Monday, 27 January 2014

CHAPTER 6

VALUING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION

In this chapter, we learned about :

  • Describe the broad levels, formats, and granularities of information
  • Differentiate between transactional and analytical information
  • List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information
  • Assess the impact of low quality information on an organization and the benefits of high quality information on an organization

Organizational Information

* Information is everywhere in a organization

* Employees must be able to obtain and analyze the many different levels, formats, and granularities of organizational information to make decisions

* Successfully collecting, compiling, sorting, and analyzing information can provide tremendous insight into how an organization is performing

* Levels, formats, and granularities of organizational information


The Value of Transactional and Analytical Information

* Transactional information verses analytical information


* Transactional information - encompasses of all the information contained within a single business process or unit of work, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of daily operational tasks

* Analytical information - encompasses all organizational information, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of managerial information task

The Value of Timely Information

* Timeliness is an aspect of information that depends on the situation

- Real-time information ~ immediate, up-to-date information
- Real-time system ~ provides real-time information in response to query requests

The Value of Quality Information

* Business decisions are only as good as the quality of the information used to make the decisions

* You never want to find yourself using technology to help you make a bad decision faster

* Characteristics of high-quality information include :

- Accuracy ~ are all the values correct? For example, is the name spelled correctly? Is the dollar amount recorded properly?
- Completeness ~ are any of the values missing? For example, is the address complete including street, city, state, and zip code?
- Consistency ~ is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed information? For example, do all total fields equal the true total of the individual fields
- Uniqueness ~ is each transaction, entity, and event represented only once in the information? For example, are there any duplicate customers?
- Timeliness ~ is the information current with respect to the business requirements? For example, is information updated weekly, daily, or hourly?

* Low quality information example


Understanding the Cost of Poor Information

* The four primary sources of low quality information include :

- Online customers intentionally enter inaccurate information to protect their privacy
- Information from different systems have different entry standards and formats
- Call center operators enter ebbreviated or errorneous information of accident or to save time
- Third party and external information contains inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and errors

* Potential business effects resulting from low quality information include :

- Inability to accurately track customers
- Difficulty identifying valuable customers
- Inability to identify selling opportunities
- Marketing to nonexistent customers
- Difficulty tracking revenue due to inaccurate invoices
- Inability to build strong customer relationships

Understand the Benefits of Good Information

* High quality information can significantly improve the chances of making a good decision

* Good conditions can directly impact an organization's bottom line

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