978-0073402987 Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Closing Material Part 1

Type

Solution Manual

Book Title

Business Driven Information Systems 5th Edition

ISBN 13

978-0073402987

April 4, 2019

CHAPTER six

CLOSING MATERIAL

OPENING CASE QUESTIONS

INFORMING INFORMATION

1. Knowledge: List the reasons a business would want to display

information in a graphic or visual format.

Information is powerful. Information can tell an organization how its

current operations are performing and help it estimate and strategize

about how future operations might perform. The ability to understand,

digest, analyze, and filter information is key to growth and success to any

2. Comprehension: Describe how a business could use a business

intelligence digital dashboard to gain an understanding of how

the business is operating.

Data visualization describes technologies that allow users to “see” or

visualize data to transform information into a business perspective. Data

visualization tools move beyond Excel graphs and charts into

sophisticated analysis techniques such as pie charts, controls,

instruments, maps, time-series graphs, and more. Data visualization tools

can help uncover correlations and trends in data that would otherwise go

3. Application: Explain how a marketing department could use

data visualization tool to help with the release of a new product.

Data visualization describes technologies that allow users to “see” or

visualize data to transform information into a business perspective. Data

visualization tools move beyond Excel graphs and charts into

sophisticated analysis techniques such as pie charts, controls,

instruments, maps, time-series graphs, and more. Data visualization tools

4. Analysis: Categorize the 2ve common characteristics of

high-quality information and rank them in order of importance for

Hotels.com.

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 – Hotels.com information must be timely. If users are

5. Synthesis: Develop a list of some possible entities and

attributes located in Hotels.com database.

Entity could include:

ROOMS

INVENTORY

AMENITIES

EMPLOYEES

SCHEDULES

RATES

GUESTS

Attributes could include:

Employee Name

Employee Address

Employee Title

Employee Wage

6. Evaluate: Assess how Hotels.com is using BI to identify trends

and change associated business processes.

Organizations can use BI to find the cause to many issues and problems

simply by asking “Why?” The process starts by analyzing a report such as

sales amounts by quarter. Managers will drill down into the report looking

for why sales are up or why sales are down. Once they understand why a

certain location or product is experiencing an increase in sales, they can

share the information in an effort to raise enterprisewide sales. Once they

understand the cause for a decrease in sales, they can take effective

action to resolve the issue. Here are a few examples of how managers can

use BI to answer tough business questions:

planning and creating solid business strategies.

Ask a simple question—such as who is my best customer or what is my

worst-selling product—and you might get as many answers as you have

employees. Databases, data warehouses, and data marts can provide a

single source of “trusted” data that can answer questions about

customers, products, suppliers, production, finances, fraud, and even

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How does a database turn data elements into information?

A database stores the information in logical tables connected by keys

2. Why does a business need to be concerned with the quality of its

data?

Without high-quality data no matter how good the business is running the

3. How can data governance help protect a business from hackers?

Data governance refers to the overall management of the availability,

usability, integrity, and security of company data. By ensuring data is in

4. Why would a company care about the timeliness of its data?

With data that is out-of-date the company will make incorrect decisions.

5. What are the 2ve characteristics common to high-quality

information?

The five characteristics for high-quality information include accurate,

6. What is data governance and its importance to a company?

Data governance refers to the overall management of the availability,

usability, integrity, and security of company data. A company that

supports a data governance program has a defined a policy that specifies

7. What are the four primary traits that help determine the value of

information?

The four primary traits of the value of information include information

8. What is the di>erence between an entity and an attribute?

An entity stores information about a person, place, thing, transaction, or

9. What are the advantages of a relational database?

A relational database stores information in the form of logically related

10. What are the advantages of a data-driven website?

A data-driven website is an interactive website kept constantly updated

and relevant to the needs of its customers using a database. Data-driven

11. What is a data warehouse and why would a business want to

implement one?

A data warehouse is a logical collection of information, gathered from

many different operational databases, that supports business analysis

activities and decision-making tasks. Data warehouses allow

12. Why would you need to use multidimensional analysis?

A dimension is a particular attribute of information. Each layer in a data

warehouse or data mart represents information according to an additional

dimension. An information cube is the common term for the

13. What is the purpose of information cleansing (or scrubbing)?

Information cleansing allows a company to scrub information to remove

14. Why would a department want a data mart instead of just

accessing the entire data warehouse?

The MIS department manages and controls the data warehouse. A

department would only want to see the information relevant to their

15. Why would a business be data rich, but information poor?

It does not matter how much data an organization stores if the data

CLOSING CASE ONE QUESTIONS

DATA VISUALIZATION: STORIES FOR THE INFORMATION

AGE

1. Identify the e>ects poor information might have on a data

visualization project.

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.

2. How does data visualization use database technologies?

Data visualization is a way to make sense of the ever-increasing stream of

information with which we’re bombarded and provides a creative antidote

to the analysis paralysis that can result from the burden of processing

such a large volume of information. “It’s not about clarifying data,” says

Koblin. “It’s about contextualizing it.” It’s essential to understand the

3. How could a business use data visualization to identify new

trends?

There are real implications for business here. Most cell phone providers,

for instance, offer a statement of a user’s monthly activity. Most often it’s

an overwhelming table of various numerical measures of how much you

talked, when, with whom, and how much it cost. A visual representation of

this data might help certain patterns emerge, revealing calling habits and

4. What is the correlation between data mining and data

visualization?

Data visualization isn’t about using all the data that is available and so is

data mining. With data mining and data visualization you are taking

5. Is data visualization a form of business intelligence? Why or

why not?

Yes! Data visualization is a form of storytelling that helps to identify

correlations, patterns, trends, in the data. It’s about telling the story

6. What security issues are associated with data visualization?

The security and ethical issues associated with data visualization are the

same as any information technology including:

Information theft

7. What might happen to a data visualization project if it failed to

cleanse or scrub its data?

A data visualization project might maintain high quality information in its

data warehouse. Information cleansing and scrubbing is a process that

weeds out and fixes or discards inconsistent, incorrect, or incomplete

information. Without high quality information the project will be unable to

make any correlations in the data. Potential business effect resulting

CLOSING CASE TWO

Zillow

1. List the reasons Zillow would need to use a database to run its

business.

Without a database Zillow would be unable to store and quickly query the

billions of records. There are many different models for organizing

information in a database, including the hierarchical database, network

relationships, in such a way that it cannot have too many relationships.

Hierarchical structures were widely used in the first mainframe

database management systems. However, owing to their restrictions,

hierarchical structures often cannot be used to relate to structures that

exist in the real world.

information as a tree of records, with each record having one parent

record and many children, the network model allows each record to

have multiple parent and child records, forming a lattice structure.

The relational database model is a type of database that stores

information in the form of logically related two-dimensional tables. The

2. Describe how Zillow uses business intelligence to create a

unique product for its customers.

Zillow uses business intelligence to analyze internal organization

information and external information such as market trends, competitor

3. How could the marketing department at Zillow use a data mart

to help with the release of a new product launch?

The marketing department could use a data mart to determine which

4. Categorize the 2ve common characteristics of high-quality

information and rank them in order of importance to Zillow.

Student answers to this question will vary depending on their personal

Timeliness – Zillow information must be timely. If users are receiving

old and outdated answers to their queries, they will not use the

Consistency – Zillow’s results must be consistent. Users will not trust

the system if it provides different results or prices for the same home

on different dates or times.

Completeness – Zillow’s search results need to be complete and

5. Develop a list of some possible entities and attributes of

Zillow’s mortgage database.

Entity could include:

HOME

MORTGAGE

SALES HISTORY

6. Assess how Zillow uses a data-driven website to run its

business.

The data in Zillow’s website must be continuously updated based on

CRITICAL BUSINESS THINKING

Instructor Note: There are few right or wrong answers in the business

world. There are really only eBcient and ineBcient, and effective and

ineffective business decisions. If there were always right answers businesses

would never fail. These questions were created to challenge your students to

apply the materials they have learned to real business situations. For this

reason, the authors cannot provide you with one version of a correct answer.

When grading your students’ answers, be sure to focus on their justification

or support for their specific answers. A good way to grade these questions is

to compare your student’s answers against each other.

1. INFORMATION – BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE OR A DIVERSION FROM

THE TRUTH?

Project Purpose: To understand business intelligence and the global

business environment.

Potential Solution: Student answers to this question will vary. It is

important to ensure that they provide the proper justification for their

2. ILLEGAL DATA ACCESS

Project Purpose: To gain insight into database access and security

issues.

Potential Solution: This question really touches on ethics and how

companies need to monitor employees behavior since they are ultimately

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