chapter 12

1.How did ERP help improve business operations at Shell?
          ERP help improve business operations at Shell by operations that span from wells and mines, to processing plants, to oil trucks and to gas pumps. Rate For example, the ERP system has helped the company immensely in terms of reducing and streamlining the highly manual process of third-party contractors submitting repair information and invoices.

    2. How could extended ERP components help improve business operations at Shell?

-                  ERP solution solved these inadequacies by providing an integrated web-based service order, invoicing and payment submission system. Third-party contractors can enter service orders directly into Shell’s ERP system via the web easily and faster.Contractor’s monthly summarized invoices can be generated automatically and fed directly into ERP system’s account payable application for processing. Help speed up maintenance and repair operations at the company’s refineries.  

    3.What advice would you give Shell if it decided to choose a different ERP software solution?

It               It depends on the suppliers or contractors that want to search the Shell Company’s website. If the system that they choose can satisfy the user or the contractors the software can be proceed to use. If not Shell must use the ERP software that they already have. Must be remember, people want the easier work and if people already knows and common with the system before, they will make the work effective and efficiency. Changes can be made but not too complicated until exist the difficulty feel for them. 

4.  How can integrating SCM, CRM, and ERP help improve business operations at Shell?

-              Shell will have a lot of suppliers to supply the materials that they want to sell. Therefore, Shell must determine the suitable supplier to give them the products such as supplier for junk food, water, petrol and else.Shell want built the good relation towards their customers by giving Shell card. Customers will use the card to get point. Then when the points become increase, Shell will give reward or present to their customers.For the ERP, Shell will have their own website to make the contractors easy to make any transactions, exchange, payments and else.

CHAPTER 11:BUILIDING A CUSTOMER CENTRIC ORGANIZATION-CUSTOMER RELATIOSHIP MANEGEMENT

Why is it important for any company to use CRM strategies to manage customer information?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is not just the application of technology, but is a strategy to learn more about customers' needs and behaviours in order to develop stronger relationships with them. As such it is more of a business philosophy than a technical solution to assist in dealing with customers effectively and efficiently. Nevertheless, successful CRM relies on the use of technology.

This guide outlines the business benefits and the potential drawbacks of implementing CRM. It also offers help on the types of solution you could choose and how to implement them.

Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution might involve considerable time and expense. However, there are many potential benefits.

A major benefit can be the development of better relations with your existing customers, which can lead to:

1)increased sales through better timing due to anticipating needs based on historic trends

identifying needs more effectively by understanding specific customer requirements

cross-selling of other products by highlighting and suggesting alternatives or enhancements

identifying which of your customers are profitable and which are not

This can lead to better marketing of your products or services by focusing on:

2)effective targeted marketing communications aimed specifically at customer needs

a more personal approach and the development of new or improved products and services in order to win more business in the future

Ultimately this could lead to:

3)enhanced customer satisfaction and retention, ensuring that your good reputation in the marketplace continues to grow

increased value from your existing customers and reduced cost associated with supporting and servicing them, increasing your overall efficiency and reducing total cost of sales

improved profitability by focusing on the most profitable customers and dealing with the unprofitable in more cost effective ways

4)Once your business starts to look after its existing customers effectively, efforts can be concentrated on finding new customers and expanding your market. The more you know about your customers, the easier it is to identify new prospects and increase your customer base.

Even with years of accumulated knowledge, there's always room for improvement. Customer needs change over time, and technology can make it easier to find out more about customers and ensure that everyone in an organisation can exploit this information.

If the virtual world is the first point of contact between a company and its customers, how might that transform the entire shopping experience?

~ The virtual world could become the first point of contact between companies and customers and could transform the whole experience, writes Jo Best on Silicon.com.

~ Some companies believe Second Life could one day become a first point of contact for customers. Like many other big brands, PA Consulting has its own offices in Second Life and has learn that simply having an office to answer customer queries is not enough. Real people, albeit behind avatars, must be staffing the offices – in the same way having a website is not enough if there isn’t a call centre to back it up when a would-be customer wants to speak to a human being. In future, the consultants believe call centres could one day ask customers to follow up a phone call with them by moving the query into a virtual world and hanging around in Second Life is more fun than being stuck on hold. 

~ However, currently Second Life and its imitators remain relatively niche in usage terms and have their own technology boundaries – not all consumers, particularly the older community, have the tech savvy or indeed the hardware necessary to make use of virtual worlds.

chapter 9: DECISION MAKING

Four most common categories of all include:

Expert system...

A good example of application of expert systems in banking area is expert systems for mortgages. Loan departments are interested in expert systems for mortgages because of the growing cost of labor which makes the handling and acceptance of relatively small loans less profitable. They also see in the application of expert systems a possibility for standardized, efficient handling of mortgage loan, and appreciate that for the acceptance of mortgages there are hard and fast rules which do not always exist with other types of loans. 

EXPERT SYSTEMS:

One of the largest area of applications of artificial intelligence is in expert systems, or knowledge based systems as they are often known. This type of system seeks to exploit the specialized skills or information held by of a group of people on specific areas. It can be thought of as a computerized consulting service. It can also be called an information guidance system. Such systems are used for prospecting medical diagnosis or as educational aids. They are also used in engineering and manufacture in the control of robots where they inter-relate with vision systems. The initial attempts to apply artificial intelligence to generalized problems made limited progress as we have seen but it was soon realized that more significant progress could be made if the field of interest was restricted.

Genetic Algorithms 

An artificial intelligent system that mimics the evolutionary, survival-of-the-fittest process to generate increasingly better solutions to a problem.It essentially an optimizing system, it finds the combination of inputs that give the best outputs.Useful when search space very large or too complex for analytic treatment.In each iteration (generation) possible solutions or individuals represented as strings of numbers.

Neutral network 

 Attempts to emulate the way the human brain work.Artificial intelligence are composed of interconnecting artificial neurons (programming constructs that mimic the properties of biological neurons). Artificial neural networks may either be used to gain an understanding of biological neural networks, or for solving artificial intelligence problems without necessarily creating a model of a real biological system. The real, biological nervous system is highly complex: artificial neural network algorithms attempt to abstract this complexity and focus on what may hypothetically matter most from an information processing point of view. Good performance (e.g. as measured by good predictive ability, low generalization error), or performance mimicking animal or human error patterns, can then be used as one source of evidence towards supporting the hypothesis that the abstraction really captured something important from the point of view of information processing in the brain. Another incentive for these abstractions is to reduce the amount of computation required to simulate artificial neural networks, so as to allow one to experiment with larger networks and train them on larger data sets.

Intelligent Agent

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.  

CHAPTER EIGHT -> Accessing Organizational Information (Data Warehouse)

1. ROLES AND PURPOSES OF DATA WAREHOUSES AND DATA MART IN ORGANIZATION

The purpose of the Data Warehouse in the overall Data Warehousing Architecture is to integrate corporate data.  It contains the "single version of truth" for the organization that has been carefully constructed from data stored in disparate internal and external operational databases.The amount of data in the Data Warehouse is massive.  Data is stored at a very granular level of detail.  For example, every "sale" that has ever occurred in the organization is recorded and related to dimensions of interest.  This allows data to be sliced and diced, summed and grouped in unimaginable ways. 

Typical Data Warehousing Environment

 Contrary to popular opinion, the Data Warehouses does not contain all the data in the organization.  It's purpose is to provide key business metrics that are needed by the organization for strategic and tactical decision making.Decision makers don't access the Data Warehouse directly.  This is done through various front-end Data Warehouse Tools that read data from subject specific Data Marts.The Data Warehouse can be either "relational" or "dimensional".  This depends on how the business intends to use the information.ETL (Extract Transform Load) jobs extract data from the Data Warehouse and populate one or more Data Marts for use by groups of decision makers in the organizations.  The Data Marts can be Dimensional (Star Schemas) or relational, depending on how the information is to be used and what "front end" Data Warehousing Tools will be used to present the information.Each Data Mart can contain different combinations of tables, columns and rows from the Enterprise Data Warehouse.  For example, an business unit or user group that doesn't require a lot of historical data might only need transactions from the current calendar year in the database. The Personnel Department might need to see all details about employees, whereas data such as "salary" or "home address" might not be appropriate for a Data Mart that focuses on Sales.

Typical Data Warehousing Environment

Some Data Mart might need to be refreshed from the Data Warehouse daily, whereas user groups might want refreshes only monthly.

 2. The relationship of business intelligence and data warehousing 

Many of the tool vendors who sell their products or softwares call it business Intelligence software rather than data warehousing software. Business Intelligence is a term commonly associated with data warehousing. Business Intelligence is a generalized term where a company initiates various activities to gather today's market information which also includes about their competitor. Today's business Intelligence systems are contrasted to more classical way of information gathering in mining and crunching the data in the most optimal manner. In short we can say BI simplifies information discovery and analysis. In this way the company will have a competitive advantage of business and intelligently using the available data in strategic and effective decision making. it has the ability to bring disparate data under one roof  with a meaningful information and ready for analysis.

Business intelligence usually refers to the information that is available for the enterprise to make decisions on. A data warehousing (or data mart) system is the backend, or the infrastructural, component for achieving business intelligence. Business intelligence also includes the insight gained from doing data mining analysis, as well as unstructured data (thus the need for content management systems). All the source data from disparate sources are used to load/Stage data. Different sources can be flat files, another database or some other process. The starting point of the Data warehouse should extract the data in order to load into its environment.This data may not be the expected format or size. your business demands are different or your organization business requirements are different. So the business process has to modify the data or better word is to transform the incoming data to meet requirements and objectives. This is called Transformation. Once every slicing and dicing of the data is done along with applied business rules, this data is ready for loading into the target tables. This process is called Loading. So overall till now we have done Extraction, Transformation and Loading. In short we call this ETL. There are lot of tools available in today's market which does help in achieving the ETL process. Once this data is loaded in to the database, this is ready for next processing. We call that database as Data warehouse database. The next process could be building of data marts or directly reporting from it. There are lot of tools/software available for reporting/analysis. Some call it business reporting or analysis tool.

CHAPTER SEVEN:STORING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION DATABASES

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1.DEFINE THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF THE RELATIONAL DATABASE MODEL?

     Information is stored in databases.Databases maintains information about various types of objects(inventory),events(transactions),people(employees),and places(warehouses).Information is everywhere of organization.Database models include:

–Hierarchical database model – information is organized into a tree-like structure that allows repeating information (using parent/child relationships) in such a way that it cannot have too many relationships.Hierarchical structures were widely used in the first mainframe database management systems.Hierarchical structure often cannot be used to relate to structures that exist in the real words.

–Network database model – a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships.The network model allows each record to have multiple parent and child records,forming a lattice structure.

–Relational database model – stores information in the form of logically related two-dimensional tables.

          One way to think about data in a relational database is to think about a cube of data. For example, at The Gap, the CEO, the district managers and the sales managers might think about their business as selling products (jeans, sweaters) in many markets (stores, regions) and measuring their progress over time (days, weeks, months). Many of the questions these managers have about their business can be answered by looking to the intersection of data defined by the edges of the cube pictured in Figure 1.

 

FIGURE 1

2)EVALUATE THE ADVANTAGES OF THE RELATIONAL DATABASE MODEL?

From a business perspective,databases information offers many advantages,including:

INCREASED FLEXIBILITY

           -Good databases can handle a changes quickly and easily,just as any good business     needs to be able to handle changes quickly and easily.Databases 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 databases user views.

–Have only one physical view

Physical view – deals with the physical storage of information on a storage device such as a hard disk

–Have multiple logical views

             Logical view – focuses on how users logically access information to meet their particular business needs.

           This separation of logical and physical views is what allows each user to access database information differently.Database has only one physical views it can easily support multiple logical views.Foe example is a mail-order business.One user might want a CRM report presented in alphabetical format,in which case last name should appear before first name.Another user,working with catalog mailing system,would want customer names appearing as first name and then last name.Both are easily achievable but different logical views of the same physical information.

INCREASED SCALABILITY AND PERFORMANCE

-           A database must scale to meet increased demand,  while maintaining acceptable performance levels.Only a databases could "scale"to handle the massive volumes of information and the large numbers of users required for the successful launch of the Ellis Island website.

–Scalability – refers to how well a system can adapt to increased demands

–Performance – measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transaction

          Some organization must be able to support hundreds or thousands of online users including employees,partners,customers and suppliers who all want to access and share information.

REDUCED INFORMATION REDUNDANCY

        -   Redundancy is the duplication of information or storing the same information in multiples places.Redundant information occurs before organization frequently capture and store the same information in multiple locations.The primary problem with redundant information is that it is often inconsistent,which makes it difficult to determine which values are the most current or most accurate.Eliminating information redundancy saves spaces,makes performing information updates easier and improves information quality.

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.

Relational integrity constraint – rule that enforces basic and fundamental information-based constraints. For example an operational integrity constraint would not allow someone to create an order for a none existent customer, provide a markup percentage that was negative ,or order zero pounds of raw material from a suppliers

.Business-critical integrity constraint –rule that 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 such as Kroger.

INCREASED INFORMATION SECURITY

•      Information is an organizational asset and must be protected from unauthorized users or misuse.As systems become increasingly complex and more available over the internet,security becomes an even bigger issue.

•          Databases offer several security features including:

–      Password – provides authentication of the user who is gaining access to the system.

–      Access level – determines who has access to the different types of information and access controls determine what type of access they have to information. For example customer services representatives might need read only access to customer order information so they can answer customer order inquiries,they might not have or need the authority to change or delete order information.

3. DEFINE A DATABASE MANAGEMENT  SYSTEM AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO A WEBSITE?

                           A database management system is used to access information from a      database. A database management system(DBMs) is software through which users and application programs interact with a database. Database management system is a set of programs that enables you to store, modify, and extract information from a database also provides users with tools to add, delete, access, modify, and analyze data stored in one location. The user send requests to the DBMS and the DBMS performs the actual manipulation of the information in the database. Many DBMS also include a graphics component that enables you to output information in the form of graphs and charts. Database and database management system are essential to all areas of business, they must be carefully managed.Consider for example, a company selling sports cars. A database is created with information on each of its currently available cars e.g. make, model, engine details, year, a photograph, etc. A visitor to the website clicks on Porsche, the visitor enters the price range that they are interested in and hits 'Go'. The visitor is presented with information on available Porsche cars in their price range and an invitation to purchase or request more information from the company. The company has the ability to add new cars to the database, remove them or modify existing entries this is achieved via a secure administration area on the website.

EXPLAIN WHY AN ORGANIZATION WOULD WANT TO INTEGRATE ITS DATABASE?

          Data integration refers to the organization’s inventory of data and information assets as well as the tools, strategies and philosophies by which fragmented data assets are aligned to support business goals.The company want to integrate its database because they will connect,communicate,dealing and having relation with its customer everyday. Everyday its customers will open the webpage and search anything appear on the page. Therefore, if the product still available or not available the supplier must inform the customers immediately.Publish the information on the web page to make the customers realize that the product exist or not in the market. Then, when the customers got information they will not too disappointed and not waiting too long. Customers satisfy, the business relationship between sellers and customers will be effective and launch smoothly.

chapter five:organizational structure the support strategic initiatives

IT roles and responsibilities


   Information technology is a relatively new functional area,having been around formally in most organizations only for about 40 years.Job titles,roles,and responsibilities often differ dramatically from organization to organization.

   Most organizations maintain positions such as chief executive officer(CEO),chief financial officer(CFO),and chief operations officer (COO) at the strategic level.Recently there are more IT related strategic positions such as chief information officer(CIO),chief technology officer(CTO),chief security officer(CSO),chief privacy officer(CPO),and chief knowledge officer(CKO).

So let's I explain little information about all the positions:

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER(CIO)

It responsible for:

  1) Overseeing all uses of information technology 
  2) Ensuring the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objective

Broad functions of a CIO include:

   1) MANAGER
       -ensure the delivery of all IT projects,on time and within budget

    2)LEADER
       -ensure the strategic vision of IT is in line with strategic vision of the organization

    3)COMMUNICATOR
       -advocate and communicate the IT strategy by building and maintaining strong executive           
         relationships.

        Although CIO is considered a position within IT,CIO must be concerned with more than just IT. CIO with the broad business view that customer satisfaction is more crucial and critical than specific aspects of IT should applauded. 


CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER(CTO)

It responsible for:

  1) ensuring the throughput,speed,accuracy,availability,and reliability of an organizations 
      information technology.

        CTO are similar to CIO,except that CIO take on the additional responsibility for effectiveness of ensuring that IT is aligned with the organization strategic initiatives.
         
        CTO have direct responsibility for ensuring the efficiency of IT systems throughout the organization.Most CTO possess well rounded knowledge of all aspects of IT including hardware,software and telecommunications.


CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER(CSO)

It responsible for:

   1)ensuring the security of IT systems 
   2)developing strategies 
   3)IT safeguards against attacks from hackers and viruses

   The role of a CSO has been elevated in recents years because of the number of attacks from hackers and viruses.Most CSO possess detailed knowledge of networks and telecommunications because hackers and viruses usually find their way to into IT systems through networked computers.


CHIEF PRIVACY OFFICER(CPO)

It responsible for:

   1)ensuring the ethical and legal use of information within an organization.

   CPO are the newest senior executive position in IT.Many CPO are lawyers by training,enabling them to understand the often complex legal issues surrounding the use of information.


CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OFFICER(CKO)

It responsible for

  1) collecting,maintaining and distributing the organization knowledge

    The CKO designs programs and systems that make it easy for people to reuse knowldege.These systems create repositories of organizational documents,methodologies,tools and practices and they establish methods for filtering the information.