chapter 6: valuing organizational information

CHAPTER 6: VALUING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION

v  Information granularity refers to the extent of detail within the information

v  Information levels (above): individual department, enterprise

v  Information formats (middle): document, presentation, spreadsheet, database

v  Information granularities (below): detail (fine), aggregate(course)

TRANSACTIONAL INFORMATION	ANALYTICAL INFORMATION
Encompasses all of the information contained within a single business process or unit of work       Purpose: to support the performing of daily operational tasks       Example: withdrawing cash from ATM       Organizations capture and store transactional information in database and they use it when performing operational tasks and repetitive decisions	Encompasses all organizational information       Purpose: to support the performing of managerial analysis tasks       Example: product statistic and future growth

       Real time information means immediate, up to date information

       Real time system provide real time information in response to query request

o   5 common characteristics of high quality information:

Accuracy:             Are all the value correct? Example, is the name spelled correctly?

Completeness:     Are any of values missing? For example, is the address complete including street,                                 city, state

Consistency:       Is aggregate or summary information in agreement with detailed information?                               For example, do all total fields equal the true total of the individual fields?

Uniqueness:          Is each transaction, entity and event represented only once in the information?                                 For example, are there any duplicate customers?

Timeless:              Is the information current with respect to the business requirements? For                                  example,is information updated weekly, daily or hourly?

v  Recognizing how low quality information issues occur will allow organizations to begin to correct them. The 4 primary sources of low quality information are:

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

2.       Different systems 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

       Benefits of high quality information on an organization:

1.       Does not automatically guarantee that every decision made is going to be a good one, since 
       people ultimately make decisions

2.       Information ensures that the basis of the decision is accurate

3.       The success of the organization depends on appreciating and leveraging the true value of timely 
       and high quality information