ScholarMatic: Explanation & Answer
Your ready answer from a verified tutor is just a click away for as little as $14.99
Click Order Now to get 100% Original Answer Customized to your instructions!
WEEK 1: TEAM CASE
ANALYSIS
United Parcel Service
(UPS) has evolved into a company that runs and depends on technology to
succeed. From packaging to delivery, UPS uses technology every step of the way.
Technology is used even by UPS’s consumers, they can utilize apps on cell
phones to track packages, print labels, and schedule pick-ups. Delivery drivers
use computers that provide them with the most efficient route for their day
which helps them save time and mileage. Also, customer service agents use
technology to access information real time on a certain package to be able to
assist a customer with questions. Altogether, UPS would not be a successful
company without the technology that they have invested wisely in over the
years.
Support
UPS is a global leader in logistics, marketing and
wholesale of making sure that their clients are given the best service. But they didn’t always start out that
way. Their mission began to always
strive to put the needs of their customers first; and not only that, but to do
it in an efficient and effective manner.
Beginning as a standard messaging courier business, their
main focus was to deliver time sensitive telegrams in a timely manner. At the time, their technology was just radio
waves where they sent their information via telephone lines. And when it came to their physical
deliveries, they had only a small number of transportation devices to deliver
packages for their clients. As the
Industrial Revolution gained steam fast forwarding to the use of the Internet,
and the world wide web, they began to market their mass appeal worldwide. To being one of the first delivery companies
to offer premiere services utilizing the most current and up to date
methods. For example, in 2001 their
brick and mortar stores began offering lower rates in shipping when it came to
their international sales and distribution.
This was followed by the acquisition of the company Challenge Air in
1999, which gave UPS an advantage as the largest cargo carrier. By 2010, UPS had become the largest publicly
traded company and with the rise of trucking, freight, air deliveries, for
businesses, large company firms, international trade services they sought to
take it a step further with their online market.
Their ORION (On-Road Integrated Optimization and
Navigation) system allows UPS to track mileage in their systems to cut costs,
have a positive impact on the environment, promote customer efficiency even
more, and makes it possible for the use of personal devices to use their
services. As this was just beginning to
take shape, they rolled out DIAD V which is an advancement of their information
acquisition system to make it easier to see what the customers need and
want. They did this by tracking it with
the use of cellular technology. Building
upon that model, they also came up with something called UPS Access Point.
Which allowed customers the convenience of modifying their orders to change
locations, picking up deliveries to certain places like convenience stores, gas
stations, newsagents, etc. anywhere there is an UPS hub. In 2015, they acquired Coyote Logistics. Which helps them add large scale FTL
transportation management to their already solid smaller delivery based
customers.
Evaluation
Today
United Parcel Service UPS Company spend over $1 billion every year on providing
information system meet the needs of the clients, workers, and managers while
controlling use low cost working in all over the operations. Make sure to
provide high customer services in all fields is one of the most significant
points that make the UPS is number 1 shipping company in all over the world.
Using
the DIAD “Delivery Information Acquisition Device” automated package tracking
system helps the delivery to be more reliable and helping to reduce the customs
delay.
UPS is always investing
in emerging technologies in order to progress its operations and meet its task
and target.
The ability that’s UPS
offer to the clients to access their shipments and tracking their orders
online, import and export the orders through the online tools available in PC,
windows, android, etc.
In
fact the Infrastructure, data and proprietary e-commerce software are the main
elements that lead the successful of the UPS, all these tools are meet to
support the e-commerce strategy and support the business strategy.
The chart 1.1 below
show how is the UPS site network.
.gif” alt=”Screen shot 2017-09-01 at 10.40.47 pm.png”>
Q1: What are the
inputs, processing and outputs of UPS’s package tracking system?
Q2: What technologies
are used by UPS? How are these technologies related to UPS’s business strategy?
Q3: What strategic
business objectives do UPS’s information systems address?
Q4: What would happen
if UPS’s information systems were not available?
WEEK 2: TEAM CASE
ANALYSIS
The World Cup known for its quick thrills and fast paced
action, was involved in implementing a new data system which helped keep
accurate records in scoring and presenting the game with more of a competitive
edge among teams. Germany, which was one
of the teams, had set two specific requirements to compound the use of the
system which made it more difficult for the software system that Brazil had in
place to keep up with during the game.
They used their SAP HANA (i.e. High Performance Analytic
Appliance); which gave them an advantage by isolating key performance
indicators that helped them gain more of an advantage against the opposing
team. Surprisingly, the World Cup went along with this “requirement.” Was it fair? We will attempt to answer that
question.
Support
When Germany won the world cup in 2014 there was a secret
behind this big successful, it is a “Big Data”.
In 1950 Charles Reephas (A wing commander in the British
Royal Air Force) created the first analysis system by using very basic tools
from pencil and notebook, in order to report the English soccer club.
Germany football association used Match insights, which has
been created and developed by SAP to create a special match data analysis that
works to collect and analysis player’s achievement and help them plan for
future matches. This simple user interface technology helps the coaches to
determine the locations and the speeds for each player’s, determine passing
speed and also helps to protect their player’s body, all these technology tools
available in mobile devices too.
We can say that emerging technology nowadays lead most
organizations to develop and achieve their goals. The Match Insight software
gave the players an extra edge and helps them to be quicker and achieve higher
level in the game. This system also
helps to discover new player in a young age that training to attend the sports
clubs.
Simply Match Insight work down to divide and explain all the
data in details for the players just to make it more easier to figure their
performance, achievements, mistakes, and distinguish the difference between
each others.
So do you think that the big data “Match Insight “ change
the Soccer games?
The answer will be yes; the usage of technology tools works
to analysis the players training it is a successful key and a secret that leads
Germany to win the world club in 2014.
Evaluation
The basis of this chapter is decision making, the types, the
process, as well as a Business Intelligence and Business Analytics
introduction. When the German Football
Association made their decision to partner with SAP AG to create and utilize Match
Insights, they were very much, making an unstructured decision (Laudon, p
467). They had not previously utilized
the software and hardware that they were purchasing, in fact, no one else
had. It was being custom made for
them. However, I am sure that they
stepped through the decision-making process in order to properly determine if
this was the route they wanted to go or not.
The first step, in the decision-making process is the
Intelligence, or discovery phase (Laudon, p 474). In this step, they would have realized that
they were facing a problem, and that was how they could possibly make their
playing better, and allow them to win more games. The next step is the Design or Solution
Discovery phase (Laudon, p 474). I’m
sure that they came up with many solutions regarding how they could improve,
with various game plans. One of these
solutions was to team up with SAP and create a performance data collection and
analysis software and hardware combination. The third step is the Choice, or
decision-making step (Laudon, p 474).
The German Football Association after weighing the risks and the other
options available, decided that this was the direction that they wanted to go,
and initiated the final stage, the Implementation, or solution testing stage
(Laudon, p 474).
For them, the Implementation stage included placing on-field
cameras to capture player speed and position, a customized SAP database and
software to analyze all of the data in real time (Laudon, p 466). It also would include creating a connection
to give the players a user interface through their mobile devices and in the
players’ lounge (Laudon, p 466). For
them, the solution testing stage went very well. They were able to improve speed, and the average
possession time by more than 2 seconds (Laudon, p 466). They were also able to understand weak spots
and plays so that they could better protect the ball and pierce through the
other team’s defense weaknesses, as well as see their own strengths and
weaknesses in the game (Laudon, p 466).
The software did well, because it was able to obtain enough quality
information through the cameras and that input data, they set up appropriate
management filters, and organizationally, the software was accepted and
utilized to help the players and the coaches (Laudon, p 472 – 473). This software enabled the players to make
better decisions regarding their play, as well as allowed the coaches to make
better decisions on what plays to run if a queue from the opposite team
occurred.
For the German Football Association, they were able to utilize
a One-stop integrated solution through SAP AG (Laudon, p 485). They utilized Big Data Analytics using the
on-field cameras and analyzation software on previous game footage to vastly
improve their game (Laudon, p 479). The
software shows an excellent use of Business Analytics and Business Intelligence
through Sensitivity Analysis, by asking “What happens if…” questions, like
“What if I make this move” or What if they make that move” (Laudon, p
487). In fact, the Big Data solution has
worked so well for them, they strove forward to win the World Cup against the
favored Brazil and Argentina in 2014, and many are calling the Match Insights
solution as their 12th man, and plans are being made to offer the solution to
other clubs and soccer federations (Laudon, p 466). This story is a shining example of what
amazing things that Big Data and Business Analytics and Intelligence can do!
Q1: How did using Match Insights
change the way the German World Cup team made decisions?
Q2: Give examples of two decisions
that were improved by using Match Insights.
Q3: What can businesses learn from
the German 2014 World Cup victory?
WEEK 3: TEAM CASE
ANALYSIS
American Water was initiated in 1886 in United State and
Canada. The headquartered in New Jersey “Voorhees”, American Water Hired more
than 7,000 thousand employees; who responsible for providing water services in
around 35 states. American Water is
depending in a locally-administer utility subsidiaries by the government, and
some business the subsidiaries to the domestic drinking water, wastewater, or
any other service related to water managements.
American Water system until 2006 was very centralized and
localized and almost 80 percent managed manually. American Water established in 2003, the
American Water Military Services Group, this services is work to help in
collecting, treating the wastewater in different military stations American Water has reduced their employees to
6,800 and provide more service to over 47 states and Canada, Ontario. And
provide over a 11 American Water Services Group stations.
Support
American Water’s main objective was to upgrade into a more
centralized operation with a generalized company-wide business process and
overall general reporting. With this goal in mind, American Water chose to work
with SAP as their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system service provider.
American water established information policy, data administration, and
ensuring data quality are up to par in improving data management. Providing
accurate and up to date information via their policies and procedures is the
organization’s rules for organizing, managing, storing, and sharing
information. Data administration is responsible for data planning and for
specific policies and procedures through which data can be managed whenever
needed. Using these business practices, it ensures data quality by eliminating
poor data quality and ensuring data cleansing in that advent of a breach in
their database.
Evaluation
In this chapter, the database management
systems (DBMS) are described. This software allows organizations to centralize
data to effectively manage stored data. The DBMS is an interface between
physical data files and application programs. Each department or end-user would
have a different view or slice of the data pertinent to the work they do
(Laudon & Laudon, p 222). American
Water went through great lengths to migrate their manual data into a single
integrated system, enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The data
migration entailed not only combining old data with the new system but also
identifying which pieces of data were important to a certain department and who
will essentially “own” specific data and removing data that was not needed
(Laudon & Laudon, p 242).
One issue American Water faced was several
departments were using different names for the same materials. Each region
created their own data systems and found when they merged the data there were
abundant redundancies and inconsistencies. The DBMS identifies redundancies and
inconsistencies and categorizes data into similar values to avoid any further
redundancies. The DBMS assists companies to centralize and manage their data
effectively and securely (Laudon & Laudon, p 222). DBMS also has a data
definition capability that can be built into the data structure using tables.
Each table is defined with specific characteristics that would also be helpful
for American Water to streamline their data definitions which are either
automatic or manual files containing the data element definitions and
characteristics (Laudon & Laudon, p 225).
Another challenge American Water faced was working with
their large vendor database. American Water had over 70,000 vendors listed on
their vendor database. Business users were tasked with identifying which
vendors needed to move over into their new system. Data mining provides insight
into a company’s data. Data mining includes classification, associations,
sequences, clusters, and forecasts. Incorporating a concise list of vendors
helps to narrow down the amount of data needing to be integrating allowing for
“cleaner” more accurate data to be entered into their new system (Laudon &
Laudon p 237).
American Water moved from manually entering
data into Excel spreadsheets into SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence tools.
The SAP Web tools is a set of tools that enables business users to view, sort,
and analyze business intelligence data. Additionally, tools are available for
generating queries, reports, and interactive dashboards (Laudon & Laudon, p
243). DBMS works by processing data from HTML to SQL. The DBMS resides on a
database server which receives the SQL data and provides the data. The internal
server in the company will send information back to the Web server and
displaying on a Web page for the end user. Several advantages in using the Web
to access internal databases are cost efficiency, easier to navigate than
proprietary tools, and the Web interface do not require much changes to the
company’s internal databases (Laudon & Laudon, p 239).
1.Discuss
the role of information policy, data administration, and efforts to ensure data
quality in improving data management at American Water?
2.Describe
roles played by information systems specialists and end users in American
Water’s systems transformation project?
3.Why was
the participation of business users so important? If they didn’t play this
role, what would have happened?
4.How did
implementing a data warehouse help American Water move toward a more
centralized organization?
5. Give
some examples of problems that would have occurred at American Water if its
data were not “clean”?
6.How did
American Water’s data warehouse improve operations and management decision
making?
WEEK 4: TEAM CASE
ANALYSIS
One of the most effective tools used in the workplace is the
internet. Employees can meet virtually across the globe, access online tools to
get their job done, and correspond via company e-mail to name a few. While the
internet is necessary to complete daily tasks, it has become a distraction for
employees and contributes to ineffectiveness in the workplace. On average,
employees access the internet for personal reasons more than an hour daily
which may cause companies to see a decrease of productivity yearly by nearly
40%, costing mid-sized companies to lose over $3 million yearly (Laudon &
Laudon, p 274). Companies have started to monitor employees surrounding
internet use and accessing personal e-mails without their knowledge. Along with
monitoring employees for performance reviews, companies are at risk for
viruses, leaking confidential information, and slowing their network
performance. While companies feel they have the right to monitor their
employees, consultants feel employees should be aware of corporate policies
surrounding internet use and understand the consequences surrounding
inappropriate use (Laudon & Laudon, p 275).
Support
Access
to a company’s information puts them in a precarious position, so it must be
entrusted in the hands of individuals who have a sense of integrity. As technology evolves over time, it makes it
easier to access such confidential information.
Therefore, this has caused not only companies, but almost every sector
of businesses to implement a type of monitoring system to ensure that there is
no breach in information. The reason
behind this is to protect their investments against illegal activities that may
be perpetrated by such unethical individuals (Sanford Brown, 2014).
Many
state legislative laws encourage the surveillance of individuals, especially
when they are on company time. When you
look at the many crimes that have been committed in the last decade, one would
wonder why our personal right to privacy would be taken away (or rather
monitored). I personally believe that
surveillancing individuals (i.e. at work) is not a bad thing. Because, that just gives someone the thought
to always be mindful about what they’re doing.
However, there are things legislators, companies, and managers must keep
in mind when attempting to surveillance individuals. One they must not seems as though that they
are being biased towards a specific group of people. If it even remotely is inclined that a
certain group of individuals is being targeted, then it could backfire and wind
up resulting in a discriminatory suit against the parties involved in
surveillancing (Katz, 2015). Another
thing to be careful of is showing nepotism.
All disciplinary actions must be equal and across the board when enforcing
these rules. But before any of these
things begin to take effect, it is wise to always consult a professional in the
area of law so that there won’t be any upsets by individuals who may feel like
they are being policed (Katz, 2015).
Upon further expansion, according to the article written by Katz,
Monitoring Employee Productivity, the pros outweigh the cons. But, to me there still seems to be a
disproportionate element to this theory.
Making employees feel uncomfortable only makes them hostile and not care
about their work. However, this is an
issue that will probably be forever debated.
As long as there is a balance of the two, then eventually maybe there
will come a resolution of a happy medium.
Evaluation
The internet and
other networks play a huge role in businesses today. However, these networks
can come with positive and/or negative effects. “Employees are wasting valuable
company time by surfacing inappropriate Web sites” (Laudon and Laudon, 2015, pg
307). This time that is wasted is lost money for the company twice over. First,
the lack of production from that employee that is searching the internet for
personal use, then the limited production to their fellow employees because
what their co-worker is doing is slower and hindering the network speed. If a
company does not have the adequate bandwidth needed to overcome this, then
their issue is even worse. “The bandwidth is the difference between the highest
and lowest frequencies that can be accommodated on a single channel. The
greater the range of frequencies, the greater the bandwidth and the greater the
channel’s transmission capacity” (Laudon and Laudon, 2015, pg 297).
For a company to
monitor what, and how long an employee is using company internet for personal
use can be very beneficial. If a company can identify which websites are mostly
viewed and used, then they can aim at blocking the use of these to aid in the
network speed. “No one knows for sure how many Web pages there really are”
(Laudon and Laudon, 2015, pg 310). It would be next to impossible to block all
sites that were not work related. So, it would benefit if they monitored the
access and poll to see which sites are the most popular, and if they are not
needed to perform work tasks, then they should be blocked.
Should managers monitor employee e-mail and Internet usage?
Why or why not?
Describe an effective e-mail and Web use policy for a
company?
Should managers inform employees that their Web behavior is
being monitored? Or should managers monitor secretly? Why or why not?
WEEK 5: TEAM CASE
ANALYSIS
Graybar Analytics is one of the largest communication and
networking companies in the United States.
Each year they serve as the leading provider of electrical and other
high quality products. In addition to these
services, they also provide logistical services and supply chain management to
companies (Laudon & Laudon, 2015, p. 368).
Despite being the leader in logistics for years, Graybar has been
focusing their attention on clients who have been spending the most money on
utilizing their services. This has begun
to make them look like culprits in only
giving those clients with sizeable bank accounts top priority, over those with
not so big accounts (Laudon & Laudon, 2015, p. 368). It makes one question the integrity of their
companies’ practices. Studies recently
have gone over at least four criteria to determine how Graybar Analytics
conducts business, and they are: core, opportunistic, marginal and service
drain customers (Laudon & Laudon, 2015, p.368). Not saying that Graybar is a bad company for
using this type of data to determine how they rate each client they obtain,
because most companies use some sort of business model in order to rate their
most profitable clients.
Support
Graybar initiated in 1869, started with a warehouse that
deliver thousands of electronic, communication product (Vise, 2001). Graybar
now has more than $6.4 profits in 2016 (Vise, 2001). And a ten thousands of
employees in all over the states; this huge company specifies in supply chain
management services and is controlling North American supplier of high-quality
elements, equipment and materials for a number of manufacturing (Vise, 2001).
Graybar now serves not only the customers who are working
construction, but also with commercial, foundation, government, new building
construction, repair and renewal building, provide the equipment’s to
manufacture (Vise, 2001).
Graybar is working always hard to help the customers to
provide power and network their services with speed and efficiency. By adding
and emerging technologies to their work, analytic, logistics, and project
management to its tasks, Graybar has become an energetic link in America’s
supply chain (Vise, 2001).
Graybar landmark technology investment through using new
technologies in all fields in between the year of 2002 and 2004 the company
spent more than $100 million on upgrading the software system and computers
this transformation includes the whole Graybar institute resource planning
(ERP) software the provided by SAP AG and the gaining the IBM servers and
hardware (Vise, 2001).
If we looking for the Graybar software today it is used for virtually every
business development in the company, starting from responsibility of records,
investments and paying bills, customer revenue to control and analyzing the
travel cost and delivery. Now Graybar is links automatically and electronically
more than 250 locations (Vise, 2001). Looking to offer a great customer
services by meet their needs very quickly deliver the items completely and
accurately, tracking the daily sales and by keep up to date with all new
technology in order to plan better and spot trends (Vise, 2001).
Evaluation
Graybar, a Fortune 500 company, is a leader in distributing
high-quality electrical, communications, and networking products. They are one
of the largest employee-owned companies in North America. While they are highly
successful in their business, bringing in over $5.7 billion in revenue, they
needed to focus more closely on their customers by analyzing their needs and
understanding them better. Customers expect better services but refuse to pay
more for additional services causing distributors’ profit margins to be tight
(Laudon & Laudon, p 368).
Researchers recommend distributing companies to utilize a
strategy known as customer stratification. Customer stratification measures how
much business a customer does with a company in sales, their gross margin,
loyalty, and the cost incurred to service their customers. The study identified
four types of customers: opportunistic, marginal, core, and service drain. A
different strategy is utilized for each of the different type of customer
(Laudon & Laudon, p 368).
Graybar’s Vice President of business development created a
project for a data-driven customer stratification model to incorporate best
practices and enhance profits in 2011. His team comprised of operations,
finance, marketing, and information systems. By incorporating team members from
these various departments, he leveraged their knowledge into customer needs.
The team spent a year to tailor best practices into their company. They took
the company’s existing ERP system and wrote queries to extract data from the
company’s SAP NetWeaver data warehouse. The ERP or enterprise planning systems
are based on a suite of integrated software modules and a common central
database. The database incorporates data from various departments in a firm
from operations to accounting and makes the data available for applications
that support close to nearly all business activities in the organization
(Laudon & Laudon, p 350).
The SAP NetWeaver data warehouse looks at specific data to
analyze each business’ needs. Graybar found they already had most of the data
in their data warehouse they needed to perform customer stratification (Laudon
& Laudon, p 368). The initial spreadsheet contained many rows of data which
made it cumbersome to read. Graybar built a dashboard using SAP BusinessObjects
Dashboards software to better enhance the data into a more visual,
understandable format. Graybar later partnered with SAP to create a custom
software product called SAP Customer Value Intelligence. This is part of the
SAP Customer Analytics suite with recommendations on how to improve customer
value. It uses real-time customer data to place customers into one of the four
categories: opportunistic, marginal, core, and service drain (Laudon &
Laudon, p 368).
The enterprise vendors are now delivering a more flexible,
web-enabled, integrated system. Software suites have been customizable and work
closely with supply chain management, customer relationship management, and
enterprise systems (Laudon & Laudon, p 371). The SAP Graybar utilized is
based on HANA, in-memory computing program which provides much faster speeds to
process and analyze large sets of data. This new technology was embraced by the
salespeople and gave them a cutting edge to utilize customer stratification for
their sales in real-time which helped to guide them with each unique customer.
SAP HANA enabled Graybar to process and analyze large amounts of data quickly
and much more efficiently (Laudon & Laudon, p 368).
1.
What was the problem at Graybar described in this case? How
did this problem affect Graybar’s business performance?
2.
What management, organization, and technology issues had to
be addressed by Graybar to develop a customer analytic solution?
3.
How did analytical CRM change the way Graybar ran its
business? Compare the way Graybar handled its customer relationships before and
after it implemented analytical CRM.
4.
Give examples of three decisions that were improved by
Graybar’s new customer analytic system
WEEK 6: TEAM CASE
ANALYSIS
Installed in 2004 as part of a £200 million IT modernization
of Great Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), the patient booking system
was supposed to enable patients to select a hospital for an outpatient appointment
from a range of options, primarily with the help and direction of their general
practitioner (Laudon & Laudon, 2015, p.547). According to the NHS Alliance, a coalition of
health care providers, managers, and patients dedicated to improving care and providing
a voice to patients, the ability to choose physicians and facilities from a
wide range of options was never a chief concern (Laudon & Laudon, 2015,
p.547). Instead, patients were looking for swift referrals to their local
hospital. In rural areas, choice was considerably limited anyway, and older
patients, in particular, simply found the array of choices confusing, difficult
to navigate, and time-consuming to select (Laudon & Laudon, 2015, p.547).
The goals were threefold: to speed up the referral process, eliminate costly
paperwork, and encourage patient participation so as to stem losses of up to
£225 million annually from 1.6 million patient no-shows (Laudon & Laudon,
2015, p.547).
Support
The NHS
was initiated in 1948. One of the NHS goals is to provide a good healthcare to
everyone, regardless of wealth with the exclusion of some charges, like
prescriptions, visual services and dental services. The NHS in England receive
everyday over 1 million patients every 36 hours.
The NHS Modernization agency work in improving services
through four important elements which are strategic to progress and deliver a
truthfully patient-centered services.
In order to support the speed up to the access of th
ScholarMatic: Explanation & Answer
Your ready answer from a verified tutor is just a click away for as little as $14.99
Click Order Now to get 100% Original Answer Customized to your instructions!
