week 12- Project Management

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

The triple constraint refers to the assessment and making time, scope and cost of project changes. The value to project management is that it helps a person to comprehend on how resources are to be assigned in bigger view. 

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

Two primary diagrams that are frequently used include a PERT chart which shows the tasks and relationships of a project. The PERT chart comprises of two things: a dependency and a critical path. The other diagram is a Gantt chart where it is a chart that shows when each task is due to completed. The names of tasks are placed on the vertical side of the chart and the time in which the task is to be completed is placed horizontally.

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

When ensuring success a project manager must focus on:

- Managing People

- Managing Communications

- Managing Change

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

Week 10- Customer Relationship Management & Business Intelligence

1. What is your understanding of CRM?

Customer relationship management involves managing all aspects of a customer’s relationship with an organisation to increase customer loyalty  and retention and an organisation’s profitability. 

Organisations implement CRM systems to gain a better understanding of customer needs and behaviours, and information technology provides companies with a new channel to communicate with customers beyond those traditionally used by organisations such as face-to-face or paper-based methods. 

2. Compare operational and analytical customer relationship management.

Operational CRM: supports tradtional transactional processing for day-to-day front-office operations or systems that deal directly with the customers. One of the main benefits of this contact history is that customers can interact with different people or different contact “channels” in a company over time without having to repeat the history of their interaction each time.Consequently, many call centers use some kind of CRM software to support their call centre agents.

Analytical CRM: supports back-office operations and strategic analysis and includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers.  

Analytical CRM analyses customer data for a variety of purposes including:

1-design and execution of targeted marketing campaigns to optimise marketing effectiveness

2-design and execution of specific customer campaigns, including customer acquisition, cross-selling, up-selling, retention

3-analysis of customer behaviour to aid product and service decision making (e.g. pricing, new product development etc.)

4-management decisions, e.g. financial forecasting and customer profitability analysis

5-prediction of the probability of customer defection (churn).

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

There are three marketing operational CRM technologies:

1-List generator: compiles customer information from a variety of sources and segment the information for different marketing campaigns

2-Campaign management system – guides users through marketing campaigns

3-Cross-selling and up-selling: 

  -Cross-selling – selling additional products or services

  -Up-selling – increasing the value of the sale

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

There are 3 sales operational CRM technologies:

• sales management CRM system: automates each phase of the sales process, helping individual sales representatives coordinate and organize all of their accounts
• Contact management CRM system: maintains customer contact information and identifies prospective customers for future sales
• Opportunity management CRM system: target sales opportunities by finding new customers or companies for future sales

5. Describe business intelligence and its value to businesses

Business intelligence: applications and technologies used to gather, provide access to, and analyse data and information to support decison making efforts. Includes simple MS Excel Pivot tables to highly sophisticate software that fetches data from the different front- and back-office systems.

Business intelligence can tell businesses things like;

- Determine who are the best and worst customers thereby gaining insight into where it needs to concentrate more for its future sales
- Identify exceptional sales people
- Determine whether or not campaigns have been successful
- Determine in which activity they are making or losing money

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

If there is too much data an organisation may have limited knowledge on where data is or who their competitors may be. Hence may not be unable to make the best strategic implementation due to insufficient tools to back up data and support decision making to their strategic goals. The solution approach that they could take is business intelligence where it helps an organisation make decisions. Functional areas of an organisation can make decisions where they can be able to see more data analysis and reduce the latency of information in making good decisions.

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

The two possible outcomes a company could get from data mining is that it can increase profits and allow an organisation to have better sales and confined resources. Another two outcomes include cluster and statistical analysis. Cluster analysis is the searching of equal or non equal but alike data in the many types of databases. However to undertake the cluster analysis, behavioural traits need to be clearly identified through physically partitioning the individual information into set groups. Statistical analysis assesses the data trends through the assistance of a regression analysis and statistics. Statistical analysis gives opportunity to workers in an organisation a large variety of statistical capabilities in order to construct things such as statistical models, the examination of model’s assumptions and validity and the comparison and contrasting the number of models to identify which is the better alternative for an issue within an organisation.

Week 9- Operations Management and Supply Chain

1. Define the term operations management

Operations management is the business function that plans, organises, coordinates and controls the resources needed to produce a company’s goods and services. Operations management is a management function. It involves managing people, equipment, technology, information and many other resources. Operations management is the central core function of every company. This is true whether the company is large or smal, provides a physical good or service, is for profit or not for profit. Without operations there would be no goods or services to sell.

2. Explain operations management’s role in business

The role of operations management is to transform a company’s inputs into the finished goods or services. Inputs include human resources (such as workers and managers), facilities and processes (such as buildings and equipment), as well as materials, technology and information. Outputs are goods and services a company produces. Operations management is responsible for orchestrating all the resources needed to produce the final product.

3. Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology

Managers use Information Technology to heavily influence Operations Management decisions, including :

What: What resources will be needed and in what amounts?

When: When should the work be scheduled?

Where: Where will the work be performed?

How: How will the work be done?

Who: Who will perform the work?

4. Explain supply chain management and its role in a business

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

It is a network of organisations and facilities that transforms raw materials into products delivered to customers. Customers order from retailers who inturn order from distributors, who in turn order from suppliers. 

The supply chain also includes transportation companies, warehouses and inventories and some means from transmitting messages and information among the organisations involved. 

5. List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain

The Five Basic Supply Chain Management Components:

Plan- A company must have a plan for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for products or services.

Source-  Companies must carefully choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for making products.

Make-  How companies manufacture their products or services

Deliver- The process that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers

Return- Companies must create a network for receiving defective and excess products and support customers who have problems with delivered products.

6. Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain.

Information technology's primary role in the Supply Chain is creating the integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions within an organisation. Technology advances in the five SRM components have significantly improved companies’ forecasting and business operations. Integrated Systems provide companies with greater visibility over the supply chain inventory levels.

Week Eight- Networks & Wireless

1. Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology.

Completes the access technology portfolio: customers commonly use more than one access technology to service various parts of their network and during the migration phase of their networks, when upgrading occurs on a scheduled basis. Wireless enables a fully comprehensive access technology portfolio to work with existing dial, cable, and DSL technologies.

Goes where cable and fiber cannot: the inherent nature of wireless is that it doesn't require wires or lines to accommodate the data/voice/video pipeline. As such, the system will carry information across geographical areas that are prohibitive in terms of distance, cost, access, or time. It also sidesteps the numerous issues of ILEC colocation.

Involves reduced time to revenue: companies can generate revenue in less time through the deployment of wireless solutions than with comparable access technologies because a wireless system can be assembled and brought online in as little as two to three hours.

Provides broadband access extension: wireless commonly both competes with and complements existing broadband access. Wireless technologies play a key role in extending the reach of cable, fiber, and DSL markets, and it does so quickly and reliably. It also commonly provides a competitive alternative to broadband wireline or provides access in geographies that don't qualify for loop access.

Wireless technologies have the ability to centralise critical information and eliminate redundant processes.

People are mobile and have more access to information than ever before through things such as phones and laptops.

State government agencies, such as transportation departments, use wireless devices to collect field information, tracking inventory, reporting times, monitoring logistics, and completing forms — all from a mobile environment. The transportation industry is using wireless devices to help determine current locations and alternate driving routes.

2. Describe the business benefits associated with VoIP

Voice over IP: Allows the internet to carry voice in digital format, call costs have dramatically decreased as the international calls are now internet connections. Voice over IP enables phone calls, faxes, voice mail, email, web conferences over digital networks.

The most obvious and significant benefit from using VOIP is reduced telephony costs. More than 80% of the companies planning to deploy VOIP expect payback within the first three years. In reality, companies that have deployed the technology are experiencing complete return on investment within the first year. 

If the cost savings wasn’t enough, businesses that deployed VOIP are experiencing other long-term benefits such as: 

- Improved individual productivity 

- Improved team collaboration 

- Faster responsiveness to customers 

- Better quality of service to customers 

- Better support for globalization effort

It saves money in 3 ways:

-VOIP runs over the existing computer network

-Calls over the internet do not attract telecommunications chargers

-Customers can port their numbers between carriers

3. Compare LANs and WANs

LAN stands for Local Area Network and WAN stands for Wide Area Network. There are many comparisons between them as they are different. 

	LAN	WAN
Data transfer rates	LANs have a high data transfer rate	WANs have a lower data transfer rate as compared to LANs
Connection	One LAN can be connected to other LANs over any distance via telephone lines and radio waves	Computers connected to a Wide-area network are often connected through public networks, such as the telephone system. They can also be connected through leased lines or satellites.
Set up costs	Is there is a need to se up a coupe of extra devices on the network, it is not very expensive to do that	In this case since networks in remote areas have to be connected hence the set-up costs are higher
Definition	LAN is a computer network covering a small geographic area like a home, office, schools	WAN is a computer network that covers and wider area. Any network whose communications links cross metropolitan, regional or national boundaries over a long distance
Maintenance costs	Maintain at low costs because it covers small geographic area	Maintaining is difficult because its wider geographical area and costs
Technology	Tend to use certain connectivity technologies primarily ethernet and token ring	Use technology as ATM, Frame Relay, over the long distances. Internet is the best example of a WAN

4. Describe RFID and how it can be used to help make a supply chain more effective.

Manufacturers, retailers, logistics providers and government agencies are making unprecedented use of RFID technology to track, secure and manage items from the time they are raw materials through the entire life of the product.

Manufacturers can especially benefit from RFID because the technology can make internal processes more efficient and improve supply chain responsiveness—for example, early RFID adopters in the consumer goods industry reduced supply chain costs between 3 and 5 percent and grew revenue between 2 and 7 percent because of the added RFID provided, according to a study by AMR Research.

Many drivers have seen RFID in action at automatic toll collection stations used at bridges, tunnels and turnpikes.

In business, RFID will be commonly used to identify pallets,containers, vehicles, tools and other assets, monitor inventory, and route materials through production processes.

RFID can provide immediate and tangible benefits throughout the supply chain. Organizations who take the time to understand the technology’s capabilities and limitations can increase their inventory visibility while streamlining their operations.

5. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of deploying mobile technology

ADVANTAGES:

Public and private sector enterprises are always in pursuit of ideas that can make them more efficient and flexible, qualities that have a direct effective on both profitability and performance. As wireless networking moves into the mainstream, many organizations find that the addition of mobile network components offers undeniable business benefits, both direct and indirect.

Seen directly, wireless solutions can improve the connectedness of a workforce and enhance decision-making by providing faster access to more current information. They can also be easier to maintain and configure, reducing the need for IT staff.

Indirectly, mobile solutions can improve worker satisfaction by providing easier, more flexible access options. They can even improve public perception, and introduce new, “cutting edge” mechanisms for customer interaction; through the following characteristcs:

• Elimination of duplicate data entry and transcription errors.

• Improved efficiency so agents can concentrate on sales and service, not paperwork and increased productivity through real-time.

• Improved customer service with faster customer response time.

• Better information sharing, and better management insight into agents’ activities and performance.

• Improved communications with control personnel, who can remain on the production floor without being out of reach; and tracking of the parts and labor associated with each order, with verification at the time of data entry.

• More accurate analysis of product costs,with better tracking of labor details against work orders.

• Significant reduction in parts retrieval time.

• Improved productivity through better communications. 

• Efficient access to business-critical data.

• Faster product delivery times.

• Increased employee and customer satisfaction.

• Reduced connection costs.

• Improved provider working conditions with the flexibility offered by remote information access. 

  

In summary the advantages include: low ongoing costs, ease of implentation, effective base-level data transfer rate, mobility, and redundancy in fututre growth. 

  

DISADVANTAGES: 

When considering options for wide area networks, it is appropriate to consider the few disadvantages presented by wireless technology. 

1-Radio Interference. When multiple radio antennas are located close in proximity, or many strong spread spectrum sources inhabit a small geographic region, RF wireless loses some of its effectiveness. The signals may interfere with each other, causing re-transmission of signals and loss of throughput. But such sources are unusual in many rural communities.

2-Path Interference. Radio wireless technology is commonly advertised as "impervious" to weather. This means, essentially, that particles of rain, fog, smog, and dust are not large enough to block the transmission of the radio signal. In the 902-928Mhz frequency spectrum this is essentially true.

3-Weather and Accidental Damage. Because wireless connectivity uses external antennas, severe weather may damage these components. Lightning arrestors will be used to prevent damage to internal network equipment, but very high winds may still misalign or damage antennas. Also, one must allow for the possibility of accidents in which antennas are damaged. 

4-Throughput. Wireless connectivity offers a better cost/performance ratio over time than leased data circuits; but not in comparison with fibre optic.