CHAPTER 12

1.How did ERP help improve business operations at Shell?

ERP help improve business operations at Shell by operations that span from wells and mines, to processing plants, to oil trucks and to gas pumps. Rate For example, the ERP system has helped the company immensely in terms of reducing and streamlining the highly manual process of third-party contractors submitting repair information and invoices.

  2. How could extended ERP components help improve business operations at Shell?

- ERP solution solved these inadequacies by providing an integrated web-based service order, invoicing and payment submission system. Third-party contractors can enter service orders directly into Shell’s ERP system via the web easily and faster.

- Contractor’s monthly summarized invoices can be generated automatically and fed directly into ERP system’s account payable application for processing.

- Help speed up maintenance and repair operations at the company’s refineries.  

  3.What advice would you give Shell if it decided to choose a different ERP software solution?

It depends on the suppliers or contractors that want to search the Shell Company’s website. If the system that they choose can satisfy the user or the contractors the software can be proceed to use. If not Shell must use the ERP software that they already have. Must be remember, people want the easier work and if people already knows and common with the system before, they will make the work effective and efficiency. Changes can be made but not too complicated until exist the difficulty feel for them.

 4.  How can integrating SCM, CRM, and ERP help improve business operations at Shell?

- Shell will have a lot of suppliers to supply the materials that they want to sell. Therefore, Shell must determine the suitable supplier to give them the products such as supplier for junk food, water, petrol and else.

- Shell want built the good relation towards their customers by giving Shell card. Customers will use the card to get point. Then when the points become increase, Shell will give reward or present to their customers.

- For the ERP, Shell will have their own website to make the contractors easy to make any transactions, exchange, payments and else.

CHAPTER 11 -> Building a Customer Centric Organization (customer relationship management)

CHAPTER 11

1.Describe customer relationship management and its role in supporting business operations.

CRM is a means of managing all aspects of a customer's relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization's profitability. 

The role of CRM in supporting business operations are:
-allows an organization to gain insights into customers' shopping and buying behaviors.

-A CRM system consists of a historical view and analysis of all the acquired or to be acquired customers. This helps in reduced searching and correlating customers and to foresee customer needs effectively and increase business.

-CRM contains each and every bit of details of a customer, hence it is very easy for track a customer accordingly and can be used to determine which customer can be profitable and which not.

-In CRM system, customers are grouped according to different aspects according to the type of business they do or according to physical location and are allocated to different customer managers often called as account managers. This helps in focusing and concentrating on each and every customer separately.

-A CRM system is not only used to deal with the existing customers but is also useful in acquiring new customers. The process first starts with identifying a customer and maintaining all the corresponding details into the CRM system which is also called an ‘Opportunity of Business’. The Sales and Field representatives then try getting business out of these customers by sophistical following up with them and converting them into a winning deal. All this is very easily and efficiently done by an integrated CRM system.

-The strongest aspect of Customer Relationship Management is that it is very cost-effective. The advantage of decently implemented CRM system is that there is very less need of paper and manual work which requires lesser staff to manage and lesser resources to deal with. The technologies used in implementing a CRM system are also very cheap and smooth as compared to the traditional way of business.

-All the details in CRM system is kept centralized which is available anytime on fingertips. This reduces the process time and increases productivity.

-Efficiently dealing with all the customers and providing them what they actually need increases the customer satisfaction. This increases the chance of getting more business which ultimately enhances turnover and profit.

-If the customer is satisfied they will always be loyal to you and will remain in business forever resulting in increasing customer base and ultimately enhancing net growth of business.

2.Identify the benefits and challenges of CRM.

The benefits of CRM are :

1.Storing data centrally creates a company-wide user network

CRM focuses the whole company on the customer. All areas and departments – from Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Accounting, the Switchboard, through to Management – use one standard, centralized CRM solution. Depending on their individual rights, employees can access information in other departments, enabling them to work together effectively and efficiently. This results in structured, automated process throughout the company.

2.Customer dossiers provide all the information                                                                                                             Customer dossiers are the foundation of professional customer care. They provide you with a 360 degree view of all your customer's information: appointments, tasks, telephone notes, correspondence, sales opportunities, complaints, orders, delivery notes and projects. The result: your employees are always well informed and can always provide professional advice and make informed decisions. 

3.Customer knowledge reveals potential for development                                                                                          Knowing what customers and the market want is essential for further developing products and improving services. Customer profiles provide the best source of information, whether in sales or customer service. Multidimensional analysis highlights correlations and is used to identify potential for further development

4.Efficient and motivated employees provide the best service                                                                                       Acceptance among employees and consistent focus on the customer are the key to the successful deployment of a CRM system. Those who use a software solution to keep up to date on their customers, perform routine tasks more efficiently, make informed decisions and delegate tasks to specialists, have more fun at work and are more motivated. Customers can sense it – they appreciate friendly, competent staff.

5.Communicative measures depend on customer value

Demands and potential vary from customer to customer and they therefore require personalized interaction. This interaction depends on the customer's value to the company. Customers are segmented according to their value and the appropriate marketing and service measures are then agreed on. This enables your sales force to operate more efficiently, recommend the right product at the right time, and up- and cross-sell, thereby achieving better results. This way no sales opportunities are missed.

The challenges of CRM are :
1.The expensive costs that occur when implementing the system.  It is a huge investment to maintain a customer database. The additional expense comes from the money needed for the computer hardware, software, and personnel that is needed to maintain it. These exorbitant costs can lead to a negative vibe within the company and can result in a CRM collapse. 

 2.Inadequate focus on objectives. This typically occurs after the CRM system is implemented. When hard times hit, the organization may lose sight of its goals and eventually steer away from the clearly laid out objectives. Goals may get interchanged 
and ultimately lose their original importance.

3.The insufficient resources. Organizations start lessening their budgets for the current phase in order to handle the initial exorbitant costs. Organizations tend to fail at utilizing the necessary resources for success and that can result in failure. 

4.Inappropriate metrics also cause a dilemma in a CRM system. Organizations constantly fail to use the right metrics. Failure to chose the right method of measurement is a main reason of why this system may not work. Different metrics implement different goals.  

Sunday, February 17, 2013

CHAPTER 11 -> Building a Customer Centric Organization (customer relationship management)

Question 1
Why is it important for any company to use CRM strategies to manage customer   information?

-will provide better customer service.

-it will increase customers cost revenue.

-customer can make call centers more efficient.

-it will help sales staff close deals faster with customers.

-company will identify cross sell products more effectively.

Question 2
If the virtual world is the first point of contact between a company and its customers, how might that transform the entire shopping experience?

It will be positive and negative effects for both parties.

Positive side :
-it more easy to make conversation and transaction.
-the communication will be more effective because customer can face to face with seller.
-the customers can give comments or critics in front of the virtual tools.

Negative side:
- higher cost in maintenance.
- customers will not know or difficult to determine the actual products.
- if having problem in machine technician it will be difficult to making conversation.

EXTENDING THE ORGANIZATION- SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER 10 :

EXTENDING THE ORGANIZATION- SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT 

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES CHAPTER 10

List and describe the component of a typical supply chain

• PLAN : REFER TO THE OVERALL STRATEGY OF SCM PROGRAM INCLUDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCM METRIC TO MONITOR.
• SOURCE: REFER TO THE SUPPLIER WHO WILL PROVIDE OF GOODS AND SERVICE NECESSARY FOR TO RUN BUSINESS.
• MANUFACTURING COMPONENT: EXECUTION OF PROCESSES NEEDED TO PRODUCED, TEST AND PACKAGE PRODUCT OR SERVICE.
• DELIVERY: REFER TO THE SYSTEM FOR RECEIVING ORDERS FROM CUSTOMER, DEVELOPING A NETWORK PF WAREHOUSES GETTING THE PRODUCT TO THE CUSTOMER AND RECEIVING PAYMENT FROM THEM.
• RETURN: SYSTEM OF PROCESSING CUSTOMER RETURN OR SUPPORTING CUSTOMER PROBLEM WITH THE PRODUCT THEY RECEIVED.

Describe the four changes resulting from advances in IT that are driving supply chain

 

visibility

• ABILITY TO VIEW ALL AREAS UP AND DOWN THE SUPPLY CHAIN
• BULL WHIP EFFECT OCCURS WHEN DISTORTED PRODUCT DEMAND INFORMATION PASSES FROM ONE ENTITY TO THE NEXT THROUGH THE SUPPLY CHAIN
• INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ALLOWS ADDITIONAL VISIBILITY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN.

Consumer behavior

• DEMAND PLANNING SOFTWARE GENERATES DEMAND FORECAST USING STATITICAL TOOLS AND FORECASTING TECHNIQUES
• ONES AN ORGANIZATION UNDERSTAND CUSTOMER DEMAND ITS EFFECT ON THE SUPPLY CHAIN IT CAN BEGGING TO ESTIMATE THE IMPACT THAT ITS SUPPLY CHAIN WILL HAVE ON ITS CUSTOMER AND ULTIMATELY THE ORGANIZATIONS PERFORMANCE

Competition

• SUPPLY CHAIN PLANNING SOFTWARE, USES ADVANCED MATHEMATICAL ALGORITHM TO IMPROVE THE FLOW AND EFFICIENCY OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN WHILE REDUCING INVENTORY.
• SUPPLY CHAIN EXECUTIVE (SCE) SOFTWARE AUTOMATES THE DIFFERENT SYSTEM AND STAGE OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN.

Speed

• NEW FORM OF SERVE, TELECOMMUNICATION ENABLING COMPANIES TO PERFORM ACTIVITIES THAT WERE ONCE NEVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE.
• ABILITY TO SATISFY CONTINUALLY CHANGING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENT EFFICIENCY, ACCURATELY AND QUICKLY.

Summarize the best practice for implementing a successful supply chain management system.

• MAKE THE SALE TO SUPPLIER: SCM IS IT COMPLEXITY BECAUSE A LARGE PART OF   THE SYSTEM EXTENDS BEYOND THE COMPANY WALLS
• WEAN EMPLOYEES OF TRADITIONAL BUSINESS PRACTICES: OPERATION PEOPLE TYPICALLY DEAL WITH PHONE CALLS, FAXES AND ORDERS SCRAWLED ON PAPER AND WILL MOST LIKELY WANT TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.
• ENSURE THE SCM SYSTEM SUPPORT THE ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS: SCM SOFTWARE THAT GIVE ORGANIZATION AND ADVANTAGE IN THE AREAS MOST CRUCIAL TO THEIR BUSINESS SUCCESS.
• DEPLOY IN INCREMENTAL PHASES AND MEASURE COMMUNICATE SUCCESS:  DESIGN THE DEPLOYMENT OF SCM SYSTEM IN INCREMENTAL PHASES.
• BE FUTURE ORIENTED: THE SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN MUST ANTICIPATE THE FUTURE STATE OF THE BUSINESS.

CHAPTER 9 -> Enabling The Organization ( Decision Making)

CHAPTER 9 -> Enabling The Organization ( Decision Making)

The categories of Artificial Intelligence systems are:

*EXPERT SYSTEM*

Expert systems are used for problems where there is incomplete data about a subject, and insufficient theory available for the creation of an algorithmic solution. Some problems, such as medical diagnosis, are not easily solved with an algorithm, but instead require reasoning and induction.

Numerical algorithms are more efficient then expert systems, and are typically more exact. However, many problems are not suited to being easily modeled mathematically, and in these cases numerical algorithms are not possible. Other AI techniques, such as artificial neural networks are suited for problems where there is very little theory but a wealth of experimental data.

Expert systems tend to be slow, and often require extensive human interaction. However, well-designed expert systems can be very rigorous, and some expert systems have been shown to outperform the human experts that helped to develop them.

*INTELLIGENT AGENTS*

Intelligent agents are applied as automated online assistants, where they function to perceive the needs of customers in order to perform individualized customer service. Such an agent may basically consist of a dialog system, an avatar, as well an expert system to provide specific expertise to the user.

An example of an automated online assistant providing automated customer service on a webpage. *GENETIC ALGORITHMS*

As the power of evolution gains increasingly widespread recognition, genetic algorithms 
have been used to tackle a broad variety of problems in an extremely diverse array of fields, clearly showing their power and their potential. 

An example using Genetic Algorithms is Robotics company.
The international RoboCup tournament is a project to promote advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and related fields by providing a standard problem where new technologies can be tried out it is an annual soccer tournament between teams of autonomous robots. The programs that control the robotic team members must display complex behavior, deciding when to block, when to kick, how to move, when to pass the ball to teammates, how to coordinate defense and offense, and so on. In the simulator league of the 1997 competition, David Andre and Astro Teller entered a team named Darwin United whose control programs had been developed automatically from the ground up by genetic programming, a challenge to the conventional wisdom that this problem is just too difficult for such a technique.

*VIRTUAL REALITY*

Virtual reality is often used to describe a wide variety of applications commonly associated with immersive, highly visual, 3D environments. To develop a real time virtual environment, a computer graphics library can be used as embedded resource coupled with a common programming language, such as C++, Perl, Java, or Python. Some of the most popular computer graphic libraries are OpenGL,Direct3D, Java3D, and VRML, and their use are directly influenced by the system demands in terms of performance, program purpose, and hardware platform. The use of multithreading can also accelerate 3D performance and enable cluster computing with multi-userinteractivity.

CHAPTER 8 : ACCESSING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION(DATA WAREHOUSE)

1. ROLES AND PURPOSES OF DATA WAREHOUSES AND DATA MART IN ORGANIZATION 

The purpose of the Data Warehouse in the overall Data Warehousing Architecture is to integrate corporate data.  It contains the "single version of truth" for the organization that has been carefully constructed from data stored in disparate internal and external operational databases.

The amount of data in the Data Warehouse is massive.  Data is stored at a very granular level of detail.  For example, every "sale" that has ever occurred in the organization is recorded and related to dimensions of interest.  This allows data to be sliced and diced, summed and grouped in unimaginable ways. 

Typical Data Warehousing Environment

Contrary to popular opinion, the Data Warehouses does not contain all the data in the organization.  It's purpose is to provide key business metrics that are needed by the organization for strategic and tactical decision making.

Decision makers don't access the Data Warehouse directly.  This is done through various front-end Data Warehouse Tools that read data from subject specific Data Marts.

The Data Warehouse can be either "relational" or "dimensional".  This depends on how the business intends to use the information.

2. The relationship of business intelligence and data warehousing 

 changing data into information and knowledge.

Many of the tool vendors who sell their products or software call it business Intelligence software rather than Data warehousing software. so what is it? 

Business Intelligence is a term commonly associated with data warehousing. Business Intelligence is a generalized term where a company initiates various activities to gather today's market information which also includes about their competitor. Today's business Intelligence systems are contrasted to more classical way of information gathering in mining and crunching the data in the most optimal manner. In short we can say BI simplifies information discovery and analysis. 

In this way the company will have a competitive advantage of business and intelligently using the available data in strategic and effective decision making. it has the ability to bring disparate data under one roof  with a meaningful information and ready for analysis.

so what has Data warehousing to do with Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence usually refers to the information that is available for the enterprise to make decisions on. A data warehousing (or data mart) system is the backed  or the infrastructural, component for achieving business intelligence. Business intelligence also includes the insight gained from doing data mining analysis, as well as unstructured data.

Example, data warehousing. All the source data from disparate sources are used to load/Stage data. Different sources can be flat files, another database or some other process. The starting point of the Data warehouse should extract the data in order to load into its environment.This is extracting. This data may not be the expected format or size. your business demands are different or your organization business requirements are different. So the business process has to modify the data or better word is to transform the incoming data to meet requirements and objectives. This is called Transformation. 

Once every slicing and dicing of the data is done along with applied business rules, this data is ready for loading into the target tables. This process is called Loading. So overall till now we have done Extraction, Transformation and Loading. In short we call this ETL. There are lot of tools available in today's market which does help in achieving the ETL process. Once this data is loaded in to the database, this is ready for next processing. We call that database as Data warehouse database. 

The next process could be building of data marts or directly reporting from it. There are lot of tools or software available for reporting/analysis. Some call it business reporting or analysis tool. But if you see the whole process has intelligence involved in business. we can call this or the gurus call it Data warehousing and the system involved from end to end is called business intelligence system. 

enabling business intelligence

CHAPTER 7 STORING ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION (DATABASE)

  FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF THE RELATIONAL DATABASE MODEL

A relational database is a core, a system for storing and using data based upon the relationships among the elements of data. 

Different as databases may be in size, they are generally always structured according to one of three database models:

Relational = Nowadays, new installations of database management systems are almost exclusively of the relational type. Organizations that

already have a major investment in hierarchical or network technology

may add to the existing model, but groups that have no need to maintain

compatibility with “legacy systems” nearly always choose the relational

model for their databases.

Hierarchical = Hierarchical databases are aptly named because they have

a simple hierarchical structure that allows fast data access. They suffer

from redundancy problems and a structural inflexibility that makes database modification difficult.

Netw ork = Network databases have minimal redundancy but pay for that

advantage with structural complexity.

 

cube is one way to illustrate relations among data as it helps to visualize data intersections. While it is easiest for us to picture a three-dimensional cube, a relational database stores data in many dimensions. 

 

We can think of dimensions as the entry points into the data or those business concepts we will use to slice and dice our data. In some organizations, dimensions are referred to as entities.

Many customers will buy many products in many stores at many times. We will call this type of data relationship a many-to-many relationship. In many-to-many relationships we use dimensional keys to organize the data. Look for the keys in the dimensional model at above.

-Each dimension has a single primary key. The primary key is unique to each row or record in our database and its value should not change over time.

-A primary key is often a consecutive or random number assigned to the record as it enters the database. 

-A primary key can also be made up of components of other fields in the table.

-The primary key is used for indexing the table to make it more efficient to search, sort, link and perform other operations on the data. 

-If we review the market dimension we find that each store key is unique. no two stores can have the same store key. Although it might seem that we could use store name as a unique means of identifying each store, we have  different stores with different addresses, states, regions, etc.

- When these keys appear in the fact table, they are referred to as foreign keys. In the Sales Fact Table, the foreign key is no longer unique. It may appear many times or not at all. 

- So the foreign keys in the fact table must have counterparts in the dimension tables to which it refers. This requirement of relational databases is called referential integrity.

- If you spend a great deal of time talking with data modelers you may come across a few more terms having to do with keys, such as composite keys and concatenated keys. Every fact table in a relational database has a composite key. 

- This is the primary key for the fact table and it is usually made up of a combination of the foreign keys maintained in the fact table. These foreign keys are concatenated (linked together into a single entry) into a primary key for the fact table.

 

increased flexibility      

increased information security   

 increased information integrity

reduced information redundancy

 increased scalability and performance 

 

  DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM & RELATIONSHIP WITH WEBSITE 

- A Database Management System (DBMS) is a set of programs that enables you to store,modify, and extract information from a database.

- It also provides users with tools to add, delete, access, modify, and analyze data stored in one location.

-  A group can access the data by using query and reporting tools that are part of the DBMS or by using application programs specifically written to access the data. 

- DBMS also provide the method for maintaining the integrity of stored data, running security and users access, and recovering information if the system fails

- Many DBMS also include a graphics component that enables you to output information in the form of graphs and charts. Database and database management system are essential to all areas of business, they must be carefully managed.

 

4. WHY ORGANIZATION WOULD WANT TO INTEGRATE ITS DATABASE?

Data integration refers to the organization’s inventory of data and information assets as well as the tools, strategies and philosophies by which fragmented data assets are aligned to support business goals.company want to integrate its database because they will connect,communicate,dealing and having relation with its customer everyday. Everyday its customers will open the webpage and search anything appear on the page. Therefore, if the product still available or not available the supplier must inform the customers immediately.Publish the information on the web page to make the customers realize that the product exist or not in the market. Then, when the customers got information they will not too disappointed and not waiting too long. Customers satisfy, the business relationship between sellers and customers will be good

 

 bye-bye see you next time>>>>xoxo