Business Intelligence
Essays

All internal systems, processes, external stakeholder management initiatives, supply chain management, sourcing, quality management and merchandising initiatives in WalMart revolve around the fulfillment of the expectations they create with their customers daily. Their Low Price Everyday (LPED) value proposition permeates their entire value chain, galvanizing it around the mission of delivering exceptional value on a consistent basis to customers. The mission and vision of WalMart rely on LPED as the catalyst and unifying force across their large, diverse corporate culture. WalMart is known for also being the most advanced and skilled high volume retailer in the use of analytics, Business Intelligence (BI), Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). WalMart measures the impact of continual process and system performance on the fulfillment of their LPED pledge to customers, often relying in customer satisfaction and psychographic metrics to ensure they continually meet and exceed customer expectations (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2012). The mission statement of WalMart is "to help people save money so they can live better" and this serves as a galvanizing force in unifying analytics, BI, reporting and continued analysis of improvements for the company (Mcginn, 2009) (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2012). The vision of WalMart is centered on extending the purchasing power of the middle-income and lower middle-income consumers in their core markets (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2012). The reliance on analytics, BI, BPM and BPR and many other forms of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) are all aligned to this vision of giving those customers who rely on WalMart to help them make ends meet more and more value over time. WalMart has insight into how their pricing directly affects the quality of those individuals and families that rely on them the most. Their most loyal segment, the Price Value Shopper, at 16% of their customer base, visits the store will over 20 times a month, has a per capita income of $47,000 and generates more profitability than any other customer segment Walmart tracks (Frazier, 2006). WalMart also knows from their psychographic and demographic research that the majority of the price Value Shopper segment are women who are often have the role of spouse, mother, and part-time or even full-time employee as well (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2012). Time and money are the two commodities this customer base has the least of and WalMart orchestrates their vision and mission statement accordingly. Analyzing a decade of filings Walmart has made in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the basis of the market segmentation analysis shown in Figure 1 (Wal-Mart Investor Relations, 2012). The role of the Price Value Shopper is evident from the analysis; they are by far the most loyal and profitable customer base the company has, and their vision and mission are orchestrated to deliver value to them on a consistent basis.

Given the exponential increase in data being generated across enterprise, social networking and legacy IT systems, the need for ensuring a consistent set of frameworks and objectives are used to bring relevance to this data is critical. The tendency of "boil the ocean" of data through Big Data initiatives including Hadoop, an open source analytics platform, have recently emerged as one viable alternative (McKendrick, 2012). Yet too often being able to take in literally terabytes of data and analyze it is of limited use without a consistent, strategic framework to make use of it (Rogers, 2011). Too many IT organizations are falling victim to speeding up mediocre reporting and analysis processes without first thinking about how to bring greater value into their strategic initiatives with the data (Daly, 2011). The answer to this dilemma isn't found in more technology; it's found in creating a more effective strategic framework to bring meaning into the data (Kalpic, Bernus, 2006).

Abstract Understanding the exact notion of the declining organization is divided in to five stages by Jim Collins. By referring to each stage an organization gets an insight about the degree and relative stages of decline it has encountered. Planning to rectify the problems by referring to the decline stage can catalyze the process of rehabilitation and reestablishment of the organization. The following paper discusses the remedies adapted by Smith Management, LLC to reestablish the organization in its full dynamics from the decline stages.

Of the many trends in outsourcing, the most dominant are those that are directly aligned to the strengthening and streamlining organizations' supply chains, pace and depth of innovation, and adding greater agility to their value chains. Inherent in the trends most impacting organizations are a myriad of career opportunities and potential for personal development. The intent of this analysis is to define those most dominant trends affecting outsourcing today and provide insights into three strategies for each trend which will allow students to fully capitalize on outsourcing in their careers. The pace and depth of innovation is quickening, and for many organizations their ability to sustain this level of activity and development is being challenged by the many distractions of running their less profitable operations. At the center of this challenge is the need to offload the least-valuable administrative work and activity so the most valuable strategies and tactics contributing to innovation and new product development can be undertaken (McIvor, et. al.). Outsourcing the most mundane, easily transferred activities including record keeping, accounting and payroll can lead to higher levels of profitability and long-term performance as products are developed more efficiently and completely (Jiang, Frazier, Prater, pp. 1281, 1282). This offloading of the more mundane and easily-taught tasks can free up both dollars and time to pursue the next major distribution for any company. Of all nations participating in outsourcing today, Indian outsourcers have a commanding lead in this area (Hansen, pp. 210 – 29). Their leadership in this area is attributable to the gains their leading outsourcing providers including HCL, Infosys, Tata and others have made in streamlining these operations of many of the world's largest and leading corporations. Their legacy of expertise in Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) work from the last decade has also helped companies in the Indian outsourcing market to excel at accounting and financial outsourcing support. The implications for students of this first dominant outsourcing trend of companies offloading the more mundane tasks so they can concentrate on more strategic projects are many. The top three ways students can benefit from this trend in their careers is to first focus on project management skills, as many of these outsourcing partnerships require very tight time and resource management. Project management skills will also open up entirely new opportunities to manage the entire financial management systems of companies who choose to outsource this part of their company so they can focus dollars and time on new product development. A second approach students can take to capitalize on this trend is to minor in accounting and finance to understand the core functional areas so well that they can jump directly into engagements and excel in their role as an outsourcing project manager. A third approach students can take in terms of capitalizing on this trend of outsourcing mundane and routine work is to study Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Studying this area will give the students the ability to see problems their clients have from a more systemic, broader perspective instead of just focusing on the immediate tasks overall. This system-level thinking is a critical success factor for any student going into outsourcing management as a career; studying BPM and BPR techniques will have multiplicative effects throughout many other areas of their career.

The key contrast is that both data warehouses and BI are two totally different constructs. The first refers to systems that are used for storing data for archival, analysis, and security purposes. The second refers to variety of software applications that are used to analyze the data that the organization has accumulated. Forrester Research, for instance, distinguishes BI by defining them as " a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making." (Evelson, 2008).

Identify and explain briefly three consequences that increased information density can bring selling and buying products online.

Business-to-Business (B2B) Trends and Analysis

From the perspective of the firm, Pfizer and Wyeth can combine their diverse strengths and capabilities, and merge their talents and skills thus enabling them to become more profitable and lucrative.

¶ … customer's loyalty in the online services of financial service companies. Evidence from the Greek stock market

Analyzing Three Trends that have Affected