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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 lter 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’ justications 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 nd 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 e)ort to raise enterprisewide sales. Once they
understand the cause for a decrease in sales, they can take e)ective
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, nances, 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 ve 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 dened a policy that species
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 di)erent 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, o)er 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 xes 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 e)ects 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 di)erent 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 rst 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 di)erent results or prices for the same home
on di)erent 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 e)ective and
ine)ective 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 justication
or support for their specic 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 justication 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
