Data to Information Businesses collect a lot of data. You have previously learned that data is processed, manipulated and changed into information. During this week you will get a better understanding of the data and the processes that change it into a more usable format. As a business student you need to understand the basic concepts of information systems, this will help you not only create your strategic plan but also use the information in an intelligent manner. The term business intelligence (BI) has evolved as a way to pull together the idea that information is everywhere in an organization and that employees must be able to obtain and analyze the information to make business decisions. The ability to carefully dissect, manipulate and reassemble the data into functional information is key to understanding how a business it working and planning where it is going. The image below is taken from your text. It is important to understand this model because it shows in layers as information (at the top) breaks down to data (at the bottom). Think of information as being processed. It is a summarized, analyzed version of the data. Starting at the bottom of the pyramid, there is data, this is also called transactional information – think of this as sales information at a store. The sale, the act of a person purchasing the items, is called a transaction. This transaction from the information systems point of view is a collection of data items: what was sold, what time the sale happened, where it happened, how much it cost, the time and date of the sale. These data items are all transactional information. Once this transactional      information is reviewed, summarized and processes it is calledanalytical information – think of this as thousands of items that have been purchased and the data put together to see trends in the sales. This level of information is what managers use to make critical business decisions. Business students need to understand basic concepts and terminology of information systems. Information is stored in databases, the database tracks all of the pieces of data. These pieces are called data elements. A database also stores information about the data pieces, this is called metadata. The database contains a section that explains all the information about the data, this is called the data dictionary. Databases have several advantages over simply keeping lists or spreadsheets of the information such as: Increased flexibility Increased scalability and performance Reduced information redundancy Increased information integrity (quality) Increased information security Databases reduce data redundancy, the duplication of data elements. An example would be if the customer’s address was requested and stored each time they made a purchase. The problem with duplicated data is that it is not entered in the same every time. One time the customer might type their address as “123 Maple Ave”, then as “123 Maple Avenue” and another as “123 Maple Ave.” A computer sees these as three different addresses. Data and the derived information is an organizational asset and must be protected. You are probably aware of some of the security for information. You have to remember dozens of login ids and passwords! These ids and passwords are set up in the system to provide a specific level of access permissions for each user of the information. When a business owner is creating their strategic plan it is critical to define roles for ‘users’ of information so that access levels can be built into the security section of the data information plan. This will allow more access to managers and restricted access to individuals that do not need to have full access. Harvesting Information Businesses cannot operate from just one simple database. There are databases for sales but there are also databases for purchases of raw materials, shipping databases and customer databases. All of these databases are collected into the data warehouse the data warehouse is accessed to create reports that help managers make decisions on the daily operation of the company. The formal name for the process of getting data into the data warehouse is extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL). When the data is transformed (processed) it is actually changed in the way that it appears so that it can be more easily accessed by managers. Databases contain information in a series of twodimensional tables, this looks like a spreadsheet with columns and rows of data. In a data warehouse and data mart (small portion of the data warehouse), information is multidimensional; it contains layers of columns and rows. Picture a Rubik’s cube as a visual image. Data in a data warehouse is also cleaned up or ‘scrubbed’, this fixes redundant data as you saw in the previous address example. One last term about data warehousing is the term data mining. The process of getting the information out of the warehouse. There are data mining tools that find patterns and pull information by classification, estimation, affinity grouping and clustering. These tools actually provide you with more information than just the data itself. Businesses take the results of data warehouse data mining tools and perform statistical analysis to see trends in the data. Some of these trends may be things like sales forecast, purchase forecasts and other time-series information. These forecasts help guide the business into the future. They help improve the quality of basic business decisions because these forecasts are based in historically factual information. BI enables business users to receive data for analysis that is: Reliable, Consistent, Understandable, Easily manipulated. This week you have learned a lot about the data, where and how it is stored and even how harvest that information. From a business perspective it is important to understand these concepts but you have to know what to do with the information you have learned. As a business owner you will be setting up your strategic plan – the ideas of how you will run your business, keep it focused and deal with obstacles and opportunities as they come your way. Setting up the rules that govern your data and the resulting information is a critical step. Since this is information is an asset, you must protect it. As you create the data information and protection section of the strategic plan for your business keep in mind that you need to:      collect the data transform the data protect the data understand the data use the data STRATEGIC PLAN 1 STRATEGIC PLAN Frances Hall MARCH 22 2016 STRATEGIC PLAN 2 Strategic Plan for Hall Cement Inc. Outline 1. Executive summary This is what the plan is composed of.  Synopsis of the plan,  Highlights of the current situation objectives,  Strategies,  The financial expectations 2. The Company The company has to be able to make decisions on how to be successful in the future  Mission statement  Corporate culture  Historical direction and results  Management 3. SWOT Analysis The SWOT analysis is the key element for the company. It has helped the company to be on the right track because of adhering what the SWOT analysis is about. The SWOT analysis is based on the following:  Strengths  Weaknesses  Opportunities STRATEGIC PLAN  3 Threats 4. Market Goals Market goals are another key element for the company. it is very important for the company because it helps the company in making decisions that will meet its expectations in the market place. To meet the market goals, the company has to meet the following (Verret, Hennig & Nichols, 2008).:  Market share  Market awareness (consumer awareness)  Diversification 5. Market research The company has to do a market research that will meet its expectations in the market place and make sure that individuals in the market place access their services accordingly:  Competition  Clients  Other 6. Financial plan The financial plan is meant to know how the company is budgeting its cash, the amount it spends as well as the profits  Revenue sources (capital requirements)  Financial assumptions STRATEGIC PLAN  Performance financial statements  Financial controls: financial statement, cash flow budget, budget variances analysis. 6. Risk Factors (SWOT analysis) and contingencies This is the challenges the company is experiencing  Competition  Technology  Revenue shortfall  Economic recession  Negative legislation 7. Assessment and review  Market survey  Market share analysis  Tracking system  Client satisfaction survey 4 STRATEGIC PLAN 5 Disaster Recovery plan The main purpose of the disaster recovery plan is to ensure that there is continuation of the business even after a disaster occurs (Christiansen, 2012). Crisis Management Plan This is designed for ensuring that the business has continued even when there is a crisis. Should there be a crisis, the plane will provide an effective method to control each activity associated with a crisis situation. It will be updated annually and readily available. The plan should also document the responsibilities, procedures, and checklists that will be used managing and controlling the situation following an emergency or crisis occurrence. Recovery Strategy Each employee has the responsibility to control ant crisis that occur within the management. It is also important for the persons involved in the crisis to solve their crisis before they take it to the manager. Also, it is important to make sure that whenever a crisis has occurred, the incident is reported to the manager instantly. Discovery objectives The discovery objectives are given to the employees in order to be able to understand crisis. This is very important in ensuring that each employee will be able to note any crisis that has occurred (Verett, Hennig & Nichols, 2008). Disaster Recovery Education for Employees Employees will be educated on how to deal with crisis whenever they have occurred. For example, if there is fire that has occurred within the management, the employees will be able to understand how to deal with the disaster. Involving employees in the disaster recovery effort will also help ensure that recovery procedures are well STRATEGIC PLAN planned and executed based on the business' need to provide as seamless a recovery as possible. In this case, it will be likely that whenever there is disaster, there are set strategies to deal with it. http://www.drj.com/new2dr/w2_004.htm 6 STRATEGIC PLAN 7 References Wold, Geoffrey H. “Disaster Recovery Planning Process” http://www.drj.com/new2dr/w2_004.htm Christiansen, B. (2012). Cultural variations and business performance: Contemporary globalism. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference. Verett, J. O., Hennig, C. J., & Nichols, N. B. (2008). Contemporary tax practice: Research, planning and strategies. Chicago, IL: CCH
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