Bus 203 Exam 1

Core drives of the information age

Data, information, business intelligence (IB), and knowledge

Data

Raw facts that describes the characteristics of an event or object

Information

Data converted into a meaningful and useful context

Business Intelligence (IB)

Information collected from multiple sources such as suppliers, customers, competitors, partners, and industries that analyzes patterns, trends, and relationships for strategic decision making

Knowledge

Skills. experience, and expertise coupled with information and intelligence that creates a person’s intellectual resources

Big Data

Large volumes of data, both structured and unstructured, containing greater variety, increased veracity, and more velocity

Volume

The scale of data

Variety

Different forms of structured and unstructured data

Veracity

The uncertainty of data, including biases, noises, and abnormalities

Velocity

The analysis of streaming data as it travels around the internet

Structured Data

Has a defined length, type, and format and includes numbers, dates, or strings such as customer address format; sensor data, weblog data, financial data, click-stream data, point of sale data, accounting data

Machine-generated Structured Data

Created by a machine without human intervention

Human-generated Structured Data

Data that humans, in interaction with computers, generate

Unstructured Data

Not defined, does not follow a specific format, and is typically free-form text such as emails, Twitter tweets, and text messages does not follow a specific format; Satellite images, photographic data, video data, social media data, text message, voice mail data

Machine- generated Unstructured Data

Satellite images, scientific atmosphere data, and radar data

human-generated Unstructured Data

text messages, social media data, emails

Variable

A data characteristic that stands for a value that changes or varies over time

Static report

Created once, based on data that does not change

Dynamic report

Changes automatically during creation

Business Analytics

The scientific process of transforming data into information for making data-driven decisions

Descriptive analytics

Describes part performance and history

Diagnostic Analytics

Examines data or content to answer the questions, “Why did it

happen?”

Predictive Analytics

Extracts information from data and uses it to predict future trends and

identify behavioral patterns.

Prescriptive Analytics

Creates models including the best decision to make or course of

action to take

Knowledge Assets

The human, structural, and recorded resources available to the

organization.

Knowledge Worker

Individual valued for their ability to interpret and analyze

information.

Systems Thinking

A way of monitoring the entire system by viewing multiple inputs

being processed or transformed to produce outputs while continuously

gathering feedback on each part.

Concept of Production

The process where a business takes raw materials and processes them

or converts them into a finished product for its goods or services

Management Information Systems (MIS) and its role in moving information across a company to facilitate decision-making and problem solving

A business function which moves information about people, products,

and processes across the company to facilitate decision-making and

problem-solving.

Data Silo

Occurs when one department is unable to freely communicate with

other departments

Data democratization

The ability for data to be collected, analyzed, and accessible to all

users.

Chief Information Officer (CIO)

Responsible for overseeing all uses of MIS and ensures the strategic

alignment of MIS with business goals and objectives.

Chief Data Officer (CDO)

Responsible for determining the types of information the enterprise

will capture, retain, analyze, and share.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Responsible for ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability,

and reliability of information

Business Strategy w/examples of goals it might achieve

A leadership plan that achieves a specific set of goals or objectives. EX: Developing new products or services, entering new markets, Increasing customer loyalty, attracting new customers, increasing sales

Competitive advantage

A product or service that an organization’s customers place a greater

value on than similar offerings from a competitor.

Why are competitive advantages generally temporary?

Market dynamics are constantly changing and competitors duplicate operations and adopt new technologies

First-mover advantage

Occurs when an organization can significantly impact its market share

by being first to market with a competitive advantage.

SWOT Analysis

Evaluates an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,

and Threats. Internal: Strengths and weaknesses. External: Opportunities and threats. Helpful: Strengths and opportunities. Harmful: Weaknesses and threats

Porter’s Five Forces Model

Rivalry among existing competitors, threats of substitute products or services, supplier power, buyer power, threat of new entrants

Buyer Power (and Switching cost, loyalty program)

The ability of buyers to affect the price of an item. Manipulating costs that make customers reluctant to switch to another product. Rewards customers based on the amount of business they do with a

particular organization.

Supplier Power (and Supply Chain)

The suppliers’ ability to influence the prices they charge for supplies. Consists of all parties involved in the procurement of a product or raw

material.

Threat of substitute products or services

High when there are many alternatives to a product or service and low

when there are few alternatives

Threat of New Entrants (and entry barrier)

High when it is easy for new competitors to enter a market and low

when there are significant entry barriers. A feature of a product or service that customers have come to expect

and entering competitors must offer the same for survival.

Rivalry among existing competitors (and product differentiation)

High when competition is fierce in a market and low when

competitors are more complacent. Occurs when a company develops unique differences in its products

or services with the intent to influence demand.

Porter’s three generic strategies

Cost leadership (Low cost and broad market i.e. Walmart), Differentiation (High cost and broad market), Focused strategy (High or Low cost and narrow market i.e. Payless shoes)

Operational Level

Employees develop, control, and maintain core business activities

required to run the day-to-day operations.

Managerial Level

Employees evaluate company operations to identify, adapt to, and

leverage change

Strategic level

Managers develop overall strategies, goals, and objectives.

Structured Decisions

Situations where established processes offer potential solutions.

Semistructured decisions

Occur in situations in which a few established processes help to

evaluate potential solutions, but not enough to lead to a definite

recommended decision.

Unstructured decisions

Occurs in situations in which no procedures or rules exist to guide

decision makers toward the correct choice.

Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

The crucial steps companies make to perform to achieve their goals

and objectives and implement strategies.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The quantifiable metrics a company uses to evaluate progress toward

critical success factors.

Efficiency MIS metrics

Measure the performance of MIS itself. EX: Throughput, transaction speed, system availability, information accuracy, response time

Effectiveness MIS Metrics

Measures the impact MIS has on business processes and activities. EX: Usability, customer satisfaction, conversion rates, financial (ROI)

Benchmark

Baseline values the system seeks to attain.

Benchmarking

A process of continuously measuring system results, comparing those

results to optimal system performance (benchmark values), and

identifying steps and procedures to improve system performance

Transaction Processing System (TPS)

Basic business system that serves the operational level and assists in

making structured decisions.

Decisions Support System (DSS)

Models information to support managers and business professionals

during the decision-making process

Analytical information

Encompasses all organizational data, and its primary purpose is to

support the performing of managerial analysis or semistructured

decisions

Online analytical processing (OLAP)

Manipulation of information to create business intelligence in support

of strategic decision making

Executive Information System (EIS)

A specialized DSS that supports senior-level executives and

unstructured, long-term, nonroutine decisions

Digital Dashboard

Tracks KPI’s and CSF’s by compiling information from multiple

sources and tailoring it to meet user needs

Customer facing process

Results in a product or service that is received by an organization’s

external customer.

Business facing process

Invisible to the external customer but essential to the effective

management of the business.

BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation)

A graphical notation that depicts the steps in a business process

BPMN Event

Shown by an oval. Is anything that happens during the course of a business process.

BPMN Activity

Shown by a Rounded rectangle. Is a task in a business process. Is any work that is performed in a process

BPMN Gateway

Shown by a diamond. Handle the forking, merging, and joining of paths within a process

BPMN Flow

Shown by an arrow. Displays the path in which the process flows.

As-is Process Model

Represents the current state of the operation that has been mapped,

without any specific improvements or changes to existing processes.

To-Be process model

Shows the results of applying change improvement opportunities to

the current (As-Is) process model.

Automation

The process of computerizing manual tasks, making them more

efficient and effective, and dramatically lowering operational costs.

Streamlining

Improves business process efficiencies by simplifying or eliminating

unnecessary steps.

Reengineering

Analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises.

Operational business processes and how does automation improve them

Static, routine, daily business processes. Automation computerizes manual tasks making them more efficient and effective, and dramatically lowers operational costs

Managerial business processes and how streamlining improves efficiences

Semidynamic, semiroutine, monthly business processes. Streamlining improves the business process efficiencies by simplifying or eliminating unnecessary steps

Strategic business Processes and the purpose of Business process reengineering (BPR)

Dynamic, nonroutine, long-term business processes. BPR analyzes and redesigns the workflow within and between enterprises

Artificial Intelligence

Simulates human intelligence such as the ability to reason and learn,

focusing on three cognitive skills: learning, reasoning, and self-

correction.

Digital Transformation

The process of using digital technologies to fundamentally transform

business processes, operations, and customer experiences.

Algorithm

Mathematical formula placed in software that performs analytics on a

dataset.

Black box algorithm

Decision-making process that can’t be easily understood or explained by the computer or researcher

genetic algorithm

An AI system that mimics the evolutionary, survival-of-the-fittest process to generate increasingly better solutions to a problem

6 branches of AI

Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Expert Systems, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Robotics

Machine Learning (ML)

A type of artificial intelligence that enables computers to understand

concepts in the environment and to learn.

Supervised learning

Training an algorithm on labeled data for machine learning. Will need a smaller data set

Unsupervised learning

Training an algorithm on unlabeled data for machine learning. Will need a larger data set.

Transfer learning

Machine learning technique that involves leveraging knowledge or models learned from one task or domain to improve learning and performance on another related task or domain

Reinforcement learning

Training of machine learning models without requiring external training data

Overfitting

Occurs when a machine learning model matches the training data so closely that the model fails to make correct predictions on new data

Underfitting

Occurs when a machine learning model has poor predictive abilities because it did not learn the complexity in the training data

What is the biggest problem with AI and ML?

Data quality and bias

Sample Bias

A problem with using incorrect training data to train the machine

Prejudice bias

A result of training data that is influenced by cultural or other stereotypes

Measurement Bias

Occurs when there is a problem with the data collected that skews the data in one direction

Variance Bias

A mathematical property of an algorithm

Robotics, what does it focus on?

Focuses on creating artificial intelligence devices that can move and

react to sensory input.

What is a hypothesis?

Is what you expect is happening, made before you do your analysis

How do you back a hypothesis?

By testing the hypothesis through testing and analysis