MScIT Sem-I

Research Methodology
-Dr. Gauri Vartak
 Unit-1
Chapt-2
Information Systems and Knowledge
Management
 Information, Data, and Intelligence
• Information is data formatted (structured) to
support decision making or define the
relationship between two facts.
• Data is facts or recorded measures of certain
phenomena (things).
• Business intelligence is the subset of data and
information that actually has some
explanatory power enabling effective
decisions to be made.
 The Characteristics of Valuable
Information
• Not all data are valuable to decision makers.
Useful data become information and help a
business manager make decisions. Useful data
can also become intelligence.
• Four characteristics help determine how
useful data may be: relevance, quality,
timeliness, and completeness.
 Relevance
• Relevance is the characteristics of data reflecting how
pertinent these particular facts are to the situation at
hand. Put another way, the facts are logically
connected to the situation.
• Unfortunately, irrelevant data and information often
creep into decision making. One particularly useful way
to distinguish relevance from irrelevance is to think
about how things change.
• Relevant data are facts about things that can be
changed, and if they are changed, it will materially
alter the situation. So, this simple question becomes
important:
 Quality
• Data quality is the degree to which data
represent the true situation. High-quality data are
accurate, valid, and reliable, issues we discuss in
detail in later chapters.
• High-quality data represent reality faithfully. If a
consumer were to replace the product UPC from
one drill at Home Depot with one from a different
drill, not only would the consumer be acting
unethically, but it would also mean that the data
collected at the checkout counter would be
inaccurate.
 Timeliness
• Business is a dynamic field in which out-of-date
information can lead to poor decisions. Business
information must be timely—that is, provided at the
right time.
• Computerized information systems can record events
and dispense relevant information soon after the
event.
• A great deal of business information becomes available
almost at the moment that a transaction occurs.
• Timeliness means that the data are current enough to
still be relevant.
 Completeness
• Information completeness refers to having the right
amount of information. Managers must have sufficient
information about all aspects of their decisions.
• For example, a company considering establishing a
production facility in Eastern Europe may plan to analyze
four former Sovietbloc countries. Population statistics, GDP,
and information on inflation rates may be available on all
four countries. However, information about unemployment
levels may be available for only three of the countries.
• If information about unemployment or other characteristics
cannot be obtained, the information is incomplete. Often
incomplete information leads decision makers to conduct
• their own business research.
 Knowledge Management
• knowledge is a blend of previous experience, insight, and data that forms
organizational memory. It provides a framework that can be thoughtfully applied
when assessing a business problem.
• Business researchers and decision makers use this knowledge to help create
solutions to strategic and tactical problems. Thus, knowledge is a key resource and
a potential competitive advantage.

• Knowledge management is the process of creating an inclusive, comprehensive,

easily accessible organizational memory, which can be called the organization’s
intellectual capital.
• The purpose of knowledge management is to organize the intellectual capital of
an organization in a formally structured way for easy use. Knowledge is presented
in a way that helps managers comprehend and act on that information and make
better decisions in all areas of business.
• Knowledge management systems are particularly useful in making data available
across the functional areas of the firm.
• Thus, marketing, management, and financial knowledge can be integrated. Recent
research demonstrates how knowledge management systems are particularly
useful in new product development and introduction.
 Global Information Systems
• A global information system is an organized collection
of computer hardware, software, data, and personnel
designed to capture, store, update, manipulate,
analyze, and immediately display information about
worldwide business activities.
• A global information system is a tool for providing past,
present, and projected information on internal
operations and external activity.
• Using satellite communications, high-speed
microcomputers, electronic data interchanges, fiber
optics, data storage devices, and other technological
advances in interactive media, global information
systems are changing the nature of business.
 Decision Support Systems
• A decision support system (DSS) is a system that helps decision makers
confront problems through direct interaction with computerized
databases and analytical software programs.
• The purpose of a decision support system is to store data and transform
them into organized information that is easily accessible to managers.
Doing so saves managers countless hours so that decisions that might take
days or even weeks otherwise can be made in minutes using a DSS.
• Modern decision support systems greatly facilitate customer relationship
management (CRM).
• A CRM system is the part of the DSS that addresses exchanges between
the firm and its customers. It brings together information about customers
including sales data, market trends, marketing promotions and the way
consumers respond to them, customer preferences, and more.
• A CRM system describes customer relationships in sufficient detail so that
financial directors, marketing managers, salespeople, customer service
representatives, and perhaps the customers themselves can access
information directly, match customer needs with satisfying product
offerings, remind customers of service requirements, and know what
other products a customer has purchased.
 Databases and Data Warehousing
• A database is a collection of raw data arranged logically and organized in a form
that can be stored
• and processed by a computer. A customer mailing list is one type of database.
• Population characteristics may be recorded by state, county, and city in another
database. Production figures and costs can come from internal company records.
Modern computer technology makes both the storage and retrieval of this
information easy and convenient.
• Twenty years ago, the population data needed to do a retail site analysis may have
required days, possibly weeks, in a library.
• Today, the information is just a few clicks away.
• Data warehousing is the process allowing important day-to-day operational data
to be stored and organized for simplified access. More specifically, a data
warehouse is the multitiered computer storehouse of current and historical data.
• Data warehouse management requires that the detailed data from operational
systems be extracted, transformed, placed into logical partitions (for example,
daily data, weekly data, etc.), and stored in a consistent manner. Organizations
with data warehouses may integrate databases from both inside and outside the
company. Managing a data warehouse effectively requires considerable computing
power and expertise. As a result, data warehouse companies exist that provide this
service for companies in return for a fee
Input Management
 Computerized Data Archives
• Data wholesalers put together consortia of data
sources into packages that are offered to municipal,
corporate, and university libraries for a fee.
Information users then access the data through these
libraries.
• Several types of databases from outside vendors and
external distributors are so fundamental to decision
support systems that they deserve further explanation.
• The following sections discuss statistical databases,
financial databases, and video databases in slightly
more detail.
• STATISTICAL DATABASES:
• Statistical databases contain numerical data for
analysis and forecasting. Often demographic,
sales, and other relevant business variables are
recorded by geographical area.
• Geographic information systems use these
geographical databases and powerful software to
prepare computer maps of relevant variables.
• FINANCIAL DATABASES:
• Competitors’ and customers’ financial data, such
as income statements and balance sheets, are of
obvious interest to business managers.
• These are easy to access in financial databases.
CompuStat publishes an extensive financial
database on thousands of companies, broken
down by industry and other criteria
• VIDEO DATABASES:
• Video databases and streaming media are having a major impact on
many goods and services.
• For example, movie studios provide clips of upcoming films and
advertising agencies put television commercials on the Internet.
• McDonald’s maintains a digital archive of
• television commercials and other video footage to share with its
franchisees around the world. The
• video database enables franchisees and their advertising agencies
to create local advertising without
• the need for filming the same types of scenes already archived. Just
imagine the value of digital
• video databases to advertising agencies’ decision support systems!
 Networks and Electronic Data
Interchange
• Electronic data interchange (EDI):
– Systems integrate one company’s computer
system directly with another company’s system.
Much of the input to a company’s decision
support system may come through networks from
other companies’ computers.
– Companies such as Computer Technology
Corporation and Microelectronics data services
allow corporations to exchange business
information with suppliers or customers.
 The Internet and Research
• What Exactly Is the Internet?
• The Internet is a worldwide network of computers that
allows users access to data, information, and feedback from
distant sources. It functions as the world’s largest public
library, providing access to a seemingly endless range of
data.
• The Internet has no central computer; instead, each
message sent bears an address code that lets a sender
forward a message to a desired destination from any
computer linked to the Net.
• Many benefits of the Internet arise because the Internet is
a collection of thousands of small networks, both domestic
and foreign, rather than a single computer operation.
• How Is the Internet Useful in Research?
• The Internet is useful to researchers in many
ways. In fact, more and more applications
become known as the technology grows and is
adopted by more and more users.
– ACCESSING AVAILABLE DATA
– COLLECTING DATA
 Information Technology
• Data and information can be delivered to consumers or other end
users via either pull technology or push technology.
• Pull technology:
– Consumers request information from a Web page and the browser
then determines a response; the consumer is essentially asking for the
data.
• push technology:
– Sends data to a user’s computer without a request being made;
software is used to guess what information might be interesting to
consumers based on the pattern of previous responses.
• Today’s information technology uses “smart agents” or “intelligent
agents” to deliver customized content to a viewer’s desktop. Smart
agent software is capable of learning an Internet user’s preferences
and automatically searching out information and distributing the
information to a user’s computer.
• Cookies, in computer terminology, are small
computer files that record a user’s Web usage
history. If a person looks up a weather report by
keying a zip code into a personalized Web page,
the fact that the user visited the Web site and the
zip code entered are recorded in the cookie. This
is a clue that tells where the person lives (or
maybe where he or she may be planning to visit).
Web sites can then direct information to that
consumer based on information in the cookie.
 Intranets
• An intranet is a company’s private data network that uses
Internet standards and technology.
• The information on an intranet—data, graphics, video, and
voice—is available only inside the organization or to those
individuals whom the organization deems as appropriate
participants.
• Thus, a key difference between the Internet and an intranet
is that security software programs, or “firewalls,” are
installed to limit access to only those employees authorized
to enter the system.
• Intranets then serve as secure knowledge portals that
contain substantial amounts of organizational memory and
can integrate it with information from outside sources.
 Internet2
• As we mentioned earlier, information technology changes rapidly.
• As sophisticated as the Internet and intranets are today, new
technologies, such as Internet2, will dramatically enhance
researchers’ ability to answer business problems in the future.
• Internet2 is a collaborative effort involving about 250 universities,
government entities (including the military), and corporate
organizations.
• The project hopes to recreate some of the cooperative spirit that
created the Internet originally. Internet2 users are limited to those
involved with the affiliate organizations.
• The hope is to create a faster, more powerful Internet by providing
multimodal access, employing more wireless technologies, and
building in global trading mechanisms.
• Internet2 began as a research tool for the universities and
organizations involved in its development.
• Thank You