This paper examines the key principles involved in designing and implementing enterprise-level business information systems. It discusses how organizations should select systems that balance user simplicity with technological robustness, adequate security, and scalable data access. The paper covers data warehousing as a preferred design model, including Microsoft SQL as a practical example, and explores future computing directions such as real-time 3-D simulation environments. It also addresses business process mapping methods and tools, emphasizing the importance of goal quantification, management engagement, and post-implementation auditing to ensure system success.
In terms of workplace productivity and efficiency, one key consideration when developing an effective information system for an enterprise is how to select a system that is simple enough for the vast majority of its users to understand, yet technologically advanced enough to provide adequate backup for the data stored within its various components. Ideally, the system should also be able to consolidate all data so that it may be shared at various levels within the business's structure, while still maintaining 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," and thus the creation of a system with adequate backup and maximum efficacy cannot be underestimated — not simply from a technical point of view, but from 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 are equally valuable.
The needs of such a system will fluctuate with the specific requirements of the enterprise. A sales-based enterprise will necessitate sharing data across 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). Effective data access is critical to almost all modern enterprises, as is increased communication among staff through the use of effective information technology and familiarity with accessing the enterprise's data and information.
An enterprise-level information system should be simple enough for the vast majority of its users to understand, yet technologically advanced enough to provide adequate backup for the data stored within its various components. 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's structure, while still maintaining adequate passwords and security controls. Conceptually, one useful way to envision such a system is as "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). The architecture of data warehousing is straightforward in its conception: it employs a real-world metaphor in which, once inside the warehouse, one can access all information with equal ease. All that is required is the necessary software capability to enter the warehouse and knowledge of the correct labels or categories under which the desired data is stored.
One practical example of this architecture is the database engine from Microsoft, SQL, which can receive transactional data from a variety of sources — including sales, purchasing, inventory, and transfers — and relay transaction-level information to the relevant staff members (Microsoft, 2004). The Microsoft system effectively deploys the data warehousing architecture because all data is equally accessible to all users who hold the correct password or access key.
The ideal computer model, although it would require far more processing power than current systems can provide, 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." As one researcher explains: "You could take data from all the companies in the United States, every transaction, down to the last bottle of beer bought at every grocery store. You could find out exactly how much money was being made where and at what level of the economy. You could discover where the inefficiencies are." With such a system, a business could target its product precisely at identified niches, analyze stock markets for small anomalies, study manufacturing capacities to identify unusually low-cost production opportunities, and determine which countries are most receptive to each product (Taubes, 1997). There is, however, "just one problem: the computer required to run Mirror World [the name given to the 3-D model] has to perform a quadrillion floating-point operations per second, a computing speed known as a petaflop" (Taubes, 1997).
The speed of the system must therefore be taken into consideration, along with the backup infrastructure required to support it. The scenario above also illustrates the rapid evolution of the database industry and the advantages of adopting relatively established platforms such as Microsoft SQL Server, which incorporate the most technically current aspects of database technology. Such platforms allow a business to adapt to necessary changes without quickly becoming obsolete or requiring constant and costly updates.
"Dimensional mapping across organizational departments"
"Goal-setting, auditing, and post-implementation review tools"
You’re 70% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 2 sections.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.