Project Management

Project Management

1.         Explain the triple constraint and its importance in project management.

The triple constraint ‘involves making tradeoffs between scope, time and cost for a project. It is inevitable in a project life cycle that there will be changes to the scope, time or cost of the project.’

The triple constraint’s importance in project management is its use when planning and managing projects. You cannot change one of these aspects without changing the other two. For example, by tightening the budget a company will be increasing its time but reducing its scope. While increasing the scope will also increase both the cost and time of the project. Also shortening the time for the project will increase the costs and tighten the scope.

2.        Describe the two primary diagrams most frequently used in project planning.

The two primary diagrams used most frequently in project planning are the PERT chart and the Gantt chart.

·         PERT Chart - Program Evaluation and Review Technique This chart is a ‘graphical network model that depicts a project’s tasks and the relationships between those tasks.’
Dependencies and critical paths are found in PERT charts.

·         Gantt ChartA Gantt Chart is a ‘simple bar chart that depicts project tasks against a calendar.’
This is the most common tool used by project managers.

3.        Identify the three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing to ensure success.

The three primary areas a project manager must focus on managing in order to ensure success are:

·      Managing people

·      Managing communication

·      Managing change

4.        Outline 2 reasons why projects fail and two reasons why projects succeed.

Two reasons why projects fail are:

·         Unrealistic expectationsIf a company were to have unrealistic expectations from the beginning of their project, for example a new product being introduced into an already saturated market with the goal of gaining  a 50%+ market share, it isn’t likely that their project will succeed.

·         Lack of project managementIf a new project isn’t managed properly, it is more likely to fail. This is because when groups aren’t managing effectively they are more likely to do their own thing and not go along with the others.

            Two reasons why projects succeed are:

•  Good project charterBy having a good project charter a project is more likely to succeed as it has a specific plan that maps out where its going. The project charter includes the project scope, the project objectives, the project constraints and the project’s assumptions.
• Good communicationBy having good communication in a project there is less room for failure as the people involved in the project are all in the same mind space as they know what is going on in every aspect of the project.

Customer Relationship Management & Business Intelligence

1.  What is your understanding of CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM is the management of all aspects of the relationship between an organisation and their customers. This concept aims to increase customer loyalty and to ultimately have customer retention and profitability.

Most companies try to individualise their services, so each customer is served in a friendly and personal way.

2.  Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management.

Operational CRMThis form of CRM focuses on the transactional processing for the day-to-day front office operations. It also deals directly with the customers.

Analytical CRMThis form of CRM focuses on the back-office operations and strategic analysis. It also includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers.

Comparison

	Operational CRM	Analytical CRM
Customer Relations	Customers dealt with directly	Customers not dealt with directly
Operations Location	Front office	Back office
Operations	Transactions and general duties	Back-office operations and strategic analysis

3.  Describe and differentiate the CRM technologies used by marketing departments and sales departments

The CRM technologies used by marketing departments are:

·         List GeneratorCompiles all customer data from a range of sources, then segments the information into different areas accordingly.

·         Campaign Management SystemHelps users throughout their marketing campaigns.

·         Cross-selling & Up-sellingCross-selling is selling additional products and/or services, whereas up-selling is increasing the value of the sale.

                The CRM technologies used by sales departments are:

·         Sales Force Automation (SFA)A function that provides data for sales prospects, contact information, product information, product configurations and sales quotes.

·         BundlingIs a type of cross-selling In which a vendor sells a combination of products together, offering them at a lower price than the combined costs of the individual products.

4.  How could a sales department use operational CRM technologies?

A sales department can use operational CRM technologies through utilising sales, contact and opportunity management. These are:

Sales Management	Contact Management	Opportunity Management
Achieving an organisation’s sales goals effectively and efficiently through planning, staffing, training, leading and controlling resources.	Tracking and recording every stage in the sales process for each prospective clients.	Targeting sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales.

5.  Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses

Business intelligence is the technologies and applications used to find, access and analyse data and information to support decision-making efforts.

Business intelligence’s value to business today is helping companies meet the ever-changing needs of different markets, and helping them stay competitive. It also helps by creating a single point of access to information for all users, creating systems that stretch across many organizational departments within a business and allowing everyone access to up-to-the-minute information.

6.  Explain the problem associated with business intelligence. Describe the solution to this business problem

The problem associated with business intelligence is the concept of ‘data rich, information poor’.

The amount of data is doubling every year. Organisation’s are realizing that they are generating an abundance of data. From this they can gather some information, but in order to do that they need to analyse all the data, some of which may be unusable. Thus, they have a lot of data (‘data rich’) and not as much information (‘information poor’).

The solution to this business problem is for managers to provide their employees with business intelligence systems and tools. These will assist the employees in making better, more informed decisions.

7.  What are two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining?

‘Data mining is the process of analysing data to extract information not offered by the raw data alone. It can begin at a summary information level and progress through increasing levels of detail or the reverse. Data mining is the primary tool used to uncover business intelligence in vast amounts of data.’

Two possible outcomes a company could get from using data mining are:

·         Cluster Analysis‘A technique used to divide an information set into mutually exclusive groups that the members of each group are as close together as possible to one another and the different groups are as far apart as possible.
It is used to segment customer information for CRM systems. It can also uncover naturally occurring patterns in information.’

·         Statistical Analysis‘Performs such functions as information correlations, distributions, calculations and variance analysis.
It offers knowledge workers a wide range of powerful statistical capabilities so they can quickly build a variety of statistical models, examine the model’s assumptions and validity, and compare and contrast the various models to determine the best one for a particular business issue.’

Operations Management & Supply Chain Management

Define the term operations management

According to Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch & Blakey, operations management  is the management of systems or processes that convert or transform resources (including human resources) into goods and services. This system is responsible for managing the core processes used to manufacture goods and produce services.

 Explain operations management’s role in business

The role of operations management in business can be summed down to supplying certain activities for the business. These are:

·         ForecastingEstimating demand, conditions and growth

·         Capacity PlanningPlanning amounts

·         SchedulingCreating and maintaining schedules

·         Managing InventorySelf-explanatory

·         Assuring QualityQuality is indispensable. Customers expect high-quality products and services. This focuses on efficiency and courtesy

·         Motivating and Training EmployeesAlso self-explanatory

·         Locating FacilitiesFinding places to situate your business and its resources

Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology

The correlation can be seen through this quality:

·         IT is able to influence operations management decision easily through productivity, costs, flexibility, quality and customer satisfaction

Explain supply chain management and its role in a business

A supply chain includes all parties involved, directly or indirectly, in the procurement of a product or raw material.

Supply chain management (SCM) involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.

SCM’s role in business is to follow its five components to benefit both the company and its customers.

List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain

The five components of a typical supply chain are:

·         PlanThis is where the company plans its strategies for supply. Companies need to have plans for managing resources and meeting customer demand.

·         SourceCompanies choose suppliers that will deliver the goods and services required for making their own product.

·         MakeThe company manufactures its products. It goes through the phases: production, testing, packaging and preparing for delivery.

·         DeliverAKA ‘logistics’. The set of processes that plans for and controls the efiicient and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers. Companies receive orders from customers, fulfil them, pick transport options and deliver the product.

·         ReturnReceiving defective and excess products. Supporting customers who have problems with delivered products.

Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain.

The relationship between these two can be seen through the role of IT in the supply chain. This role includes:

·         The creation of the integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions within a firm (between marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing and distribution).

·         It helps the supply chain through it’s three integration platforms: planning and control supply chain integration, information integration and business process integration. Which are also made up of the five components of the typical supply chain.

·         IT is also a major influence on the factors that drive supply chain management: visibility, consumer behavior, competition and speed.

Networks, Telecommunications and Mobile Technology

1. Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology.

Wireless technology is a communications and data exchange and resource-sharing system that has a  wireless network infrastructure. Wireless refers to any type of electrical or electronic operation that is accomplished without the use of a hard wired connection. The benefits are:

• ·       Universal access to information and applications - People are mobile and with wireless technology, they can access networks and the Internet wherever they are, whenever they want.

• ·       The automation of business processes - Information can be centralised and wireless technology can eliminate redundant technology.

• ·       User convenience, timeliness and ability to conduct business 24/7, 365 days a year - Information can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP
Voice over IP is a system that uses TCP/IP technology to transwit voice calls over Internet technology. With new and improces technology and IT infrastructures, Internet phone calls now offer similar quality to traditional phone calls. The benefits of VoIP are:

• ·       Business application integration (databases)
• ·       Calendar integration
• ·       Call waiting and caller ID
• ·       Simple usability (click-of-a-mouse simplicity), easy navigation
• ·       Conference call capability, three-way calling
• ·       Comprehensive information with each caller
• ·       Desktop application integration
• ·       Dial-by-name capability
• ·       Mobility (users can work from anywhere)

3. Compare LANs and WANs

• A LAN is a local area network. This network is designed to connect a group of computers in close proximity to each other, for example, at school, university, at an office. It’s useful for sharing resources. They connect to other LANs, to the Internet and WANs.
• A WAN is a wide area network. This network is designed to span across a large geographic area, for example, a state or country. It’s useful for sharing everything and accessing information. They connect to multiple smaller networks, such as LANs.

4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective.
RFID is radio frequency identification. Its technologies use active or passive tags in the form of chips or smart labels that can store unique identifiers and relay this information to electronic readers.
RFID can help make a supply chain more effective by:

• ·       Cutting costs by requiring fewer workers for scanning items
• ·       Providing more current and more accurate information to the entire supply chain

5. Identify the advantages and disadvantage of deploying mobile technology

The advantages of deploying mobile technology are:

• ·       Social networking gets mobilised
• ·       Multi-function devices become cheaper and more versatile
• ·       Location-based services
• ·       Mobile advertising
• ·       Wireless providers move into home entertainment
• ·       Wireless security moves to the forefront
• ·       Enterprise mobility
• ·       Mobile TV

The disadvantages of deploying mobile technology are:

• ·       Mobile advertising

Databases and Data Warehouses

1. List, describe, and provide an example of each of the five characteristics of high quality information.

The five characteristics of high quality information are:

1.    Accuracy
Whether or not the information displayed is correct.
Eg. Customers details being inputted correctly into the database.

2.   Completeness
If the data is complete.
Eg. The customer’s address is fully put into the system, including the street name, the postcode, etc.

3.   Consistency
Whether or not all the data in the system is in agreement with each other.
Eg. All transactions from a customer’s file add up to their total.

4.   Uniqueness
When any business process is represented only once in the system.
Eg. Each customer is given an individual customer number in the system.

5.    Timeliness
Whether or not the information in the system is current.
Eg. Customer’s details are updated monthly.

2. Define the relationship between a database and a database management system.

A database is something that maintains information about various types of objects (such as inventory), events (transactions), people (employees) and places (warehouses).

A database management system (DBMS) is software that is used to manage and query a database.

The relationship between these two is that they both depend on each other. A DBMS couldn’t exist without databases. And the use of databases would be very difficult without them being properly managed.

3. Describe the advantages an organisation can gain by using a database.

An organisation can benefit from databases in these ways:

·      Increase flexibility
A good database can adjust quickly with the business changes. Therefore keeping all their data readily accessible.

·      Increased scalability and performance
Scalability and performance would increase once all their information is easier to access and stored logically.

·      Reduced information redundancy
Information redundancy would decrease because redundancy is the duplication of information. Once the information has been stored in the database it would be less likely to be entered in twice.

·      Increased information integrity (quality)
Information integrity is a measure of the quality of information. The quality of information would increase with the use of a database because of the introduction of integrity constraints – which are rules that ensure information quality.

·      Increased information security
Information security with increase because of protection measures that will be put in place to protect the databases – including passwords, antivirus software, access levels/controls. These things all ensure authentication.

4. Define the fundamental concepts of the relational database model.

The concepts are:

·      Entities
A person, place, thing, transaction or event about which information is stored.

·      Attributes
(AKA fields or columns) Characteristics or properties of an entity class.

·      Keys & Relationships
Developers need to identify keys and create relationships between them. These keys include:
- Primary keys: a field (or group of fields) that uniquely identify a given entity in a table.
- Foreign keys: a primary key of one table that appears as an attribute in another table and acts to provide a logical relationship between the two tables.

5. Describe the benefits of a data-driven website.

The benefits include:

·      Development
Website owner is allowed to make changes any time they want. These websites allow updating to occur with little/no training.

·      Content management
Changes can happen automatically.

·      Future expandability
The site can grow faster than a static website.

6. Describe the roles and purposes of data warehouses and data marts in an organisation.

The roles and purposes of data warehouses are:

·      A data warehouse is a logical collection of information. It’s gathered from different databases.

·      The role of a data warehouse is to store all the data from several databases.

·      The purpose of a data warehouse is  for all the information that it collects, to come together and support business analysis activities and decision-making tasks.

The roles and purposes of data marts are:

·      A data mart is an object that contains a subset of data warehouse information.

·      The role of a data mart is to store subsets of data warehouse information.

·      The purpose of a data mart is to make it easier to find and access information from data warehouses.