit possible from the IT investment |
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Term
| How is IT sued in product development? Give examples. What type of IT? |
|
Definition
i. Task automation (Computer Aided Design) FIT
ii. Visualization (Engineering) FIT
iii. Simulation (Crash testing) FIT
iv. Collaboration (Common information base) NIT
v. Standardization (Process driven product design) EIT
vi. Integration (The Holy Grail??)EIT |
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Term
| What type of capabilities does each type of IT confer? |
|
Definition
FIT
1. Increased experimentation capacity
2. Greater precision (efficiency)
3. Labor substitution
EIT
1. Re-design of business processes
2. Standardization of work flows
3. Monitoring of activities
NIT
1. Facilitates collaboration
2. Allows expression of judgment
3. Fosters emergence |
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Term
| Why do companies need special software for data analysis? |
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Definition
| 403 petabytes of new data created in 2002 or roughly the amount of all printed material ever written. "We are drowning in data and starving for information." |
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Term
|
Definition
| "a set of discrete, objective facts about events. In an organizational context, data is most usefully described as structured records of transactions." |
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Term
|
Definition
| "A message meant to change the way the receiver perceives something, to have an impact on his judgment and behavior." |
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Term
| What is a data warehouse? |
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Definition
| Data that is extracted from operational databases and prepared, stored, and managed specifically for data mining and other analysis. |
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Term
| What must be done to prepare transactional data for a data warehouse? |
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Definition
1. Identify the purpose of the data
2. Organize the data
i. Select (or filter)
ii. Sort
iii. Summarize (or group)
iv. Correct (if needed)
3. Perform calculations
i. Simple (totals, averages, etc.)
ii. Complex (e.g. statistical analysis)
4. Format and present information |
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Term
| What are the primary functions (or purposes) of BI software? |
|
Definition
1. Finding meaning, creating information
2. Fast Search and retrieval
3. Carry our more involved actions |
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Term
| What do reporting systems do? |
|
Definition
i. Business Reports
ii. Digital Dashboards
iii Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) |
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Term
| What are digital dashboards? |
|
Definition
i. Online Graphical, real-time, interactive Designed for a particular position (e.g. salesrep) Specific data for each individual
Action-oriented- what is happening |
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|
Term
| What is OLAP and how is it used? |
|
Definition
i. Tool for quickly answering ad hoc analytical questions
ii. Online, interactive
iii. Large, multidimensional data sets
iv. Supports fundamental analytical needs
v. Select data of interest
vi. Summarize or group it
vii. Sort into a useful order
viii. Compute simple measures such as sums, counts, averages, etc |
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Term
|
Definition
Taking massive volumes of diverse data and finding patterns and relationships; classify and predict
Two Types-
1. Supervised: Analyst develops a model, uses data mining to estimate and test it
2. Unsupervised: Use data mining to look for pattern, then analyst tries to explain them |
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Term
| How do companies use data mining to add value? |
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Definition
1. Identifying promising new prospects for a new product
2. Locating possible reasons for product failures
3. Understanding what characterizes a top performing employee
4. Uncovering fraudulent claims
5. Pinpointing potential terrorists |
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Term
What are some popular uses of data mining?
i.e. what types of questions can data mining techniques answer? |
|
Definition
1. Determines groups of products that customers tend to purchase together
2. Used to construct "if.. then.." rules for predicting classifications (credit scoring tree) |
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Term
| How have some companies made data analytic capabilities part of their competitive strategy? |
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Definition
| At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and sue comparable technologies, business processes are among the last remaining points of differentiation. By deploying industrial-strength analytic across a wide variety of activities. |
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Term
| What are the critical success factors for companies that wish to compete on analytics? |
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Definition
1. Widespread use of modeling and optimization: Analytics competitors look beyond basic statistics --> They use predictive modeling to identify the most profitable customers.
2. An enterprise approach: Analytics competitors understand that most business functions, even those like marketing that have historically depended on art rather than science, can be improved with sophisticated quantitative techniques.
3. Senior executive advocates: An embrace of analytic requires leadership from executives at the very top who have a passion for the quantitative
approach
4. ORRRRR.. The right focus, the right culture, the right people, the right technology |
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Term
| How to the critical success factors for a company to compete on analytics relate to the idea of complements? |
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Definition
| They are kind of abstract and are requisite to compete on analytics |
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|
Term
| Name some companies that successfully compete on analytics? |
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Definition
| Harrah's, Amazon.com CapitalOne, Progresive, Marriot, Oakland A's |
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Term
| What are the issues surrounding privacy? |
|
Definition
For Individuals
-What information must/should I reveal about myself
-How can I be sure that it will appropriately be used and properly safeguarded
For Businesses
-What information should we gather and store about individuals
-How should we safeguard it |
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Term
| Why do companies need appropriate privacy policies and practices? |
|
Definition
| Not sure. E-mail me at tfornero@gmail.com |
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Term
| What are the generally accepted privacy principles relating to consumer rights? |
|
Definition
Notice-explain what information is collected and how it will be used
-Choice opt-in or opt-out
-Access- allow consumers to see the information about them |
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Term
| What are the generally accepted privacy principles relating to business operations? |
|
Definition
1. Compliance- with all regulation and all generally accepted industry standards, and with own policy
2. Awareness- educate employees, associates, and customers about policy
3. Accuracy- ensure information is correct and complete
4. Security- safeguard information form unauthorized disclosure
5. Ethical Behavior |
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|
Term
| What is a business process? |
|
Definition
| A structured, measured set of activities designed to produce goods or services for consumers |
|
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Term
| How is it different from a business function or department? |
|
Definition
| They are often cross-functional |
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|
Term
| Why is information an important consideration in business processes? |
|
Definition
1. Every process has an information component
2. Recording, reporting, directing, measuring, and controlling the process activities |
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|
Term
| What is an information system? |
|
Definition
| A computer based system that automates parts of a business process and stores related data |
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Term
| How do information systems facilitate the design of process changes? Their adoption? Their standard implementation across a large organization? |
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Definition
| They are designed around a particular process concept. They automate some, but usually not all tasks. Facilitates other task with information and tools. May charge organizational responsibility or structure |
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Term
| What is company's business model? How does IT play a role in it? |
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Definition
| A model of the company's business practices that make it profitable. Starting with the specific ones moving outward to general practices. Company's can use IT to fit into their business model and help reduce costs, increase profits, increase customer satisfaction, etc. |
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Term
| What is the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) |
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Definition
| SDLC is any logical process sued by a systems analyst to develop an information system, including requirements, validation, training, and user ownership. |
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Term
| What are the major steps in the SDLC for package software implementation |
|
Definition
I. Selection
a. Business Capabilities
b. Functional Requirements
c. Package evaluation
d. Negotiation
II. Adoption
a. Process Specification
b. Software Configuration
c. Testing
d. Data Conversion
e. Infrastructure Preparation
f. Organizational Preparation
III. Exploitation
a. Launch
b. Stabilization
IV. Ongoing Use
a. Maintenance
b. Enhancement
c. Extension |
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Term
| What are the four primary launch options for a new system and how do they differ? |
|
Definition
I. Parallel- Old System and New system running at the same time
II. Pilot- New System partial replace old system in a pilot program
III. Phased- Slowly partially phase in new system
IV. Plunge- Completely switch at once |
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Term
| Why is it often a good idea to have the help of outside consultants in a big systems project? |
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Definition
| An outside consultant can recognize problems that insider may not recognize..... (weak answer) |
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|
Term
| What the "political" issues in system implementation? |
|
Definition
| Getting everyone to adopt the software |
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|
Term
| Why do business leaders need to be involved in the adoption of EIT |
|
Definition
1. Selection- picking the right IT to provide need business capabilities
2. Adoption- putting IT into productive use |
|
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Term
| Specifically, what do business leaders need to do to help ensure the successful adoption of new EIT? |
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Definition
| They need to make sure all employees are trained and prepared to use the system. They also need to make sure all employees adopt the system so that the company can get the maximum benefit. |
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|
Term
| What do we mean by risks in an IT project? |
|
Definition
| Identifying, monitoring and limiting risks |
|
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Term
| What are some potential consequences if risks materialize? |
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Definition
| Some risks include the system not working properly, not having all the needed capabilities, not being able to handle large volumes of data, software failing, not staying within the budget or timeframe |
|
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Term
|
Definition
| Thinking about what can go wrong and then doing something about it. |
|
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Term
| What is the Risk Model and how might you use it? |
|
Definition
| It is a tool for thinking about risks and identifying potential areas for risk management. |
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Term
| What are some of the primary areas of an IT project where risks can be found (i.e. the primary areas of the risk model) |
|
Definition
1. Business Fit: means the alignment between the capabilities that the management sponsors of the program expect from the Enterprise System and what it actually provides. Does it meet the business needs or does it disappoint?
2. Enterprise Software: There are a wide variety of risks associated with the preparation of the ES software suite. Configuration errors, integration errors.
3. Technical Infrastructure: New system will need a upgraded technical infrastructure, there may be capacity shortfalls, performance problems (slow response time)
4. Data Quality: All of the data for the new ES needs to be converted and loaded. Poor data quality is an issue
5. Organizational Readiness: Account for the majority of problems. People not wanting to get on board.
6. Program Management: risks stem from assumptions, decisions, constraints |
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|
Term
| How do companies license software? |
|
Definition
a. Per Server Basis
b. Per User Basis
1. "named" user
2. Concurrent user |
|
|
Term
| Beyond license fees, what other software-related costs are important in a purchase decision? |
|
Definition
a. Maintenance (support)
i. % of license fees
ii. depending on service level
iii. annually
b. Consulting- per day
c. Training - per student day |
|
|
Term
| What is a volume purchase agreement for software? |
|
Definition
| Generally buying in bulk at a discounted price |
|
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Term
| Why do you have less leverage with a software supplier after you have made your initial purchase of a package from them? |
|
Definition
| Because after your purchase you have to buy form them unless you want to scrap the whole software system |
|
|
Term
| What is Software as a Service (SaaS)? |
|
Definition
| Software as a Service is an emerging model in which software companies provide the hosted use of their product rather than selling licenses to it |
|
|
Term
| What are business transactions? Examples? |
|
Definition
| Daily operations- paying a bill, ordering material, shipping to a customer |
|
|
Term
| What are transaction processing systems(TPS) |
|
Definition
| Automate the daily operations of a business' transaction needs, paying a bill, ordering material shipping to a customer |
|
|
Term
| What are Enterprise Systems? |
|
Definition
| They integrate all of an organization's principal processes. |
|
|
Term
| Broadly, what is the architecture of an Enterprise (or ERP) System i.e. what are its major components? |
|
Definition
| Central database surrounded by: Reporting Apps, Financial Apps, Manufacturing Apps, Inventory and Supply Apps, HR Management Apps, Service Apps, Sales and Delivery Apps |
|
|
Term
| What are the benefits of Enterprise Systems? |
|
Definition
1. Processes tried and proven (always effective, often very efficient, no need to reinvent business processes)
Data inconsistency problems eliminated
Enterprise-wide view can help (reduce inventory dramatically, reduce lead times, improve customer service) |
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|
Term
| What does it mean that "Enterprise Systems 'solve' transaction processing? |
|
Definition
1.They effectively handle transaction processing
2. Allow firms to focus new IT efforts on areas of greater potential value |
|
|
Term
| What are the three tiers of information needs that are shared by all businesses (the pyramid model)? |
|
Definition
a. Operational
b. Managerial
c. Strategic |
|
|
Term
| What types of systems are sued to meet these different needs? |
|
Definition
a. ERP systems
b. BI systems
c. External information |
|
|
Term
| What are interorganizational systems? |
|
Definition
a. Supply Chain management
b. Joint product development
c. Business process outsourcing |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A group of business entities involved in the flow of products from raw material procurement through manufacturing and logistics to delivery of finished goods to customers. |
|
|
Term
| What is Supply Chain Management? |
|
Definition
The integration of key business processes which manage the flow of information, materials, and services from raw-material suppliers through factories and warehouses to the end customers with the simultaneous, conflicting objectives of achieving
1. Minimal lost profit due to stock out
2. Efficient ordering and transportation expense
3. Customer satisfaction with product availability
4. Low inventory costs, capital efficiency and tax rates
5. Faster response to demand than competitors
6. Customized service by product, customer, and geography |
|
|
Term
| How is information sharing important to supply chain performance? |
|
Definition
| Aid the integration of key business processes |
|
|
Term
| How does IT aid information sharing in supply chains? |
|
Definition
a. Communication channels: way to move information quickly, reliably, and economically
b. Data Exchange Standards: ways to code and format information so that other(computer) users can understand it |
|
|
Term
| What is joint product development? How does IT aid it? |
|
Definition
1. Two or more companies working together to create a new product
2. IT aids it through electronic communication and shared data |
|
|
Term
| What is business process outsourcing? How does IT aid it? |
|
Definition
1. Having an essential business process performed by a supplier
2. It is only possible with shared systems and high speed networks |
|
|
Term
| What are some typical uses of RFID tags? |
|
Definition
a. Wal-Mart for inventory
b. In people for security
c. Toll booths/parking garages
d. Airports to track bags |
|
|
Term
| What are the advantages of RFID tags over bar codes? |
|
Definition
| Paperless and hassle free transactions without cashiers, don't have to scan, can sense |
|
|
Term
| What are task needs of knowledge workers that IT can facilitate? Give examples of specific technologies that support each need? |
|
Definition
1. Communication (e-mail)
2. Creation
3. Collaboration (Wiki)
4. Knowledge Sharing |
|
|
Term
| What are Enterprise 2.0 technologies? What characterizes them? |
|
Definition
a. Technologies that facilitate knowledge work, where knowledge work refers to earning a living based on what people know as opposed to physical work
b. Enterprise 2.0 focuses on platforms that companies can by or build in order to make visible the practices and outputs of their knowledge workers |
|
|
Term
| What are the components of the SLATES model for evaluating Enterprise 2.0 technologies. |
|
Definition
1. Search
2. Links
3. Authoring
4. Tags
5. Extension
6. Signals |
|
|
Term
| What capabilities do Enterprise 2.0 technologies provide to businesses? |
|
Definition
a. Communication
b. Creation
c. Collaboration
d. Knowledge sharing |
|
|
Term
| How are wikis different from blogs? |
|
Definition
| Wikis you can have interaction between different people while a blog only has one author |
|
|
Term
| What are some business uses of wikis? |
|
Definition
a. Project collaboration
b. Knowledge management (a la wikipedia)
c. Administrative simplification
d. Meeting Agenda
e. E-mail reduction
f. Meeting Notes
g. Procedures and Policy |
|
|
Term
| What are prediction markets? What are some business uses of them? |
|
Definition
| Users share information in regards to their view of the future and attempt to predict certain scenarios or outcomes. Business can use this to forecast sales |
|
|
Term
| What are some business uses of social networks like Facebook? |
|
Definition
a. For recruitment
b. Replacing Rolodexs (but generally use more private sites) |
|
|
Term
| What does Friedman mean when he say the world is flat? |
|
Definition
| Viewing the world as a level playing field in terms of commerce, where all competitors have an equal opportunity |
|
|
Term
| What are Friedman's 10 flatteners? |
|
Definition
1. Collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Rise of Windows
2. The Internet Comes Alive
3. Work Flow Software
4. Open sourcing, Self-organizing collaborative communities
5. Outsourcing, Y2K
6. Offshoring
7. Supply Chaining
8. Insourcing
9. In-forming, Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search
10. The Steriods (mobile phones, ipods, pdas etc.) |
|
|
Term
| What role has IT played in creating a "flat world"? |
|
Definition
1. Easier access to information
2. Collaboration across standardized work flow software
3. Wider participation among broader spectrum of individuals through open-sourcing |
|
|
Term
| Will IT continue to enable this "flattening" how? |
|
Definition
| Netbooks is currently the fastest growing component in personal computing which has enabled more mobile access to the Internet |
|
|
Term
| What factors might inhibit continued "flattening"? |
|
Definition
1. Political instability
2. Unequal access to the information
3. Freedom of information and Intellectual Property protection
4. Religious discrepancy
5. Language barrier |
|
|
Term
| Mastering the Three Worlds of Information Technology |
|
Definition
1. This is basically about Function, Enterprise and Network IT. The capabilities of, and how managers need to manage IT when implementing.
2. It is estimated that between 30%-75% of IT projects fail which is mind boggling considering the amount of money and effort companies put into them |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a) Business information systems are adapted and designed to keep track of increasing amounts of performance information
b) These innovative means of statistically identifying the winning characteristics of "human capital" allow these sports teams to attain skilled players without large amounts of money
c) For example, low budget teams like Florida Marlins were able to create significantly better teams by using these strategies
d) Sabermetrics, a type of business intelligence software, evaluates the performance of players outside traditional evaluation measures like batting average (not really, sabermetrics isn't a software)
e) The big advantage of business intelligence software, in this context, is that player data can be sliced and diced in any way (for example, a query report can be run to find catchers with a particular hitting ability and arm strength) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
a) At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and sue comparable technologies, business processes are among the last reaming points of differentiation
b) An embrace of analytics requires leadership from executives at the very top who have passion for the quantitative approach
c) Companies must present information in standard formats, integrate it, store it in a data warehouse, and make it easily accessible to anyone and everyone. Business intelligence tools allow employees to extract, transform, and load data for analysis and then make those analysis available in reports. |
|
|
Term
| Why do ES Projects fail? Risk model |
|
Definition
a) Business Fit: Strategic alignment, process support, structure alignment, task support, performance achievement
b) Technical Infrastructure: Capacity shortfalls, performance problems, continuous operation, security, backup and recovery
c) Organizational Readiness: Social inertia, pluralism, overt resistance
d) Data Quality: Conversion, history, timeliness, accuracy
e)The previous four are all at play with the Enterprise Software: Functionality gaps, configuration errors, incomplete testing, integration problems, reporting requirements, release dependency, supplier relationships, internal controls
f) Program Management: Resources, schedule, internal staffing, external staffing, contracts |
|
|
Term
| Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration |
|
Definition
a) Many users aren't happy with the channels and platforms available to them
b) Current technologies for knowledge workers aren't doing a good job of capturing their knowledge have led to new platforms that focus not on capturing knowledge itself, but rather on the practices and output of knowledge workers |
|
|
Term
| SLATES (6 Components of Enterprise 2.0 Technologies) |
|
Definition
| i) Search, Link, Author, Tag, Extensions (idea of automating some of the work of categorization and pattern matching. Using algorithms to say to users, "if you like that, then by extension you'll like this"), Signals (signals users when new content of interest appears. Ex. RSS feeds) |
|
|
Term
| Ground Rules for Enterprise 2.0 |
|
Definition
1. Companies are making sure their offerings are easy to use
2. They are also trying hard not to impose on users any preconceived notions about how work should proceed or how output should be categorized or structured; building tools that let these aspects of knowledge work emerge |
|
|
Term
| Challenges with Enterprise 2.0 |
|
Definition
1. Busy knowledge workers won't use the new technologies, despite training and prodding
2. Knowledge workers might use Enterprise 2.0 technologies exactly as intended, but this may lead to unintended outcomes (increased amounts of dissent and debate)
3. Espoused theories vs. Theories-in-use, ex. "I'm sincerly interested in learning, imporovment, and empowerment. I want to give the people in my organization all the tools they need to interact." Theories-in-use: driven by the need to remain in unilateral control and the desire to suppress negative feelings
- When these two come in conflict, theory-in-use usually wins, which helps explain why so many corporate empowerment initiatives fail, or at least disappoint. |
|
|
Term
| What are the primary functions of business intelligence software? |
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Definition
| To allow a company to store, gather, process, analyze, and access large amount of corporate data. It plays a vital role in the decision making process of an organization. The reason for this is because the Business Intelligence software can often make accurate predictions of demand and other areas of the business to help guide the decision making process. |
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Term
| What is the purpose of business reporting software? What types of reports can you create? In what forms can you output them? What are report parameters? |
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Definition
| Paper or online, static, largely text, point-in-time; standard data and format, extract what you need; often historical- what happened probably some more shit, but most likely not that important |
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Term
| What is "drill down" capability? |
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Definition
| To "drill down" simply means to split the data into a more detailed anlysis |
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Term
| What is the purpose of digital dashboards? How do they differ from business reports? |
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Definition
| A standard business report is presented mostly with text, is immovable, and is often based off of historical information. A digital dashboard, on the other hand,is an interactive tool that is always online and based off of current actions. They provide graphical information on company data and update in real-time and are action-oriented. |
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Term
| What is Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)? |
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Definition
| Tool for quickly answering ad hoc analytical questions. Online, interactive Large, multidimensional data sets. Like Pivot Table attached to a database. |
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Term
| What is an OLAP cube? A measure? A dimension? |
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Definition
| An OLAP cube is a presentation of a measure with associated dimensions. A measure is some sort of data item whereas a dimension is a characteristic of a measure. |
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Term
| What is the MDX query language? What can you do with it? |
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Definition
| Query language for OLAP databases, much like SQL is a query language for relational databases. IT is also a calculation, with syntax similar to spreadsheet formulas |
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Term
| What is enterprise software? |
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Definition
| Integrates all of an organization's principal processes. System that takes a cross-functional, process view. Data stored in a centralized database |
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Term
| What is an inherent process model? |
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Definition
| The inherent process model of a software package establishes constraints and limitations on how the business can function. Software designers incorporate common industry practices into their products while trying to leave room for customization to accommodate for different ways that companies like to work. A company must accept the inherent process model if they decide to use a software. |
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Term
| What is transaction processing? |
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Definition
| Transaction processing systems capture, process, and store information about the basic operational actions of a business such as paying a bill, filling an order, buying supplies, etc. They manage the operational information of the business in one system. Quickbooks Online is an example of a transaction processing system. |
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Term
| What kind of built-in reporting do enterprise systems have? |
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Definition
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Term
| What is software configuration? |
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Definition
| Software configuration is creating useful capabilities that allow users to adjust to suit their own needs. Quickbooks Online has several configuration possibilities controlling which business practices are used, how information is presented, and optional steps in the inherent process model. |
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Term
| What are internal controls for a system? |
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Definition
| Internal controls for a system allow different people with different job functions and authority levels within the firm to have varying access to information they can see. Internal controls are necessary because enterprise software systems store valuable, sensitive, and/or confidential business information that must be handled wisely. |
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Term
| When selecting software, how do you evaluate functionality? What is a functional gap? A workaround? |
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Definition
| Determine how well each would fit its business needs. Evaluating all packages produces a list of issues for each package-- things that it does not do or does differently than you would like. Every package will have some functional gaps, so the software with the smallest gap should be chosen to evaluate functionality. Workarounds might involve doing some tasks manually, or writing a special computer program to perform them, or changing your business processes |
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Term
| Advantages of SaaS for Customers |
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Definition
-Avoid technical complexiteis of installing and running the sftware
-Avoid having to own and operate servers
-Avoid need for a large upfront investment in licenses |
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Term
| Advantages for Company offering SaaS |
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Definition
-Provide greater value added (not just software but also hosting services)
-Increase goodwill with responsive customer service
-Each different customization allows for a greater increase in employee knowledge |
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Term
| What can you do with a Wiki? |
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Definition
1. Freedom to edit and update at convenience of the user
2. In-text links allow easy navigation to other wiki pages or Internet sites discussing relevant topics
3. Can be used to accomplish a wide range of tasks
4. Convenience, Flexibility, Adaptability |
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Term
| What is the philosophy of a wiki? Who are they created by? For? |
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Definition
| Philosophy (of creator) - I wanted to stroke that story-telling nature in all of us... I wanted people who wouldn't normally author to find it comfortable authoring, so that there stood a chance of us discovering the structure of what they had to say. |
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Term
| What are the limits on what participants can do in a wiki? |
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Definition
| Not a lot of limits. Maybe a page at the outset meant to guide the wiki's direction. There are limits concerning appropriateness of content. |
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Term
| How are decision made about what content is appropriate? How do you deal with malicious or anti-social behavior in a wiki? What wiki software features help with this? |
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Definition
| The community of wiki users judge what is or is not appropriate in the content they view. Those who find any content to be inappropriate or offensive are able to erase, edit, and restore s they like. Violation of common, agreed upon wiki practices may result in removal from the access list. |
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