BUS 188: Chapter 9 Outline

Matthew Mercado

08/01/16

BUS 188 (11:00am-3:00pm)

Chapter 9 Outline (2 page minimum)

Aggarwal

Chapter 9 Outline: Business Intelligence Systems

            Businesses always have a system that oversees patterns, relationships, and trends. These patterns, relationships, and trends are referred to as Business Intelligence (or BI for short). BI has the same 5 components as IS: Hardware, Software, Procedures, and People. All of this relates back to the concept of BI systems – information systems that process operational, social, and other data to analyze patterns. The BI intelligence application relates to four components: Operational DBS, Social Data, Purchased Data, and Employee Knowledge. The BI application then converts to Knowledge workers. The analyzing of data means to report, data mine, BigData, and have knowledge management. Businesses and organizations have generate so much data nowadays that, for the most part, BI is often used to inform. Referring back to SM in the previous chapter, BI can be used to access the patterns of certain trends and interests amongst a large majority on all SM platforms. Facebook is a prime example where it can identify trends much like a newsfeed, it’s the most-talked about topic or even the most read because it relates to an even broader audience than just one.

            With BI applications, one component is to identify purchasing patterns. When overlooking, for example, retail always look at their inventory and sees the buying behaviors of their customers. They look for style, feel, and appeal. If its Summer time, there’ll be less purchases for winter clothes and usually, winter attire is put on sale. Businesses and organizations have to be able to perceive patterns in order to make profit, conduct business, and retain customer loyalty. They can’t be two steps behind nor can be two steps ahead – they have to be able to be right along with the customer. Another example is when I used to work in retail and I sold leather jackets. There was a period of time where nobody would buy any leather products because it was out of season. Those who’d come buy to purchase one were only doing so for businesses purchases or were out of town. It was up to me to convince them of its usage as well as demonstrate the style, feel, and appeal of the jacket even if they didn’t necessarily have to buy it at that moment. That’s why retail is a prime example of businesses overseeing patterns. They keep up with the times and adaptable to change when need be. Another component BI could be used for is for Entertainment purposes.

            Streaming services such as Amazon, Netflix, Youtube, & Hulu could always be used to predict, perceive, and observe patterns in what shows they watch. A library of shows isn’t enough for everyone, so all the streaming services provide recommendations based on what the user has watched previously. For example, if I watched the show Breaking Bad on Netflix, Netflix would begin recommended shows that are like or similar to the feel of Breaking Bad. The service is predicting that we, the audience, will watch that show just because it has similar vibes to what we’ve previously watched. The observation and analyzing of patterns helps Netflix dictate what to provide for us as a means to attract a new audience to that show. These streaming services have changed the way we view TV because, nowadays, no one really rents videos or even buys movies. All of the content is available via the Internet and, much like a cassette tapes, we can rewind and fast-forward at our own leisure. People even go so far as to share Netflix accounts with others and, despite it technically not being legal, people have found a loophole in sharing content amongst one another as a means to create awareness of video streaming services’ popularity.

            Business Intelligence has three primary activities: Acquire data, perform analysis, and publish the results. A common example could be taking a test. When taking a M/C test, we utilize what we’ve learned from the material and apply it on the test. Once we submit it to the teacher/instructor, he/she will test the results, create the average of how well the class did on the test, and lastly publish the results to the individual with feedback. The first step is similar to data acquisition, which is the process of obtaining, cleaning, organizing, relating, and cataloging source data. When performing an analysis on the data, it’s pretty self-explanatory – they are observing the data to see any discrepancies (mistakes/errors) of any sort. Lastly, there are two types of publishing results: Push & Pull. Push publishing is the process of delivering BI to the knowledge workers who may need it. Pull publishing is the process that requires the user to request BI results. Publication of any media can include print or online content via web servers. Another prime example is SJSU’s Canvas – assignments, lecture slides, and test results can be posted online rather than given out by hand.

            Data, which turns into information, now is accessible everywhere. From Metadata to Databases, the amount of resources pulled to picture all the data sources is limitless. BI has made it possible for businesses and organizations to oversee the data they’ve collected and observe patterns from the formatting to the assumptions and constraints. Knowledge is vast and is pooled form all sorts of sources. Facebook is a prime example of a SM giant that has collected an ocean of information. From the information they’ve collected, users create communities based on specific information (interests, hobbies, and likes) and Facebook can observe patterns based on those communities just from the information they collected. It shows how everyone is interconnected one way or another and how everything mends together to illustrate a system that has become the norm of today.