HIT5401 - INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Swinburne University of Technology
Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies

Satish Krishnamurthy (4921232)
HIT5401
Jason Sargent
Assignment 1
September 1, 2013

PART A
Answer 1:
Describe the information age and the difference between data, information, business intelligence and knowledge.
Information age began somewhere around mid 1970’s and is the current era we are living in. It is often referred to as Digital Age or Computer Age, where vast amount of information is freely, readily available at a snap of finger and easily accessed by many people mainly through Internet, mobile and computer technologies globally, that is information is available across the globe irrelevant of cultures and its continuously changing and updating new information.

* Data is just raw facts and figures such as text, graphs, pictures etc., * Information is processed data i.e., data interpreted or communicated by giving it some meaning. * Business intelligence is applying information and communication technology tools like IBM Cognos Business Intelligence application and similar technologies that is used to gather, analyze data and information which helps in making good business decisions from reliable and accurate information. [1] * Knowledge is derived from skill, information and experience of a person combined with business intelligence. For example, business analysts gather most of their knowledge from business intelligence tools.

Nic Smith from Microsoft BI Solution quoted "BI is about providing the right data at the right time to the right people so that they can take the right decisions”

Figure 1. Flow diagram
Lets consider, Steve an online bookstore company owner decides to use business intelligence to improve his revenue. He uses his database for basic data like buyer’s age, location, amount, and date of purchase etc., by gross totaling the daily revenue of all the purchases made he calculates his profits, which is information (meaningful data).
Pushing all the information drawn from data to business intelligence by setting appropriate business strategy. He will have access to dashboards, reports and other graphical simulations at the snap of his finger to make good business decisions.

For example, Steve finds out that people in the age range of 16-25 made most of the purchases. He can then combine this knowledge with his experience and skills to offer more books that interests this age range. Therefore improving his sales and profit.

Answer 2:
Explain systems thinking and how management information systems (MIS) enable business communications.
Systems thinking is - "A discipline for seeing wholes...a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns rather than static snapshots"
Quoted by Peter Senge

Systems thinking can be defined as a group of components which are interconnected with each other in a process to produce an end result, while continuously observing the result of each component and adjust the process as required to improve the efficiency of the whole system. For example, if I wanted to drink a cup of coffee. I would, * Connect the coffee maker to the plug. * Pour little amount of water to the cup * Add coffee beans into the filter * If required include 2 spoons of sugar in the cup * Turn on the coffee machine. Wait for the coffee to get warm and ready to drink.

This whole process constitutes a System. Analyzing the output of each component and making necessary change to improve the coffee (end result) is Systems Thinking. Say, if I have to catch a train to Swinburne and don't have much time. I would optimize my first components process by plugging in the coffee maker and turn it on as it take a while for the coffee machine to get warm and the continue adding the rest of my components.

Figure 2. System Thinking. (Jason Sargent, 2013, Lecture1 Slides, p.12)
Alternatively, I could place all the ingredients, which are needed to make coffee near the machine. Systems thinking is observing, managing and optimizing the individual components of a system at every step for the desired result.

A management information system (MIS) provides information that several organizations require to manage themselves efficiently and effectively. [2] An organization uses Information management systems to manage their customers and make good business decisions. How?

An organization collects and gathers data from customers through their website, blogs or social networking sites and stores them in their huge database collection. And process those data into meaningful information and distributed to different manager of departments in an organization such as HR, Marketing and Finance through graphs, charts, video, spreadsheets etc., Applying specific software’s or algorithms to these information managers can forecast their progress by the generated reports. These reports help management plan for their next quarter. This will give each of the functional departments of the organization to perform better.

Answer 3:
Describe three Business 2.0 tools for collaborating.

Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet. [3] Collaboration means working together in an organization to complete a task.

Collaboration can be 2 types inside an organization and outside the organization, * Inside: Sharing knowledge, intelligence between all employees, partners and customers. * Outside: Email, video conferencing, text messages are

Web 2.0 is used everywhere even in business organizations some of business 2.0 tools are video, Internet, blog, websites and computing. Talking to friends on social networking, tags, RSS feeds, podcast, YouTube and blogs to gather information, mobile and computing to communicate and share the information. Why? What are its benefits?

Benefits for business * Faster time to market * Reduced risk * Closer relationship with customers * Real-time data to make quantifiable decisions * Increased responsiveness

Suppose a Project Manager goes on a vacation. Suddenly a client he handles calls him on his mobile about some problem he is facing about his product. The Project Manager then remotely over the Internet logs in to his account on the company’s Online Mashup Web Application System to checks the progress and analyzes the degree of the problem by going through reports graphical presentation and contacts his team leaders, members and acting project leader for a meeting via Video Conferencing. And replies back an email or sends a text message to client about possible solutions.

This was a basic case where Web 2.0 tools are used to collaborate business. Contacting team members was an example of collaboration inside the system, where as customer interaction through email, mobile and web conference was an example of outside collaboration.

Answer 4:
Characterize and explain the importance of decision making for managers at each of the three primary organization levels.
Three organizational levels that involve in making decisions are: * Operations Level * Managerial Level and * Strategic Level.

Figure 3. Three Organization Levels (Jason Sargent, 2013, Lecture2 Slides, p.4)
At Operations level Manager deal with Structured decisions for Transaction Processing System. They are often immediate decisions. Any decisions, which are made at office, that deals with routine type decision, productions and usage of direct resources from an organization such as data, information to perform day-to-day operations. An example, if an organization ships 100 crates of fruits to the market on a daily basis and the market supplier requests for 120 crates on a particular day. Then an operational decision is made almost immediately, to increase the production to 120 crates as they normally produce only 100 crates, and meet the routine operations.

Managerial Level deals with Semi-structured decisions for Decision support system. These decisions are short and medium termed and this decision cannot be calculated just with the help of resources of an organization. Since this involves in Semi-structured decision it requires information from both strategic and operational levels for making decisions. An example is to observe the performance of the organization. Here the managers are required to use their knowledge, experience and information to make a decision. Suppose if there is cut throat competitive with other organizations. The manager’s focus on the sales report and make forecasts for next quarter and analyzes in which region their products are making profits. What changes they need to make to improve their sales in other region and whom to fire in the department in situations at loss and market cuts.

And lastly, strategic organizations deal with unstructured decisions for Executive information systems. These decisions involves to both operational and managerial organizations. Strategic decision is basically long-term, objectives, goals related and growth of an organization. Its sits at the top level of decision making and often its unclear are they deal with future prediction for their products and are often risky in nature as its not possible to be prepared for sudden events in advance and requires external source of information to make counter-planning. Examples, * What are the new products it needs to manufacture to compete? * If an organization is at a loss, what department is should close? Temporarily or permanently? And for how many terms?

It’s very important to implement these three organization levels as each of the levels deal with different types of decision-making and these decisions that are made ultimately helps the growth and expansion of the whole organization and the people involved with it too.

Answer5:
Describe business process management and its value to an organization.
Business Process Management (BPM) is a streamlined approach, which follows a set of steps designed in a workflow to perform a task efficiently, and continuously improve the performance of the business task by optimizing the steps in the workflow. It’s a repetitive system means all the tasks follow the same workflow process.

Below is a swim lane diagram (See figure 4) that shows the steps involved in a workflow to complete a loan application process. It also describes the roles, which are involved to perform this task, and which role has the authority to take decisions to ensure a smooth streamlined process takes place. And based on the decisions different flows or steps are performed in a workflow to complete the task.

Figure 4. Claim processes.
IBM Developer Works, ’Swim-lane’ [image,] 2012, viewed 1st September 2013, <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/bpmjournal/1202_pacholski/1202_pacholski.html?ca%3Ddrs>

All business have processes it can be a student enrollment process, a loan application process, or a credit card dispute. Each one of these processes involves people, steps, decisions and systems to complete a task. As, the business of an organization grow big these process can be very huge and can cause confusion and disorder of where a task or a document is when the steps are performed by handling the documents (paperwork’s) manually between departments with no track of the documents. While its travelling by departments, one department will have no idea what was process or error took place in prior departments as people as prone to make mistakes which are often overlooked. Hence it is really important to design a BPM and implement it. BPM is categorized into different phases, * Designing * Modeling * Execution * Monitoring * Optimization
BPM is not just business process but also include IT Information Systems. There are many tools and software’s that offer effective BPM solutions. Some of them is FileNet BPM, IBM Case Manager, jBPM etc.

We can take an example of a claim process (See figure 4), when an application is submitted online by the customer. The workflow begins and falls in the first step. The office employee who is handling this step will get all the submitted applications and analyzes the data and performs the task. Base on his decision the task will take a route that adheres a set of policies or set of rules that are defined and implemented in the workflow. In this case it will go through either a Manual process or Automated process. Since, in BPM all the employees are connected together, in the manual process, the people who are working in different steps can communicate and discuss the scenario with respect to individual case and maintain a history of events. In Automated System scenario, the system guides through the process and ensures that all the right information is gathered and all the right steps are performed before sending it to manual process step. And the customer will be notified at the completion of the task.

Now, instead of searching for missing documents BPM users can use the tool to keep track of their process and increase their productivity and performance of the organization.

PART B
Answer B1:
Describe the concept of Business Process Modeling.
Business Process Modeling or Mapping is a graphical way of describing a business process using a collection of flow-charts, activity diagrams and nodes in a sequential or parallel workflow system based on conditions at nodes to perform a task smoothly. It’s done by a combination of,

* As-Is process model and * To-Be process model.
To simply say, As-Is process models are actual scenario diagrams designed using standard notation, whereas To-Be process models are implementing an As-Is model with rules and policies of a process.

To standardize the modeling of a process Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) is used, which is a set of standard graphical notations for documenting process. There are many elements available to design a model, some of them are show below (See figure 5). Figure 5. Graphical notations of Swim Lane business process models (Jason Sargent, 2013, Lecture2 Slides, p.6)
Using these graphical notations we can design and create a process flows for Swim Lane models as show in Claim processes diagram (See figure 4), an example of horizontal alignment. Below is an example of vertical alignment (See figure 6).

The main purpose of a BPMN is to make sure that business personals (non - technical) and technical people can understand the process flow and ensure that there is proper communication between them avoiding misunderstanding.

Figure 6. Swim Lane business process model, Vertical Alignment (Jason Sargent, 2013, Lecture2 Slides, p.7)

Answer B:
Identify the key process involved in the new Quants check-in system.
The key processes are, * Pre Departure process - Book Online Tickets. * Faster check-in process - Using 2D barcode at Kiosks, without standing in the long queue. * Bag Tags and check-in process – print suing 2D Barcode Q-Tags and check-in for passengers who didn’t book tickets online and print their Q-Tags too. * Bag Drop and Security check process – Scan the 2D bar code then drop the bags with Q-tag. If baggage weight limit exceeds then purchase excess baggage or it can also be purchased online while booking tickets at discount. * Boarding process – Here again, after a scan of 2D barcode, passenger will receive the boarding pass and enjoy the flight.

Question B3:
Provide two (2) process models. Swim Lane or DFDs may be used.
1. Process model 1 should illustrate the Qantas passenger check-in process pre-new check-in system.

Figure 7. Qantas Pre-new Online Check-in process

2. Process model 2 should illustrates the new Qantas check-in system As-Is

Figure 8. Qantas New Online Check-in process

References 1. IBM, http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/us/en/business-intelligence/ 2. Management Information Systems, http://www.occ.gov/publications/publications-by-type/comptrollers-handbook/mis.pdf 3. Oreilly, Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices, 2004, p.4, viewed 2nd Sep 2013, <http://oreilly.com/catalog/web2report/chapter/web20_report_excerpt.pdf> 4. IBIS, Jason Sargent, 2013, Lecture 1 Slides Notes. 5. IBIS, Jason Sargent, 2013, Lecture 2 Slides Notes. 6. IBIS, Jason Sargent, 2013, Lecture 3 Slides Notes. 7. Nic Smith, Microsoft BI Solutions Conference, 2003 8. 'Business process management' 2011, Wikipedia, viewed 2 September 2013, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_management#BPM_life-cycle>. 9. Business Process Management (BPM) Definition and Solutions' April 07, 2007, Mark Cooper, founder, and Paul Patterson founder and managing partner, Athens Group, <http://www.cio.com/article/106609/Business_Process_Management_BPM_Definition_and_Solutions> 10. 'Business process management' 2011, Wikipedia, viewed 2 September 2013, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_management#BPM_life-cycle>. 11. 'Business Process Model and Notation' 2011, Wikipedia, viewed 2 September 2013, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Process_Model_and_Notation> 12. 'Business process modeling' 2012, Wikipedia, viewed 2 September 2013, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_modeling>