CP1005 - Lecture Two - Strategic Decision Making

Decision Making

Reasons for the growth of decision-making information systems: People must:
Analyse large amounts of information, make decisions quickly, Apply sophisticated analysis techniques.

Types of Decion Systems - As you move up the 'business pyramid' users move from requiring transactional information to analytical information.

Transaction Processing Systems (TPS) - Basic business system that serves the operation level.
Online transaction processing (OLTP) - Capturing of transaction and event information using technology.

Online analytical processing (OLAP) - Manipulation of information to create business intelligence in support of strategic decision making.

Decision Support Systems model information to managers and business professionals during the decision-making process. There are three quantitative models; Sensitivity analysis, What-if analysis & Goal-Seeking Analysis.

EIS - A specialised DSS that support senior level executives within the organisation.

Most EISs offering the following capabilities; Consolidation, Drill-downs and SLide-and-dice.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Various commercial applications of artificial intelligence. It simulates human intelligence such as the ability to reason and learn.

Expert Systems computerized advisory programs that imitate the reasoning processes of experts in solving difficult problems. Neutral Network attempts to emulate the way the human brain works. Genetic Algorithm is an AI system that mimics the evolutionary, survival of the fittest process. Intelligent agent is a special-purposed knowledge based information system that carries out a specific task on behalf of its users.

Data Mining is the ability to sift instantly through information to uncover patterns and relationships. Data-mining systems include many forms of AI such as neural networks.

Business Process Modelling

Business Process is a standardised set of activities that accomplish a specific task such as processing a customer's order. Business Process Modelling or mapping the activity of creating a detailed flow chart or process map of a work process showing its inputs, tasks and activities in a structured sequence. Business process model a graphical description of a process, showing the sequence of tasks.

CP1005 - Lecture One

Information Technology's Impact on Business Operations

Information Technology has had an impact on many areas within a business that may include the way Accounting is ran, finance, Human Resources (HR), Sales, Marketing, Operation Management and the Management of Information Systems.

What is IT about - It's the field that's concerned with the managing and processing of information.

MIS - The business function and academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies and procedures.

Technology Basics

When talking about Data it is information and business intelligence - RAW facts that descrube the characteristic of an event.
Information - Data converted into a meningful and useful context - Rows of data in an excel spreadsheet with columns showing what the data represents.
Business Intelligence - Applications and technologies that are used to gather provide access to and analyses data.


To have a successful IT resourced business it involved the following - Information + People + IT = Business Success.

Some Roles you may encounter in IT - Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Knowledge Officer and Chief Privacy Officer.

Ways of managing how successful an IT process is include: 


KPI - Key Performance Indicators.
Metrics - Are detailed measures that feed KPIs.

Performance Metrics fall into an area that's covered by two parts within the business. Requires input from both IT and Business Professionals.

IT Metrics focus on technology and include; throughput, transaction speed, system availability, information accuracy, web traffic and response time.

Effectiveness can focus on the organizations goals and strategies -  Usability, Customer Satisfaction, Conversion rates and Financial.

Business Strategy - To survive and thrive and thrive an organization must create a competitive advantage.

There are two kinds of advantages - Competitive Advantage and First-Mover Advantage. The Competitive - a product or service that an organisation’s customers place a greater value on than similar offerings from a competitor. First-Mover Advantage - occurs when an organisation can significantly impact its market share by being first to market with a competitive advantage.

Porter's Five Forces Model allows us to determine the relative attractiveness of an industry through; Buyer Power, Supplier Power, Threat of Substitute Products or Services, Threat of new entrants and Rivalary among existing Competitors.

Buyer Power - High when buyers have many choices to buy from. Low with loyalty programs etc.
Supplier Power - High when one supplier has concentrated power over an industry. Buyers have few choices of whom to buy from.
Threat of Substitue Products - High when there are many alternatives to a product or a service.
Threat of new Entrants - High when it is easy for new competitors to enter a market. Low with significant entry barriers.
Rivalary among existing competitors - High when competition is fierce in a market and low when competition is more complacent.

Graphics

For bitmap images uncompressed, each pixel must be stored. Fore each pixel the colour value is stored.
The size of an image therefore is the total number of pixels, multiplies by the number of bits.

Resolution = 640*480 = 207 200.
Colour depth = 16bit (66 536).


Image filesize = resolution x colour depth = 307 200 8 16 = 4 915 200 bits. 


Divide by 8 to get bytes (B) = 614400 bytes.
Divide by 1024 to get kilobytes = 600KB. 

Anti-Aliasing

Used to smooth jagged edges, Dithers the colours around the edge.

Bitmap Applications are an image format suited for creation of Photo-Realistic images or complex drawings.


Two kinds of Complression: Lossy and Lossless

Lossy loses information upon decompression.
Lossless retains the image quality.

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format .GIF.

Characteristics
Supports only 256 colours (8 bit)
Can show transparency
Can be animaged.
Uses lossless compression.

Uses
Used extesnsvily on the web, Used predominantly for line art such as cartoons.

JPEG
Supports true colour (24bit)
Cannot show transparency or animation.
Uses lossy compression.

Use
Used extensivly on the web.
Used predominantly for photo realism.