Enterprise-Level Business Information Systems
In terms of workplace productivity and efficiency, one key aspect to when developing an effective information system for an enterprise is how to select a system that is simple enough to understand for the vast majority of its users, but technologically forward enough so that it has adequate backup for the data stored within the system's various components. Ideally as well, the system should be able to consolidate all data so that it may be shared at various levels within the business' structure, yet still have adequate passwords and security controls. "Experts say about 65% of all companies have lost control of the management or planning of a computer project at some stage," thus the creation of a system with adequate backup and maximum efficacy cannot be underestimated, not simply from a technical point-of-view, but also the point-of-view of the business as a whole. ("The Computer that Ate the Company, Financial World, 1992). Time may be money in business, but technological comprehensiveness and a future-forward perspective is, as well.
Of course, the needs of such a system will fluctuate with the specific requirements of the enterprise. A sales-based enterprise will necessitate sharing data through the advertising, warehousing, and managerial levels of its structure, while a purely supply-oriented company may require data to be easily accessed only by warehousing and management staff in its early stages. (EIS, 2004). But effective data access is critical to almost all modern enterprises, as well as increased communication between its staff through the use of effective information technology and comfort with accessing the enterprise's data and information.
II. Design Methods
A. Describe which design methods you prefer for developing an enterprise-level information system
Thus, enterprise-level...
The system should be able to consolidate the data needed to run the business effectively so that it may be shared at various levels within the business' structure, yet still have adequate passwords and security controls. Conceptually, one way to reckon such as system would be that of "a data warehouse." (EIS, 2004).
In such a design model, individual data files are stored in a central corporate database. "Once inside the corporate database, those disparate sets of data are used to create consolidated reports, which can be distributed for viewing in a variety of ways." (EIS, 2004). One such example is a database engine from Microsoft, SQL, which can receive transactional data from a variety of sources, such as, for example, sales, purchasing, inventory, and transfer transaction level information to the necessary concerned staff members. (Microsoft, 2004). The Microsoft system effectively deploys the architecture of data warehousing because all data is equally accessible to all whom have the correct password or key. All one needs to have is the necessary software capability to enter the 'warehouse' and to know the correct labels or categories of the data one is looking for. The architecture of data warehousing is simple in its conception. It employs the 'real world' metaphor that, once one is in the warehouse, one can access all information equally quickly.
The ideal computer model, although it would require too much memory for current systems in existence at this time, has been described as "a 3-D computer model" ... that would be the mother of all business tools -- a real-time simulation of what's happening everywhere. Say, for example,…
