Group Assignment: Post # 3 (Question)

Group Assignment: Post # 3
1. Try any one of these decision support systems and describe two examples of decisions which they may help to support. For each decision, describe whether the decision would be made by operational, middle or senior management levels :

• Break-even Calculator
• Online Customer Lifetime Value Calculator (from Harvard Business School)
• Hong Kong Yellow Pages Online Map
• HSBC Mortgage Planner

2. Next, try out the different modules within the OpenBravo ERP demo. After you've familiarized yourself with these tools, identify which module can be used to handle each step within the Order-to-Cash business process below:

• Accept/Enter Order
• Order Acknowledgement
• Purchase Materials
• Receive Materials
• Production
• Packing
• Shipping
• Invoicing and Collection

3. Which departments need to coordinate from start to finish of the Order-to-Cash business process ? Describe how the ERP software makes their work easier. Also explain why ERP software can serve as the foundation or platform for decision support systems.

Re: Group Assignment: Post # 2 (Answer)

Re: Group Assignment: Post # 2 (Answer)

1st report: Internet Sales Amount by Geography by Date by Product
It is shown the yearly sales amount, revenue goal, trend, and status by each category in different countries.
Based on this report, the company can be well known her sales trend of each category by different countries and she can decide to put how much effort on each category. Also, according to the report, the company will base on the good performance figures to have a further development on the specific category in the specific country and try to achieve the maximization of sales amount.




2nd report: Internet Sales Amount by Customer by Date by Product
It is shown the growth of customer base (yearly) by each category by different countries.
Based on this report, the company can understand the growth of her customer base by each category by different countries and decide to plan the new/strong promotion for attracting as well increasing the new customers in the poor performance category in specific country.
Besides, the company can study the figures of the good performance and do the good offers for the customers to maintain these customer base.




3rd report: Internet Sales Amount by Sales Channel by Date by Product
It is shown the sales amount and gross margin by category by the sales channels.
Based on this report, the company can understand the profitability of each category by sales channels and try to make the maximization of profit on each category by each channel. Also, company can be according to the best sales amount of the category to negotiate with suppliers/producers to get the best offer in order to increasing the gross margin value. Moreover, company can decide to take off the category of lowest gross margin for minimizing the company cost.




















The benefits of allowing users to query a data warehouse in the form of an OLAP cube through their Web browser are as follows:

• It is the good tools for consolidating, analyzing, and providing access to large amounts of data to improve decision making.




• It is easy and time-saving to view/run the data in different ways or from different dimensions.




• Users can change the demensions or data being viewed flexibly.




• Users can run and view the same data from the large databases to make the further decision for his company.
  

Re: Group Assignment: Post # 2 (Answer I)

Regarding Jenny's comment, we have modified the report and dragged the reseller name into it.

Report will be called Internet Sales Amount by Reseller by Date by Product.

The purpose is mentioned as the above on 3rd report.

Group Assignment: Post # 2 (Question)

Group Assignment: Post # 2
This week we learned how B.I. tools (business intelligence) allow businesses to get more value and insight out of their databases.

1. Visit the

OLAP Service Online Demo and design three different grid reports using at least three dimensions per report. Each report must have at least one measure which is being analyzed along the chosen dimensions.

• You may choose from any of the dimensions found along the left-hand side of the demo: Customer, Date, Employee, Delivery Date, Product, Reseller, Employee, etc.
• You may choose from any of the measures under Internet Sales, Reseller Sales or Sales Summary (found along the left-hand side of the demo).

2. Post the following content on your blog regarding the grid reports you've designed:

• A screen capture of a section of the report which shows the included dimensions and measure(s);
• An explanation of the insights contained in the report and how these insights can be used by the company to understand their performance or make better decisions;

3. Describe the benefits of allowing users to query a data warehouse in the form of an OLAP cube through their Web browser.

RE : Assignement 2 - Post #1 (Answer)

Blog :
Yahoo! BLOG (http://hk.blog.yahoo.com/) is a local blogs which provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

Angel's Blog
(http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/iam-angeltong)
Angel Tong, director of a beauty & slimming company – Angel Face in HK. Angel Tong & her company are using her blog to promo their healthy slimming concept and their products, congregate many potential customer successfully.

Interactive advertisement :
KMB (http://www.kmb.hk/) As digital technology and interactive information becomes more sophisticated, KMB continues to apply technological innovations to its operations, bus fleet and passenger facilities and they also can search the bus stop via the wesite.

Citibank HK
(http://www.citibank.com.hk/global_docs/citifinancial_home_tc/html/popup/CNY09/index.html)
In this advertisement with a funny topic, people can find their fortune by choosing one of the twelve animals in the year. A famous geomantic master – MAK LING LING will explain how we can be better in this year, after that people may need some money to set up a geomantic furnishings for improve the fortune. So it may attract people to join their loan service.

Search Engine:
Alibaba.com (http://www.alibaba.com)/ is specializes in business-to-business trades, especially for international buyers trying to contact Chinese sellers. This is one of large search engine website for Chinese and Hong King markets.

My Jewelry + Yahoo! Search Engine
(http://hk.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&meta=rst%3Dhk&fr=FP-tab-web-t&myip=210.5.190.53&p=diamond&SpellState=n-1000469652_q-SS0bbikrOXdS9%2FQjQ6FHiAAAAA%40%40&fr2=sp-qrw-corr-top)
When somebody want to find some information in the web, normally they will use search engine (e.g.: Yahoo!HK). Because it have a strongest database, we may search anything in anywhere just via the search engine easily.
For above example, a diamond company – My Jewelry has joined the Yahoo! Sponsorship. So, when somebody enter the key word of “Diamond” in the search engine, then the result will show a link for My Jewelry at the top of the page. It can increase the company popularity with lower cost.

Brokerage Service / Online Partnerships:
CENTALINE (http://www.centanet.com/index.aspx) provides a free and comprehensive informationon the Hong Kong property market, updated on a daily basis. Information provided is for reference only. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy.

Y!Style & Sau San Tong
(http://hk.promo.yahoo.com/sausantong/)
Sau San Tong cooperate with Y!Style, attract all the member from Yahoo! to join their service. On the other hand, Sau San Tong will provide a special offer to Yahoo!’s member at the same time, so it also can help Yahoo! to increase their member database for some people who are interesting about the special offer from Sau San Tong.

RSS feeds :
Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/rss/) offers dozens of RSS feeds you can read in My Yahoo! or using third-party RSS news reader software.

Apple RSS feeds
(http://rss.support.apple.com/)
It is an easy way for Apple to deliver any latest information to their customer. When customers subscribe to RSS feeds, they don’t need to travel all over the web to find the information they need, because the RSS feeds will update the information to them anytime.

Social Networking:
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/) Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected.Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club – Race and the City
(http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49036935763)
Theatre - No Biz Like Showbiz Anymore
(http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=56227460917)

Above examples are using the Social Networking - Facebook to spread their event information. In facebook, we can blaze abroad the news of event by different people and their network. It is easily to attract people to seeing about the event and join the event together.

Gadgets :
Google Gadgets (http://www.google.com/webmasters/gadgets ) Google Gadgets is a visually appealing mini-applications like clocks, weather globes, media players, etc., that support rich markup language (XML, Flash) and enable a wide array of visual effects and animation.

Ice Age The Meltdown Official Site
(http://microsites2.foxinternational.com/hk/200604ia2/)
The above link is the official site of a movie - Ice Age. In this official site we may download some wallpaper, screen saver and some desktop icon. The movie company is using this kind of gadget to promo their movie.