2. Unit Two
• Chapter Six – Valuing Organizational
Information
• Chapter Seven – Storing Organizational
Information – Databases
• Chapter Eight – Accessing
Organizational Information – Data
Warehouse
6-2
4. Learning Outcomes
6.1 Describe the broad levels, formats,
and granularities of information
6.2 Differentiate between transactional
and analytical information
6-4
5. Learning Outcomes
6.3 List, describe, and provide an example
of each of the five characteristics of high
quality information
6.4 Assess the impact of low quality
information on an organization and the
benefits of high quality information on an
organization
6-5
6. Organizational Information
• Information is everywhere in an organization
• Employees must be able to obtain and analyze
the many different levels, formats, and
granularities of organizational information to
make decisions
• Successfully collecting, compiling, sorting, and
analyzing information can provide tremendous
insight into how an organization is performing
6-6
8. The Value of Transactional and
Analytical Information
• Transactional information verses analytical information
6-8
9. The Value of Timely Information
• Timeliness is an aspect of information that
depends on the situation
– Real-time information – immediate, up-to-
date information
– Real-time system – provides real-time
information in response to query requests
6-9
10. The Value of Quality Information
• Business decisions are only as good as
the quality of the information used to
make the decisions
• You never want to find yourself using
technology to help you make a bad
decision faster
6-10
11. The Value of Quality Information
• Characteristics of high-quality information
include:
– Accuracy
– Completeness
– Consistency
– Uniqueness
– Timeliness
6-11
12. The Value of Quality Information
• Low quality information example
6-12
13. Understanding the Costs of
Poor Information
• The four primary sources of low quality
information include:
1. Online customers intentionally enter inaccurate
information to protect their privacy
2. Information from different systems have
different entry standards and formats
3. Call center operators enter abbreviated or
erroneous information by accident or to save
time
4. Third party and external information contains
inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and errors
6-13
14. Understanding the Costs of
Poor Information
• Potential business effects resulting from
low quality information include:
– Inability to accurately track customers
– Difficulty identifying valuable customers
– Inability to identify selling opportunities
– Marketing to nonexistent customers
– Difficulty tracking revenue due to inaccurate
invoices
– Inability to build strong customer relationships
6-14
15. Understanding the Benefits of
Good Information
• High quality information can significantly
improve the chances of making a good
decision
• Good decisions can directly impact an
organization's bottom line
6-15
16. OPENING CASE STUDY QUESTIONS
It Take A Village to Write an Encyclopedia
1. Determine if an entry in Wikipedia is an example of
transactional information or analytical information
2. Describe the impact to Wikipedia if the information
contained in its database is of low quality
3. Review the five common characteristics of high quality
information and rank them in order of importance to
Wikipedia
4. Explain how Wikipedia is resolving the issue of poor
information
6-16
17. CHAPTER SIX CASE
Fishing for Quality
• Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game requires high
quality information to manage the state’s natural
resources, specifically to increase fishing yields, while
ensuring the future of many species
• Using fish counts the department makes daily
decisions as to which districts will be open or closed to
commercial fishing
• Allowing too many fish to be caught before they swim
upstream to spawn could diminish fish populations –
yielding devastating effects for years to come
6-17
18. Chapter Six Case Questions
1. Describe the difference between
transactional and analytical information
and determine which type the Alaska
Department of Fish and Game is using
to make decisions
2. Explain the importance of high quality
information for the Alaska Department of
Fish and Game
6-18
19. Chapter Six Case Questions
3. Review the five common characteristics of
high quality information and rank them in order
of importance for the Alaska Department of
Fish and Game
4. Do the managers at the Alaska Department of
Fish and Game actually have all of the
information they require to make an accurate
decision? Explain the statement “it is never
possible to have all of the information required
to make the best decision possible”
6-19
Editor's Notes
UNIT TWO OPENING CASE – Additional Case Information It Takes A Village to Write an Encyclopedia This case focuses on the invention of wiki technology and the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Start the class off by taking a brief tour of Wikipedia so students can see the online edits. Wikipedia is located at http://www.wikipedia.org/ . Ask your students if they know which topic area has the largest number of daily changes? One of the hottest areas in Wikipedia is the Start Trek entries, which are changed more than any other topic area in the entire encyclopedia. Wiki technology is taking off and people are finding new uses for the technology daily. Wiki is being used for collaboration among many businesses. Wiki is being used in education in a number of ways to support learning: A teacher could post some key revision words for students to expand into definitions / pages Students could work in groups on collaborative documents such as a group report Course notes could be refined over the duration of the course by both students and teachers Students could research new topics and contribute their findings A wiki could be used as a portfolio showing development of a project Teacher can start a writing prompt and have students add parts to create a comprehensive class writing activity. A teacher could start a story and students could create links off it which would allow the story to follow different, interactive paths. States and school districts can develop and edit curricula by allowing teachers to add in activities and assessments A wiki would be a great tool for collaboratively constructing answers to exam questions! A great tool for a team of students involved in project work Annotating each other's work
Unit 2 introduces students to: Data Information quality Databases Data mining Data warehouses in detail and highlights why and how information adds value to an organization Business Intelligence
CLASSROOM OPENER GREAT BUSINESS DECISIONS – Julius Reuter Uses Carrier Pigeons to Transfer Information In 1850, the idea that sending and receiving information could add business value was born. Julius Reuter began a business that bridged the gap between Belgium and Germany. Reuter built one of the first information management companies built on the premise that customers would be prepared to pay for information that was timely and accurate. Reuter used carrier pigeons to forward stock market and commodity prices from Brussels to Germany. Customers quickly realized that with the early receipt of vital information they could make fortunes. Those who had money at stake in the stock market were prepared to pay handsomely for early information from a reputable source, even if it was a pigeon. Eventually, Reuter’s business grew from 45 pigeons to over 200 pigeons. Eventually the telegraph bridged the gap between Brussels to Germany, and Reuter’s brilliantly conceived temporary monopoly was closed.
6.1 Describe the broad levels, formats, and granularities of information Information levels include individual, department, and enterprise Information formats include document, presentation, spreadsheet, and database Information granularities include detail, summary, and aggregate 6.2 Differentiate between transactional and analytical information Transactional information encompasses all of the information contained within a single business process or unit of work, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of daily operational tasks. Examples of transactional information include withdrawing cash from an ATM or making an airline reservation. Analytical information encompasses all organizational information and its primary purpose is to support the performing of managerial analysis tasks. Examples of analytical information include trends, sales, and product statistics.
6.3 List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information Accuracy determines if all values are correct. Example – is the name spelled correctly? Completeness determines if any values are missing. Example - is the address complete? Consistency ensures that aggregate or summary information is in agreement with detailed information. Example – do totals equal the true total of the individual fields? Uniqueness ensures that each transaction, entity, and event is represented only once in the information. Example – are there any duplicate customers? Timeliness determines if the information is current with respect to the business requirement. Example – is the information updated weekly? 6.4 Assess the impact of low quality information on an organization and the benefits of high quality information on an organization Using the wrong information can lead to making the wrong decision. Making the wrong decision can cost time, money, and even reputations. Business decisions are only as good as the information used to make the decision. low quality information leads to low quality business decisions. high quality information can significantly improve the chances of making a good business decision and directly affect an organization’s bottom line.
Granularity refers to the extent of detail within the information (fine and detailed or “coarse” and abstract information) Have you ever had to correlate two different formats, levels, or granularities of information? How did you correlate the information? Taking a hard look at organizational information can yield exciting and unexpected results such as potential new markets, new ways of reaching customers, and even new ways of doing business
This is a good place to discuss the Samsung Electronics and Staples examples from the text Students should understand that information varies and different levels, formats, and granularities of information can be found throughout an organization Levels Formats Granularities Information granularity – refers to the extent of detail within the information (fine and detailed or coarse and abstract) CLASSROOM EXERCISE Organizing Information Break your students into groups and assign each group a different information type from Figure 6.1 Ask the students to find examples of the different kinds of information they might encounter in an organization for their information type For example, information formats for a spreadsheet might include a profit and loss statement or a market analysis Ask your students to determine potential issues that might arise from having different types of information Ask your students what happens if the information does not correlate For example, the customer letters sent out do not match the customers and customer addresses in the database For example, the total on the customer’s bill does not add up to the individual line items
Transactional information – encompasses all of the information contained within a single business process or unit of work, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of daily operational tasks Analytical information – encompasses all organizational information, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of managerial analysis tasks Organizations capture and store transactional information in databases and use it when performing operational tasks and repetitive decisions such as analyzing daily sales reports and production schedules Transactional information examples include withdrawing cash from an ATM, making an airline reservation, purchasing stocks Compile a list of additional transactional information examples These could include daily sales, hourly employee payroll, product orders, shipping an order Analytical information includes transactional information Analytical information also includes external organizational information such as market, industry, and economic conditions Analytical information is used to make ad-hoc decisions Analytical information examples include trends, sales, product statistics, and future growth projections Compile a list of additional analytical information examples These could include cost/benefit analysis, sales forecast, market trends, industry trends, and regulations Ask your students to compile a list of the different types of ad-hoc decisions a business might base on analytical information These could include building a new plant, hiring or reducing workforces, introducing a new product
The important point that students must understand regarding timely information is that “timely” is relative to each business decision Some decisions require weekly information while others require daily information Organizations such as 911 centers, stock traders, and banks require up-to-the second information CLASSROOM EXERCISE Timing Time Break your students into groups and ask them to compile a list of three business decisions that require up-to-the-second information, three business decisions that require quarterly information, and three business decisions that require yearly information. Have your students present their answers to the class.
Do you have any examples of a time when you encountered a problem due to low quality information? For example, you did not receive a package because the address was incorrect or missing List the business ramifications that can occur for an organization that maintains low quality information What is the expense to a business that provides its employees with hourly updates, when the employees only require weekly updates? Updating information costs money Updated information must be stored; the more frequently an organization updates its information, the more information they will have in their data warehouse and databases Updating information changes information Review the scenario in the text that discusses three managers who make different business decisions based on the same report The reason for the different business decisions is because the managers pulled the report at three different times during the day Since the information was continually being updated, they came to different conclusions
Characteristics of High Quality Information Accuracy Are all the values correct? For example, is the name spelled correctly? Is the dollar amount recorded properly? Completeness Are any of the values missing? For example, is the address complete including street, city, state, and zip code? Consistency Is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed information? For example, do all total fields equal the true total of the individual fields? Uniqueness Is each transaction, entity, and event represented only once in the information? For example, are there any duplicate customers? Timeliness Is the information current with respect to the business requirements? For example, is information updated weekly, daily, or hourly? CLASSROOM EXERCISE Inquiring about Information Break your students into groups and ask each group to provide an additional example of each of the five common characteristics of high quality information that is not provided in the above figure For example, Accuracy – does a purchase price on a bill match the item description on the bill? Item 1: Kids juice cup, cost $10,000 Chances are a kids juice cup would not cost $10,000 and this is an inaccurate item
Walk-through each of the six issues and have your students extrapolate a potential business problem that might be associated with each issue. The example does not state what type of database or spreadsheet this information is contained (sales, marketing, customer service, billing, etc), so allow your students use their imagination when they are extrapolating the potential business problems Issue 1: Without a first name it would be impossible to correlate this customer with customers in other databases (Sales, Marketing, Billing, Customer Service) to gain a compete customer view (CRM) Issue 2: Without a complete street address there is no possible way to communicate with this customer via mail or deliveries. An order might be sitting in a warehouse waiting for the complete address before shipping. The company has spent time and money processing an order that might never be completed Issue 3: If this is the same customer, the company will waste money sending out two sets of promotions and advertisements to the same customers. It might also send two identical orders and have to incur the expense of one order being returned Issue 4: This is a good example of where cleaning data is difficult because this may or may not be an error. There are many times when a phone and a fax have the same number. Since the phone number is also in the e-mail address field, chances are that the number is inaccurate Issue 5: The business would have no way of communicating with this customer via e-mail Issue 6: The company could determine the area code based on the customer’s address. This takes time, which costs the company money. This is a good reason to ensure that information is entered correctly the first time. All incorrect information needs to be fixed, which costs time and money
Addressing the above sources of information inaccuracies will significantly improve the quality of organizational information Determine a few additional sources of low quality information A customer service representative could accidentally transpose a number in an address or misspell a last name
Can you list any additional business effects resulting from poor information? (focus on organizational strategies such as SCM, CRM, and ERP) Poor information could cause the SCM system to order too much inventory from a supplier based on inaccurate orders Poor information could cause a CRM system to send an expensive promotional item (such as a fruit basket) to the wrong address of one of its best customers What occurs when you have the inability to build strong customer relationships? Increase buyer power Gartner podcasts are excellent course resources, there is current a good podcast on the cost of poor data to an organization http://www.gartner.com/it/products/podcasting/about_gartner_voice.jsp
CLASSROOM EXERCISE Understanding Information’s Quality Break your students into groups and ask them to compile a list of all of the issues found in the following information (the table is located in the IM – cut and paste onto a slide or display on the projector) Ask your students to also list why most low quality information errors occur and what an organization can do to help implement high quality information
1. Determine if an entry in Wikipedia is an example of transactional information or analytical information. From the customer’s perspective Wikipeida entries are an example of analytical information. They are using the information to research a topic, make a decision, or perform an analysis. From Wikipedia’s perspective each entry is an example of transactional information since it is their primary business to gain entries from individual contributors. 2. Describe the impact to Wikipedia if the information contained in its database is of low quality. If Wikipedia contained information that was inaccurate its customers would discontinue using it as a source for information. It could also find itself in legal trouble if it allows entries stating inaccurate information about people, which is known as defamation of character. This point is demonstrated in the case when Wikipedia had to start restricting access by tightening its rules for submitting entries following the disclosure that it ran a piece falsely implicating a man in the Kennedy assassinations. 3. Review the five common characteristics of high quality information and rank them in order of importance to Wikipedia. Student answers to this question will vary depending on their personal views and experiences with technology. The important part of the question is understanding the students’ justifications for their order. Potential order of importance: Timeliness – Wikipedia’s information must be timely. If users are receiving old and outdated entries, or no entries for a new topic, they will not continue using Wikipedia. An encyclopedia that is outdated is not very useful. Accuracy – Wikipedia’s entries must be accurate, and if they are inaccurate the users can change the definition to ensure it is accurate. An encyclopedia that is inaccurate is useless. Consistency – Wikipedia’s results must be consistent. Users will not trust the system if it provides different definitions for the same entry. An encyclopedia that offers inconsistent terms is not useful. Completeness – Wikipedia’s entry results need to be complete. An encyclopedia that does not contain vast amounts of information is not useful. Uniqueness – Wikipedia’s customers want unique answers to each entry. Multiple answers to a term will confuse the customer and they will not be able to know which answer is correct. An encyclopedia cannot have multiple answers for each term. 4. Explain how Wikipedia is resolving the issue of poor information. Wikipedia originally allowed unrestricted access so that people could contribute to the site without undergoing a registration process. As with any database management system, governance is a key issue. Without governance, there is no control over how information is published and maintained. But as Web sites like Wikipedia grow in volume, it will be nearly impossible to govern them. Wikipedia began tightening its rules for submitting entries following the disclosure that it ran a piece falsely implication a man in the Kennedy assassinations. Wikipedia now requires users to register before they can create articles.
1. Describe the difference between transactional and analytical information and determine which type the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is using to make decisions Transactional information encompasses all of the information contained within a single business process or unit of work, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of daily operational tasks. Analytical information encompasses all organizational information, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of managerial analysis tasks. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is using transactional information to make analytical decisions. The transactional information includes the daily fish tickets from the commercial fishing boats that include the species caught, weight, and quantity. Fish escapement information from remote areas is tracked by field workers positioned in towers who scan rivers to visibly count fish. The analytical decisions that are made from this information include determining whether or not fishermen can fish each day. 2. Explain the importance of high quality information for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game If the department receives low quality information from fish counts, then either too many fish escape or too many are caught. Allowing too many salmon to swim upstream could deprive fishermen of their livelihoods. Allowing too many to be caught before they swim upstream to spawn could diminish fish populations- yielding devastating effects for years to come.
3. Review the five common characteristics of high quality information and rank them in order of importance for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Student answers to this question will vary depending on their personal views and experiences with technology. The important part of the question is understanding the students’ justifications for their order. Potential order of importance: Timeliness – Without timely information the department can not make fishing decisions Accuracy – inaccurate information will lead to the department making the wrong decisions Completeness – incomplete information will make it harder for the department to make decisions regarding the amount of fish. Incomplete information probably occurs frequently since part of the process, fish escapement, is performed manually Consistency – information inconsistency probably occurs since the fish escapement is performed manually Uniqueness – a fish ticket could be mistakenly entered twice 4. Do the managers at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game actually have all of the information they require to make an accurate decision? Explain the statement “it is never possible to have all of the information required to make the best decision possible.” No, the managers at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will never have every single piece of information. It would be almost impossible to count every single fish. However, they have enough to make an accurate estimate as to the number of fish. If you wait to have every single piece of information you would probably never make a decision. We typically receive enough information to make an accurate decision. Of course, the more information you have, the better the decision you can make, but if you wait to get every piece of information you will take too long to make the decision.
