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BUSINESS DRIVEN TECHNOLOGY

Chapter Six: Valuing Organizational

Information

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CHAPTER SIX OVERVIEW

• Information is everywhere in an 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

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THE VALUE OF TRANSACTIONAL AND ANALYTICAL INFORMATION

• Transactional information – encompasses all of 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 analysis tasks

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THE VALUE OF TIMELY INFORMATION

• Timeliness is an aspect of information that depends on the situation– Real-time information – means immediate, up-to-date

information– Real-time systems – provide real-time information in

response to query requests

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THE VALUE OF TIMELY INFORMATION

• Real-time systems can help organizations make faster and more effective decisions

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THE VALUE OF QUALITY INFORMATION

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

• The five characteristics of high-quality information include– Accuracy– Completeness– Consistency– Uniqueness– Timeliness

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THE VALUE OF QUALITY INFORMATION

• The four primary sources of low-quality information include:

1. Online customers intentionally enter inaccurate information to protect their privacy

2. Information from different systems that have different information entry standards and formats

3. Call center operators enter abbreviated or erroneous information by accident or to save time

4. Third party and external information contains inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and errors

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Understanding the Costs of Low-quality Information

• Potential business effects resulting from low-quality information– 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 – which

increases buyer power

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Understanding the Benefits of High-Quality Information

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

• Good decisions can directly impact an organization's bottom line