Enterprise Business Processes and Reporting (IS 6214) MBS MIMAS 2010 / th October 2010 Fergal Carton Business Information Systems

Last week Homework: where bad data might have resulted in a process breakdown Sample processes A process requires … Good and bad processes Technology can help –Example: Applied Research Project (Cucina) In class exercise

This week More bad data examples … Is the data bad or the process bad? Kicking the tyres of a process Sample processes Basic flows of information Data and categories Northwind example: –what can you tell about business from data? –Normalisation of data Clean up of contacts exercise in tutorial Excel competence survey Tutorial attendance

Multiple views of price data (KS) If the price of an item drops within 30 days of your purchase, Amazon.co.uk will refund you the difference. Issues occurred when the wrong item was listed on the website as having dropped in price. From our internal data we could see no drop in price, however it was clearly visible on the website that the item had dropped in price. Customer Frustration occurred when they contacted the Amazon customer service team to seek a refund in the price difference. Customers were told by customer service agents that they would non receive a refund as no change in price for this item was visible from their internal data system. Eventually Amazon did refund the customer the difference in price due to the high volume of complaints

Multiple views of price data (KS) If the price of an item drops within 30 days of your purchase, Amazon.co.uk will refund you the difference. Issues occurred when the wrong item was listed on the website as having dropped in price. From our internal data we could see no drop in price, however it was clearly visible on the website that the item had dropped in price. Customer Frustration occurred when they contacted the Amazon customer service team to seek a refund in the price difference. Customers were told by customer service agents that they would non receive a refund as no change in price for this item was visible from their internal data system. Eventually Amazon did refund the customer the difference in price due to the high volume of complaints What was the reason that two versions of item price could exist (internal and customer facing), and what processes could be put in place to tie these two together such that this couldn’t occur again?

Slow process or bad data (CF)? I rang Apple as an employee to order an iPad on staff discount. Firstly the staff database system was down and the sales rep was unable to confirm whether or not I was an actual employee. Sales rep was unable to store my details as the Oracle system they use was experiencing difficulties. The initial delivery time of items purchased was 2-3 days but due to the difficulties the order was expected to, and did, take 5 working days to arrive. Result: recipient did not receive gift in time for birthday

Facebook and privacy (CK) Profile on Facebook, pressure to be public Data sold to marketing / recruiting companies Account deleted but profile retained No rules about how that data is used?

Process failures (NH) Example 1 –POS system failure to change the prices of products at the specified time (00:30). –Result = confusion and revenue loss Example 2 –Payroll system extracts data from a database, –Calculates weekly wages off-line (eg. Excel). –Incorrect data being retrieved from the database results in incorrect wages

Lack of rigour in process (AOD) Customer Contact Details Customer Files Customer Accounts O’ Brien’s Excel File Barry’s Excel File Barry’s Contact Details O’ Brien’s Contact Details Angel Accounts Money In Money PaidMoney Owed Money Out Money Owed Money Paid ‘Money Clients Have Paid Us’ ‘Money Clients Owe To Us’ Money Angel Has Paid To Suppliers’ ‘Money Angel Owes To Suppliers’.

Is the data or the process bad? If the data is bad, can you identify the process issue? Data requires maintenance Easy to implement solutions Less exciting to maintain data Only good data results in good systems

“Kicking the tyres” of a process What is unique about this process? Is there seasonality? What happens to the process under duress? What are customers complaining about? What are competitors doing? Is the business model changing? –Is the way of doing business evolving?

Buy process

Basic flows of information Organisations are organised in a number of functional areas They carry out complementary missions They interact and collaborate in managing the organisation What are they called? What are their goals?

Porter’s value chain (1985)

Support versus primary functions Support versus primary business functions –Primary business functions are repetitive –Primary business functions touch customers –Support functions can go on holidays –Support functions can be centralised

Basic flows Basic flows of information in business Finance – cash Sales – orders, customers Manufacturing – suppliers, raw materials

Basic flows Finance Sales Manufacturing

Basic flows Finance Sales Manufacturing

Inventory = common denominator Finance Sales Manufacturing

IS integration: demand & supply Production Distribution Sales X X X

Cuisine de France: product categories French Bread Baguette Half Baguette Petit pains Bouchons Batard Couronne Traditional Bread McNamees fruit soda bread Irish soda bread White Split Wholemeal tin loaf Bloomers Gourmet Bread Flavour (Cranberry, Rosemary, Sunflower, Honey, Sundried Tomato) Bread type (see above) Confectionery Apple pastry Donut Double chocolate muffin Cherry and almond croquante Almond slice Blackforest gateaux Strawberry gateaux

Northwind Data : Products

Object-Oriented Systems Development Bahrami © Irwin/ McGraw-Hill Data : Categories