Data Quality and Decision-Making Process

Data Quality

• More than 25% of critical data in Fortune 1000 company databases is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Data quality audit surveys the accuracy and completeness of data in an information system.
• Data cleansing detects and corrects data in an information system.

Types of Decisions

• Unstructured decisions require judgment, evaluation, and insight to solve a problem.
• Structured decisions are repetitive and routine, involving a definite procedure for handling.
• Semistructured decisions have a partially clear-cut answer provided by accepted procedure.

The Decision-Making Process

• Intelligence: Identifying and understanding problems in an organization.
• Design: Identifying and exploring solutions to the problem.
• Choice: Selecting among solution alternatives.
• Implementation: Putting the chosen alternative into action and monitoring its effectiveness.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

• CRM packages include tools for:
  • Sales force automation (SFA)
  • Customer service
  • Marketing

Operational and Analytical CRM

• Operational CRM: Provides customer-facing applications, including SFA, call centers, and marketing automation.
• Analytical CRM: Analyzes customer data using tools like OLAP, data mining, and customer lifetime value calculations.

Business Value of CRM Systems

• CRM systems offer business value through:

  • Increased customer satisfaction
  • Reduced direct marketing costs
  • More effective marketing
  • Lower customer acquisition and retention costs
  • Increased sales revenue

• Churn rate is the number of customers who stop using or purchasing products/services from a company. It indicates growth or decline in a company's customer base.

Enterprise Software Applications

• Firms are expected to spend over $500 billion on enterprise software applications by 2020.

• Largest providers include:

  • SAP
  • Oracle

• Middleware providers include:

  • IBM
  • Oracle

Enterprise Software

• Built around thousands of predefined business processes that reflect best practices in:

  • Finance and accounting
  • Human resources
  • Manufacturing and production
  • Sales and marketing

• Firms can select functions of the system and map their business processes to the software's processes, customizing it using the software's configuration tables.

Business Value of Enterprise Systems

• Enterprise systems provide value through:
  • Increased operational efficiency
  • Firm-wide information for decision-making
  • Rapid responses to customer requests
  • Analytical tools for evaluating overall organizational performance

The Supply Chain

• A network of organizations and processes for:
  • Procuring materials
  • Transforming materials into products
  • Distributing products
  • Upstream supply chain: Suppliers and their processes
  • Downstream supply chain: Distributors, retailers, and customers
  • Internal supply chain: Processes within an organization

Enterprise Application Challenges

• Enterprise Applications are:

  • Expensive to purchase and implement
  • Susceptible to cost overruns and long development times

• Other challenges include:

  • Technology changes
  • Business process changes
  • Organizational learning changes
  • Switching costs and dependence on software vendors
  • Data standardization, management, and cleansing

Next-Generation Enterprise Applications

• Enterprise Solutions/Suites:
  • Make applications more flexible, web-enabled, and integrated with other systems.
  • Offer cloud-based and mobile versions.
  • Include versions for small and medium-sized businesses.

Next-Generation Enterprise Applications (cont.)

• Social CRM: Integrates social networking technologies by:

  • Creating company social networks
  • Monitoring social media activity
  • Managing social and web-based campaigns

• Business Intelligence:

  • Includes BI in enterprise applications.
  • Offers features like flexible reporting, ad hoc analysis, "what-if" scenarios, digital dashboards, data visualization, and AI machine learning.

A Database

• An organized collection of data stored centrally to serve various information system applications.
• Data is collected and stored for:
  • Supporting operations
  • Providing information for decision making
  • Gaining competitive advantage
  • Enabling the organization to manage its business and its relationships with customers and suppliers.

This quiz covers key concepts related to data quality, types of decisions, the decision-making process, and customer relationship management (CRM) software. Test your understanding of how data accuracy and decision dynamics impact organizational success. Explore various decision-making frameworks and their implications in business environments.