Business intelligence

Business Intelligence
Case study 1- Vodafone NZ
Ans 1. Challenges for Vodafone NZ emerged majorly from technical front which is the driver of sustenance and growth in telecommunications sector. While new technologies had made the existing ones obsolete, emergence of new rivals raised brows of worries for Vodafone NZ. Moreover, retaining the customer base by devising new streams of revenues while complying with the existing government norms and coming up with broad line strategies were some other challenges to be confronted.
Ans 2. The fact that access to data is enough to affect organizational performance was given special attention by Vodafone NZ. As a result of this philosophy, Vodafone resorted to implementing EDW to get better access to information from diverse sources for enhanced and dynamic decision making. This made capturing the market impulse easier and becoming proactive in chalking out strategies.
Ans 3. Executives do rely in their ‘ gut feel’ when making major corporate decisions as asserted by research conducted by Graham et al (2010). They opine that executives of mostly small firms do base their decision on their experience, emotional intelligence and intuition. Gut feeling in decision making creeps in when executives do not want to delegate more and also when they have faced similar risks during their lifetime. The amount of information collected and processed by human mind in a service of a large number of years is far more than data analyzed through any of the EDW. This benefit allows executives to rely on their gut feeling when going for major corporate decisions.
Ans 4. CEOs care about the single version of truth because it defines the vertical or the horizontal alignment of the company (Oracle 2008). Single version of truth eliminates redundancy and multiple definitions of a single term used in a business parlance and thus bring in greater financial and operational transparency leading to enhanced business performance (Wailgum 2008).
Case study 2- Continental Airlines
Ans 1. The Go Forward Strategy of Continental deployed combined use of real time data warehousing with decision support system to better its business proposition. The primary benefit attained was the single version of the truth for both the employees and the customers and also reduction in costs arising due to frauds, misrepresentation of facts and figures and redundant and obsolete data. Reputation wise, Continental rose to the ‘ favorite’ category from that of worst and numerically, over $500 million were saved as costs and generated through increased revenues.
Ans 2. The ability to collect and process data in dynamic situations and as soon as transactions are complete, the data is recorded and sent to data warehouse is the major difference between a traditional and real time data warehouse. Strategically, it made crucial information available to the actual decision makers and allowed greater time for insight development than processing or managing data. Thus, both responsiveness and competitive edge of Continental airlines increased.
Ans 3. Airlines industry is a technology extensive where even a day old data turns obsolete. Number of departures, flights, bookings, luggage and other details has to be recorded, processed and saved every minute to allow decision makers predict shifts in trends and identify any shortcomings then and there.
Ans 4. Under Porter’s five forces model, application of real time data warehousing provides the biggest safeguard against the entry of competitors. Airlines industry is characterized by high investment, large fleet and expanded customer base with plethora of regulations and norms. Under such situations, use of real time data flows equips Continental with all sort of information to take operational and tactical decisions in tandem with customer perceptions and market impulse (Wixom et al. 2008). This provides a cutting edge to Continental over its rivals.
References
Graham, J. R, Harvey, C. R & Puri, M. (2010). Capital allocation and delegation of decision making authority within firms. Retrieved 20 Jan, 2011 from http://faculty. fuqua. duke. edu/~charvey/Research/Working_Papers/W103_Capital_allocation_and. pdf
Oracle. (2008). The Myth of one version of the truth. Retrieved 20 Jan, 2011 from http://www. oracle. com/us/products/middleware/bus-int/064334. pdf
Wailgum, T. (2008). One company, one vision, one truth. Retrieved 20 Jan, 2011 from http://mylibrary. wilmu. edu? url= http://search. ebscohost. com/login. aspx? direct= true&db= bth&AN= 31329391&site= ehost-live
Wixom, B. H et al. (2008). Continental airlines continue to soar with business intelligence. Retrieved 20 Jan, 2011 from http://mylibrary. wilmu. edu? url= http://search. ebscohost. com/login. aspx? direct= true&db= bth&AN= 31560813&site= ehost-live