CHAPTER 9 : ENABLING THE ORGANIZATION - DECISION MAKING

What is artificial intelligence?????

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a simulates human intelligence such as the ability to reason and learn. An advantages for AI, it can check info on competitor. Four most common categories of AI include :

  Expert System – computerized advisory programs that imitate the reasoning processes of experts in solving difficult problems.

An example of expert system in terms of medical…this basic tasks are carried out by medical expert system which is diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, monitoring. In terms of treatment, the patient or physician could access the system through internet. From here, the user could choose from the choice of patient’s databases or patience disease database. Each database would perform the particular task, either from diagnosis module or prediction module. Then the user will received the feedback through internet so that the treatment can be performed. 

     Neural Network – attempts to emulate the way the human brains works – fuzzy logic – a mathematical method of handling imprecise or subjective information.

An example of neural network which is bank loans….imagine a highly experienced bank manager who must decide which customers will qualify for a loan. His decision is based on a completed application form that contains ten questions. Each question is answered by a number from 1 to 5 ( some responses may be subjective in nature). If we had a large number of loan applications as input, along with the manager’s decision as output, a neural network could be ‘ trained’ on these patterns. The inner workings of the neural network have enough mathematical sophistication to reasonably simulate the expert’s intuition. 

Genetic Algorithm – an artificial intelligent system that mimics the evolutionary, survival-of-the-fittest process to generate increasingly better to solutions to a problem.

 Examples of problems solved by generic algorithm include mirrors designed to funnel sunlight to a solar collector, antennae designed to pick up radio signals in space, and walking methods for computer figures. Many of their solutions have been highly effective, unlike anything a human engineer would have produced, and inscrutable as to how they arrived at that solution. 

  Intelligent Agent – special-purposed knowledge-based information system that accomplishes specific tasks on behalf of its users include multi-agent systems and agent-based modeling.

An example of intelligent agent is used in technology in Travel Reservation Systems…a travel agent, software or human, must not operate on behalf of any single airline or any other similar company, so that it will be able to obtain optimum offers for their clients. Therefore, by definition, the perfect software travel agent will be one owned by a travel agency and will work to obtain optimum packages for its customers.  

The best movie I’ve ever watched!!!!

CHAPTER 8 : ACCESSING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION - DATA WAREHOUSE

1. Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organization 

The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to aggregate information throughout an organization into a single repository for decision-making purposes. Data warehouse is gathered from many different operational databases. It also supports business analysis activities and decision-making tasks. Data marts are contains a subset of data warehouse information. On the other hand, data mart is a decision support system incorporating a subset of the enterprise's data focused on specific functions or activities of the enterprises. 

2. Compare the multidimensional nature of data warehouses (and data marts) with the two-dimensional nature of databases 

Databases contains information in a series of two-dimensional tables. Most databases contain multiple tables, which may each include several different fields. For example, a company database may include tables for products, employees, and financial records. Each of these tables would have different fields that are relevant to the information stored in the tables. In a data warehouse and data mart, information is multidimensional which is contains layers of columns and rows. Each layer in these data represents information according to the additional dimension. It includes products, promotions, category, stores, date and any else that related. 

3. Identify the importance of ensuring the cleanliness of information throughout an organization

An organization must maintain high-quality in the data warehouse. Information cleansing and scrubbing is a process that weeds out and fixes or discards inconsistent, incorrect, or incomplete information. The organization will be unable to make good business decision without high-quality information.  

4. Explain the relationship between business intelligence and a data warehouse

Business intelligence is an information that people use to support their decision-making efforts. A data warehouse is an enabler of business intelligence. The purpose of data warehouse is to pull all kinds of disparate information into a single location where it is cleansed and scrubbed for analysis. 

CHAPTER 7 : STORING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION – DATABASES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

7.1 Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model

The relational database model is a type of database that stores information in the form of logically related two-dimensional tables. For an example, web sites of student portal UiTM, when student click to student portal, then click to subjects, inside it have all the subjects that student taken. In the primary concepts of the relational database model have an entities, entity classes, attributes, keys, and relationships. An entity in the relational database model is a person, place, thing, transaction or event about which information is stored. Attributes also called fields or columns, are characteristics or properties of an entity class. Developers must identify primary keys and foreign keys in order to manage and organize various entity classes within the relational database model and use both of keys to create logical relationships. A primary key is a field (or group of fields) that uniquely identifies a given entity in a table. It are important because they provide a way of distinguishing each entity in a table. A foreign key in the relational database model is a primary key of one table that appears as an attribute in another table and acts to provide a logical relationship between the two tables.

7.2 Evaluate the advantages of the relational database model

The advantages of the relational database model are :

Ø  Increased flexibility – database provide flexibility in allowing each user to access the information in whatever way best suits his or her needs.  The distinction between logical and physical views is important in understanding flexible database user views.

Ø  Increased scalability and performance – only a database could ‘scale’ to handle the massive volumes of information and the large numbers of users required. Scalability refers to how well a system can adapt to increased demands. Performance measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transaction.

Ø  Reduced information redundancy – is the duplication of information or storing the same information in multiple places. Redundant information occurs because organizations frequently capture and store the same information in multiple locations.

Ø  Increased information integrity (quality) – information integrity is a measure of the quality of information. Within a database environment, integrity constraints are rules that help ensure the quality of information.

Ø  Increased information security – as systems become increasingly complex and more available over the Internet, security becomes an even bigger issue.

7.3 Compare relational integrity constraints and business-critical integrity constraints.

There are two types of integrity constraints :

Relational integrity constraints

Business-critical integrity constraints

Rules that enforce basic and fundamental information-based constraints. For an example, an operational integrity constraint would not allow someone to create an order for a nonexistent customer, provide a markup percentage that was negative or order zero pounds of raw materials from a supplier.

Enforce business rules vital to an organization’s success and often require more insight and knowledge than relational integrity constraints. Consider a supplier of fresh produce to large grocery chains. The supplier might implement a business-critical integrity constraint stating that no product returns are accepted after 15 days past delivery. That would make sense because of the chance of spoilage of the produce.

7.4 Describe the benefits of a data-driven website

Advantages of a data-driven website :

ü  Development – allows the website owner to make changes any time and all without having to rely on a developer or knowing HTML programming. A well-structured data-driven website enables updating with little or no training.

ü  Cutting production and update costs – a data-driven website can be updated and ‘published’ by any competent data-entry or administrative person. In addition to being convenient and more affordable, changes and updates will take a fraction of the time that they would with a static site. While training a competent programmer can take months or even years, training a data-entry person can be done in 30-60 minutes.

ü  More efficient – by their very nature, computers are excellent at keeping volumes of information intact. With a data-driven solution, the system keeps track of the templates, so users do not have to. Global changes to layout, navigation, or site structure would need to be programmed only once, in one place, and the site itself will take care of propagating those changes to the appropriate pages and areas. A data-driven infrastructure will improve the reliability and stability of a website, while greatly reducing the chance of ‘breaking’ some part of the site when adding new areas.

ü  Improved stability – any programmer who has to update a website from ‘static’ templates must be very organized to keep track of all the source files. If a programmer leaves unexpectedly, it could involve re-creating existing work if those source files cannot be found. Plus, if there were any changes to the templates, the new programmer must be careful to use only the latest version. With a data-driven website, there is peace of mind, knowing the content is never lost even if your programmer is.

7.4 Describe the two primary methods for integrating information across multiple databases 

An organization can choose from two integration methods which are forward and backward integration.....

Forward integration takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream systems and processes. Means the expansion of a business products or services to related areas in order to more directly to fulfill the customer's needs. An example, farmers sell his or her crops at the local market rather than to a distribution center...
Backward integration takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes..

CHAPTER 5 : ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES THAT SUPPORT STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

IT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

IT is a new functional area, having only been around formally around 40 years…recently IT-related strategic positions…. Some organizations had many chief officer but it depends on the number of employees….the larger the number of employees, the larger the number of chief officer….such as:-

      Chief Information Officer (CIO)

-          Oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives

-          Some reports often sent directly to the CEO

-          Possess a solid and detailed understanding of every aspect of an organization coupled with tremendous insight into the capability of IT

      Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

-          Speeds of information deliver to customers

-          Ensures efficiency of IT systems

-          Possess well-rounded knowledge of all aspects of IT include hardware, software and telecommunications

      Chief Security Officer (CSO)

-          Ensures the security of organization in IT systems and develop strategies

-          Avoids hackers from public/competitor

-          The role has been elevated in recent years because of the numbers of hackers and viruses

-          Possess detailed knowledge of networks and telecommunications

      Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)

-          Ensures the ethical and legal use of information – information of customers saved nicely

-          Its newest senior executive position in IT

-          Lawyers by training, enabling to understand the often complex legal issues surrounding the use of information

      Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)

-          Collecting, maintaining and distributing the organization’s knowledge

-          Designs programs and systems that make it easy for people to reuse knowledge

-          Create repositories of organizational documents, methodologies, tools and practices

-          Establish methods for filtering the information

-          Keep the systems up-to-date by encourage employees contributions

-          Contribute directly to the organization’s bottom line by reducing the learning curve for new employees or employees taking on new roles

USE OF FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK????i'm sure that all of you know about facebook and using facebook....facebook is a famous networking that many people use that to connect with other people......anything can be made by using facebook.....as all you know, some users use this type of networking as a platform of their business or called as a business online....so how far the efficiency and effectiveness of facebook in terms to carry on the business???some business success by using facebook because they know how to give satisfaction to their customers...nowdays people not need to walking to shopping but sit in front of the computer just click the mouse, the products will be received to them...so an organization have to use all resources in order to customer can see the products in the page of fb...so that an organization can show the products to satisfied customer by deliver the similar products that had been showed in page of fb...

MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Efficiency and Effectiveness IT metrics

definition of metrics....metrics is a measurement by which is efficiency, performance, progress or quality of a plan, process or product can be assessed....

Efficiency IT metrics....

measure the performance of an IT systems and many aspects of performance including throughput speed and availability of the system......its organized the way of documenting and reporting the findings of efficiency IT metrics....it is important for evaluate and improve performance of an IT system and also make sure these system is being utilized in a proper way to ensure effectiveness of business process....an example, how far a company can use resources to achieve the goals....

Effectiveness IT metrics....

measures how well a company or business is reaching its objectives and constantly questions as to a whether the right actions being taken to meet the given objectives......sometimes employer make surveys in the company to know how well their employees work together as an organization to achieve their target or goals in terms to maintain satisfaction of customers......an example, how well customers of Apple products receive the similar information or updates of new products.....