Final!!!

file:///Users/leeroydowell/Desktop/FINAL%20STUDY%20SHEET.doc

FINAL!!!

Ben & Jerry's makes amazing ice cream. Bigelow Teas probably makes great tea. (I wouldn't really know because I don't drink tea.) How do these companies continue year after year to produce excellent products for their consumers? Business Intelligence is the answer. Lets look at some different aspects of collecting BI within these two companies.

1. If you were to design Ben & jerry's data warehouse what dimensions of information would you include? Well to name a few...

• Employees
• Distribution
• Marketing
• Merchandising (such as changing the cherry garcia label so people don't think they deserve more cherries)
• Sales
• Production
• Service

2. What sort of tables or files of information would Ben & Jerry's need in its database?

• Flavors of Ice Cream
• Suppliers
• Branches (stores)
• employees
• trucks
  

3. How was part of the success of BusinessObjects related to the closeness of its look and feel to excel? Simple. It brought its past of unusually user-unfriendliness and introduced it to an interface that everyone already knows and loves: Microsoft Excel. In this way time or money wasn't lost attempting to teach users how to navigate a new program.

4. How could Bigelow Teas open up its business intelligence information to its suppliers and resellers?

1. When BI is used effectively it helps to some degree.
   
2. Bigelow Teas would in turn reap the benefits of the success underneath.
3. Info such as $ from the top, stuff like that.
   

5. When talking about business decision making Neil Hastie says its: "a lot of by-guess and by-golly and by-golly, a lot of by-gut, and a whole lot of paper reports." This doesn't look so hot for BI. How can this quote be turned into something positive? Ok while it may be true that it takes a lot of guess work it also takes the right combination of information, the right timing, right tools, and everything coming together at the same time. Seems impossible? Well its not.

To Outsource or Not to Outsource

Many Companies are now considering outsourcing as one of there options for competing in the business world today. Among those are Sears, Roebuck & Co. and financial services company Huntington National Bank. Lets look at how the CIO's of both companies have dealt with the decision to outsource parts of their own company.

1. Here are a few of the reasons Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Huntington National Bank respectively have approached their outsourcing decisions:

• Outsourcing, no matter what it is, has an effect upon employees. Whether people are losing jobs to outsourcing or getting an opportunity for growth there is good and bad.
• Money is usually an issue when it comes to outsourcing. Companies can save some much needed revenue by outsourcing and using that money elsewhere.
  

2. Why did Sears, Roebuck & Co. choose not to insource it IT development?

• By outsourcing the IT development department in Sears they were able to
  
• first, use the remaining staff for developing new retail systems,
  
• two, they avoided having to hire a bunch of technical specialists, and
• three, save money and reach their company goal of having a stable infrastructure.

3. Why did Huntington National Bank choose not to outsource its IT development?

• Huntington had already been outsourcing their deposit and loan systems.
  
• Because the CIO knew about the consequences of outsourcing he also understood that creating outsourcing agreements are loss leaders to start with the revenue coming in later in the year.
  

4. Here are some of the factors that may have "forced" Sears to outsource:


5. Here are some of the factors that may have "forced" Huntington National Bank to insource:

Costumer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management or CRM, is a very effective tool in predicting and helping customers especially in the banking industry. Lets look at some examples to see how CRM can help you in certain situations:

Lets suppose that you are a family with your spouse and two children. You have a home mortgage, two car loans, you're building up a retirement account, and you're putting away money for the college education of both your children, all with the same bank. How would a CRM use it's information if:

You and your spouse decide to have a another child.

The bank would most likely set up another account with which you could put away funds for the third child's education.

You lose your job.

With a home mortgage and two car loans the bank might decided to offer you another loan to tide you over till you land another job. Perhaps lowering your payment for your retirement account.

One of your parents is stricken with a severe and long term illness, and has no medical insurance, leaving you to pay the bill.

You consistently incur transaction fees for using an ATM not in your bank's ATM network.

Although i don't know what the bank would do... this defianately seems like an invasion of privacy to me.

Your identity is stolen.

You decide to build an addition on your home.

Movie Rental Industry

1. Is buyer power low or high?

High! Especially when it comes to going out and actually renting a movie there are several options to choose from for the buyers.

2. Is supplier power low or high?

This seems low when considering outdoor rental stores, but high when considering online renting stores such as Net Flix. This supplier power is going down however as blockbuster and possibly amazon are coming to compete.

3. Which substitue products and services are seen as threats?

One of the biggest threats that I see towards movie reantal stores is that of Redbox. The convenience of location, and price of rental is hard to beat. As for threats to the online rental world, the more places you can choose from the more buyer power goes up and the supplier power goes down. As for threats to the online world i definately see I-Tunes taking a large chunk out of the other companies a it attracts so many people with its prices and convenience.

4. Barriers?

As for barriers with online movie renting having the IT knowledge comes up as number one in my mind. If a new startup service wants to compete with one of the more popular companies it needs to find a way to be more convenient and perhaps quicker than its competitors.

5. What is the level of rivalry?

Currently the level of rivalry doesn't seem too high however as technology continues to advance i see this going way up.

1. Net Flix

2. Block Buster

3. Hollywood Video

4. Red Box

5. I-Tunes

Currently this seems like a safe Industry to enter as long as you possess the techie knowledge to compete with the big guns out there already. Perhaps producing a way to get the movies to consumers faster and cheaper will provide that edge needed.

Career in IT Article

Well i found this article to be very informative and helpful. It definately helped me to see all of the careers that are out there and how much IT is necessary to get there.

Business Specialization:

Management

Job Title:

Business Development Manager (this is the job that i found to be most appealing for lack of having more specific jobs)

Classes offered at your school:

Management Information Systems

Windows Networking

IT skills you need to acquire:

Database Management and Integration

Speadsheets

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Locations you would Consider:

Arizona

East coast

Really anywhere i could get a good job

Companies you would consider:

Citi

JPmorgan

Jobs on MOnster.com:

Job title:

Manager/Strategic manager

Location:

New York, New York

Salary:

Not listed

Hello

Well here i am in the Blogging world. It's so great