Monday 19 August 2013

CHAPTER 6: VALUING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION

ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION..

 Ø  Organizational information comes at different levels and in different formats and “granularities”.
 Ø  Information granularities refers to the extent of detail within the information (fine and detailed or coarse and abstract).
 Ø  Successfully collecting, compiling, sorting and finally analyzing information from multiple levels, in varied formats, exhibiting different granularity can provide tremendous insight into how an organization is performing
 Ø  After understanding the different levels, formats and granularities of information, it is important to look at a few additional characteristics that helps determine the value of information

 THE VALUE OF TRANSACTIONAL AND ANALYTICAL INFORMATION

 Ø  Transactional information encompasses all of the information contain within a single business process or unit of work, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of daily operational tasks
 Ø  Analytical information encompasses all organizational information, and its primary purpose is to support the performing of managerial analysis tasks
 Ø  It is also includes transactional information along with other information such as market and industry information

THE VALUE OF TIMELY INFORMATION

 Ø  Real-time information means immediate, up-to-date information
 Ø  This system provide real-time information in response to query request


THE VALUE OF QUALITY INFORMATION..

 Ø  Business decisions are only as good as the quality of the information used to make the decisions
 Ø  The five characteristics common to high-quality information:

Accuracy  
      Are all the values correct? For example, is the name spelled correctly? Is the dollar amount recorded properly?
      
Completeness  
      Are any of the values missing? For example, is the address complete including street,  city, state and zip code?
      
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?
      
Timeliness

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

Chapter 5 Organisational Structure That Support Strategic Initiatives




Chief Information Officer (CIO)

  • Serves as the company’s top technology infrastructure manager
  • Runs the organization’s internal IT operations
  • Works to streamline business processes with technology
  • Focuses on internal customers (users and business units)
  • Collaborates and manages vendors that supply infrastructure solutions
  • Aligns the company’s IT infrastructure with business priorities
  • Developers strategies to increase the company’s bottom line (profitability)
  • Has to be a skilled and organized manager to be successful
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

  • Serves as the company’s top technology architect
  • Runs the organization’s engineering group
  • Uses technology to enhance the company’s product offerings
  • Focuses on external customers (buyers)
  • Collaborates and manages vendors that supply solutions to enhance the company’s product(s)
  • Aligns the company’s product architecture with business priorities
  • Develops strategies to increase the company’s top line (revenue)
  • Has to be a creative and innovative technologist to be successful
Chief Security Officer (CSO)
  • leader responsible for the development, implementation and management of the organization’s corporate security vision, strategy and programs. 
  • They direct staff in identifying, developing, implementing and maintaining security processes across the organization to reduce risks, respond to incidents, and limit exposure to liability in all areas of financial, physical, and personal risk.
  •  establish appropriate standards and risk controls associated with intellectual property and direct the establishment and implementation of policies and procedures related to data security.
Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)
  •  responsible for managing the risks and business impacts of privacy laws and policies. 
  •  created to respond to both consumer concern over the use of personal information, including medical data and financial information, and laws and regulations.
  • evaluating legislative and regulatory proposals involving collection, use, and disclosure of personal information by the Federal Government. 
  • conducting a privacy impact assessment of proposed rules of the Department or that of the Department on the privacy of personal information, including the type of personal information collected and the number of people affected.
  • coordinating with the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)
  • responsible for overseeing knowledge information within an organization. 
  • The CKO's job is to ensure that the company profits from the effective use of knowledge resources. 
  • Investments in knowledge may include employees, processes and intellectual property.
  • CKO can help an organization maximize the return on investment (ROI) on those investments.
  • Maximize benefits from intangible assets, such as branding and customer relationships.
  • Repeat successes and analyze and learn from failures.
  • Foster innovation.
  • Avoid the loss of knowledge that can result from loss of personnel.

Chapter 4 MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Define metrics and describe the relationship between efficiency IT metrics and effectiveness IT metrics



  • Efficiency IT metrics from the table is the important to monitor, do not always guarantee effectiveness
  • For effectiveness IT metrics, it is determined according to an organization’s goals, strategies and objectives 
EFFICIENCY IT METRICS
Throughput                        
The amount of information that can travel trough system at                                                     any point
Transaction speed            
The amount of time a system takes to perform a transaction
System availability             
The number of hours a system is available for users…
Information security           
The extent to which a system generates the correct results                                                     when executing the same transaction numerous times
Web traffic                              
Includes a host of brenchmarks such as the number of                                                            pages views, the number of unique visitors and the                                                                  average time spent viewing a web page
Response time                      
The time it takes to respond to user interactions such as a                                                       mouse click




EFFECTIVENESS IT METRICS
Usability                                  
The ease with which people perform transactions and/or                                                          find information. A popular usability metric on the Internet                                                       is degrees of freedom,which measures the number of                                                               clicks required to find desired information
Customer satisfaction           
Measured by such branchmarks as satisfaction surveys,                                                        percentage of existing customers retained and increases                                                         in revenue dollars percustomer
Conversion rates                     
The number of customers an organization “touches” for                                                          the first time and persuades to purchase its products or                                                          services.This is a popular metric for evaluating the                                                                     effectiveness of banner, pop-up and pop-under ads on                                                           the Internet
Financial                                      
Such as return on investment (the earning power of an                                                             organization’s assets), cost-benefit analysis (the                                                                       comparisonof projected revenues and costs including                                                            development, maintenance fixed, and variable), and                                                                  break-even analysis (the point at which constant                                                                        revenues equal ongoing costs)

IT Effectiveness Matrix:
  • Effectiveness is related to doing the right things.
  • It is more to intangible which is not easy to see, touch, calculate, define, determine and realize.
  • It also measure the impact IT has on business process and activities including customer satisfaction.
  • How well the organization achieve its goals and objectives and ensuring they accomplished.


IT Efficiency Matrix:
  • Efficiency is related to doing the things right.
  • It is more to tangible which is easy to see,touch,calculate,define,determine and realize.
  • It also measure the performance of the IT system itself including throughput, speed, availability and flexibility.
  • How far the company can using their resources such as capital, assets, facilities or technology system to achieve it goals. 
  • For example, a company already have a formal web and now they want to create news letter that can be generate everyday for their customers.