Thursday, October 31, 2019

SAM 451 UNIT 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

SAM 451 UNIT 2 - Assignment Example Pernetti who had earlier defended the coach, rooting for the coach’ rehabilitation accepted the dismissal and vowed to regain the trust of Rutgers community (The New York Times). There are several types of feature stories. These are; profile, explanatory piece, color story, human interest, news feature, backgrounder, lifestyle feature, travel story, general feature, interview piece, investigative feature, column and review (Helitzer 162). The type of feature focused in the article is Human interest story. The article focuses on interactions between a professional, a coach, basketball team and the Rutgers community. Emotion created in the story is of remorse, derived from the way the coach relates with his team. The use of slur and humiliating approaches to team members who possess talent and vigor in the game is demoralizing. Information about the character of the coach, attitude developed by the team is revealed. An anonymous person takes the initiative of recording a video during the training sessions to reveal the vice. The whistle-blower creates a dramatic event that reveals Rice’s character without dispute that leads to his

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Customer service - M Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Customer service - M - Coursework Example It is vital for Tesco to build trust amid customers regarding prices and its stability to attain increased competitiveness. Tesco in order to meet its standards has undertaken initiatives to create immense value for its customers as well as shareholders through leveraging its experiences. The vision of Tesco is â€Å"to offer simple, transparent, and convenient products which reward its customers’ loyalty and strengthen their bond with the business† (Tesco Plc, 2014). Tesco complies with requisite legal aspects and best business practices to meet its customer demand for securing increased profit. The aim of Tesco is to provide best services to every customer in order to enhance customer loyalty towards the brand. The objective of the study is to understand the importance of legal aspects, customer service standards, and performances relevant to Tesco and its customers. Customers are bestowed with numerous rights and protections in order to get the best results and prevent offensive practices within the business. Tesco understands the legal rights of consumers and hence provides proper information about its products to them. Moreover, to ensure effective management of the customer services, Tesco provides helpline numbers and customer helpdesk and resolve their queries and complaints. From the perspective of organisational requirements, it is important for Tesco to provide a better shopping experience and deliver a proper after sales services for encouraging customers engage in repeated sales. Customer satisfaction is the key to success and hence it is important to understand and track their changing needs. Ensuring ethical operation and knowing customers are essential for business to sustain in the long-run. Every company needs to follow certain rules and legislation, along with external regulations to manage customers in a fair and efficient mann er. It is observed that complying with legal aspects enhance the quality of services.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

A Critique of Data warehousing in Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

A Critique of Data warehousing in Enterprise Resource Planning Systems INTRODUCTION General Background There are different ways in which companies have collected and accessed the data in order to support and enhance the business. Since 1990s, with the emergence of the concept of business data warehouse, companies have been instituting data warehousing for data mining, data analysis, reporting and other business intelligence purpose (Matthias et al., 2003). Bill Inmon in 1990, defined data warehousing as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“a subject-oriented, integrated, non-volatile, and time-variant collection of data in support of managements decisions. He also stated that the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“data warehouse contains a very useful source of data for the explorer and data miner. The data found in the data warehouse is cleansed, integrated, organized. And the data is historicalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Inmon W. H, 2002). Data warehouse is also defined as the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“architecture used to maintain critical historical data that has been extracted from operational data storage and transformed into formats acce ssible to the organizations analytical communityà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Anne Marie, 2009). In the same decade, with the success of Material Requirements Planning 2 (MRP II) and its evolution to Enterprise resource planning (ERP), various companies implemented ERP software as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“integrated suitesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  that automate core corporate activities and helps the corporate managers to coordinate the common functions of an enterprise (Gibson et al., 1999). ERP can be defined as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“techniques and concepts for integrated management of business as a whole from the viewpoint of the effective use of management resources to improve the efficiency of enterprise management. ERP packages are integrated (covering all business functions) software packages that support these ERP conceptsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Alexis Leon, 2008). For every critical business decision taken, information is the foundation. To facilitate this, all functional areas of the organization are integrated using ERP (Chou, 2005). Most ERP vendors have an integrated business suite containing busi ness intelligence (BI) tools to access their data modules directly. However, data warehousing in ERP system is a complicated task that requires the use of various types of inputs like the historical data, and the information that are external to the ERP system (Peng and Nunes, 2008; Chaudhuri et al., 1997). Although ERP systems can integrate all business transaction data into their master databases for organizational planning, it may not be a solution for data analysis and decision support process. Selection of ERP, implementation and integration with BI is the costly and risky processes in the companys life span (Baki et al, 2005). This paper reviews the value of data warehousing in ERP systems. It identifies the power and the capabilities ERP and Data Warehousing. And, reviews the claims made by ERP vendors about their integrated BI solution. The conclusion is provided in the last section. Research Objectives The paper presents the study of features and claims by ERP vendors on its ERPs efficiency of the data warehousing in ERP system. This study attempts to critically review and question the claims by ERP vendors on their efficiency of Data warehousing in ERP systems. Research objective is also to identify those issues that occur in Data warehousing in ERP systems, and then map them in the research framework, perhaps with more detail related to the dimensions that are found. The issues are defined with the viewpoints of vendors and consultants. This paper will provide an overview of the issues and challenges that the intersection of these two IS concepts are creating. Research Design An overview of the importance of the information technology sector and a synopsis on enterprise resource planning systems are presented first, followed by a discussion on the research problem and the academic and practical motivations for undertaking the present study. The study is a review of literature, and claims made by prominent ERP vendors on the data warehousing in ERP system. Critical Literature Review The research design of this study consists of theoretical risk ontology through a critical literature review. A critical literature review was conducted by first searching for the appropriate literature. Initial phase of the literature research attempted to search and retrieve the secondary literature sources like journals, books and newspapers that are directly related to data warehousing in ERP, and data mining. In this process it was identified that current research studies on data warehousing in ERP system focus mainly on ERP selection, implementation, integration with data warehouse, and business intelligence (Chou et al, 2005; Shehab et al, 2004; Davenport, 1998; Themistocleous et al, 2006). The process involved a search of prominent Publisher of journals in information services like ACM Portal, Emerald, Wiley Interscience and Web search engine Google Scholar and IEE Explore. Journals and databases were searched by generating key words and search terms with initial reading and brainstorming. I decided to focus my study on articles that discuss the ERP and particularly the integration with BI. This paper presents the critical literature review about the data warehousing in ERP systems. ERP SYSTEMS Definition of ERP ERP system is a software package that integrates the flow information through the company, including financial, accounting, human resources, supply chain, and customer information. Yen et al (2002) defined ERP system as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“a business management system that integrates all facets of the business, including planning, marketing and manufacturingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . An integrated ERP system can cover wide range of functionalities like reporting, planning, budgeting, forecasting, strategy management, scorecards, and risk management (SAP, 2009) and integrate them into one unified database. It automates core corporate activities by incorporating best practices to facilitate rapid decision making, cost reduction, and greater managerial control (Holland et al, 1999). For example, functional modules such as manufacturing, warehouse management, human resources, finance, customer relations management, supply chain management were all once stand alone software applications, typically having its own database and network (tech-faq, 2009). Best practices are incorporated as a result of the long development history of the ERPs. ERP market is led by companies like SAP AG, Oracle Corporation, Sage Group, Microsoft Corporation and Infor Global Solutions (Wikipedia, 2009). Importance of ERP An important reason for implementing ERP is that, it can help companies re-engineer their business process and compete in the market. Davenport (1998) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“for managers who have struggled, at great expense and with great frustration, with incompatible information systems and inconsistent operating practices, the promise of an off-the-shelf solution to the problem of business integration is enticingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Following are the benefits of ERP systems over the distributed stand alone departmental systems (Yen et al, 2002): * Business process automation a unified enterprise view of the business that encompasses all functions and departments. Improvement in the supply chain via the use of e-communication and E-commerce. * Timely access to management information an enterprise database where all business transactions are entered, recorded, processed, monitored and reported There are many reasons why organizations find ERP system very attractive. The primary reasons focus on the frustrations in using the existing stand alone systems. Convincing reasons for a purchasing ERP system may include (Chen, 2001): * Efficiency of the current system Inability of the existing stand alone systems to support organizational needs * Failure in the distributed system The use of multiple points of input using multiple application which leads in duplicated effort of capturing and storing the data in existing system * Maintenance overhead in the current system The requirement of extensive resources (man and machine) for maintenance and support of the system. * Competition Competition in the global market and the desire to reengineer its business process * Company growth The growth of the enterprise and subsequent incompatibility of several legacy information system * E-commerce Inability of employees to respond easily to questions or information requested by key customer or suppliers ERP systems provide a common platform and business practices across the enterprise that allows the real-time access. According to Davenport (1998), ERP solutions are designed to solve the fragmentation of information in large business organisations, and integrate all the information flowing within a company. ERP failures ERP system implementation can either reap huge benefits for successful companies or it can be disastrous for organizations that fail to manage the implementation process (Holland et al, 1999). The selection and acquisition of ERP software is a risky and challenging task. And a wrong purchase may adversely affect the organization. Themistocleous states many reason for the failure of ERP system. For example, * Resistance from the employs against the change in the system * Differences between organisations and consultants as a result of cost overruns and projects delays. * Non-flexibility in ERP software forces organisation to abandon their way of doing business * Conflict with the business strategy of the organization Selecting ERP and implementation In-house software system development is generally expensive, time consuming and often covered by uncertainties and integration of various incompatible software systems may not function well with each other. If different software packages are being used, data may not be consistent. On the other hand purchasing off-the-shelf ERP software packages can solve problem. Holland et al (1999) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“the companies are radically changing their information technology strategies by purchasing pre-packaged software instead of developing IT systems in-houseà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . There are different strategic approaches to ERP software implementation. It can be implemented with either a minimum deviation from the standard settings that the ERP vendor provides or with the customization of a system to suit local requirements (tech-faq, 2009). As discussed by Yusuf et al (2004) in the case study about the implementation of ERP in Rolls-Royce in partnership with Electronic Data Services (EDS), ERP implementation is a complicated task. The project implementation problems faced while implementing are * Cultural Problems Some of the functions and processes of the new system did not receive full appreciation from the employee. So, the implementation team had to resolve this by illustrating the improvements made to the company as a whole. Also extensive trainings were provided to the employees of Rolls-Royce. * Business Problems Because of the rigidity in the business structure of SAP R/3 ERP, employees of Rolls-Royce adjusted their working practices in order to fit SAP. * Technical Problems As the system required the retrieval of old data from legacy system which were in de-normalized form, Rolls-Royce had to run legacy system in parallel with the ERP until the expensive process of extracting the old data from legacy system was normalized, screened and stored in a sensible data format in the new database. Implementation of ERP and planning of the resources required to run the enterprise is not the end of the road for ERP. Organization will realize the full potential of ERP when it is used and properly managed (Yusuf et al, 2004). One of the main difficulties experienced by ERP implementations have been the costly development of additional software to summarize and retrieve the information for generating the reports (Themistocleous et al, 2001). A company that plans to invest into ERP needs to have a good strategy and a clear idea about the cost of ERP system. Implementation slowdowns the routine works within an organization. Customization is costly and time consuming (Yen et al, 2002). As outlined by Peng and Nunes (2009), reasons like insufficient user training, loss of in-house IT experts, bankruptcy of system vendor and barriers like inefficient communication between functional divisions can cause ERP post implementation failures Analytical and forecasting functions of ERP: Business managers will have different information needs for planning and decision making (Peng and Nunes, 2009). Decision support system can reduce the time, cost and improve efficiencies. Analytical and forecasting functions are the skills, processes used to support decision making and forecasting. Analytical and forecasting features of ERP can be accessed by managers using an interface such as web-based or graphical interface via the internet or intranet (Marnewick, 2005). If an organization does not take advantage of decision support systems, it cannot take complete advantage of the data and may lose its competitive edge. Most ERP systems today have highly integrated databases and business intelligence (BI) tools to access their data modules directly (Chou, 2005). ERP vendors, data warehousers, and third-party tool vendors have numerous products and solutions for using the ERP data. There are 3 major solutions for ERP data (searchSAP, 2009): 1. Solutions from third-party vendors that analyze data within ERP systems 2. ERP-based solutions that analyze data within ERP systems 3. ERP-based solutions that build data warehouses outside their ERP systems An ERP-based data warehouse is a classical, external data warehouse or data mart built with tools offered by an ERP vendor (Russom, 2007). ERP reports are generated using the existing ERP schema as the foundation for building the standard reports. Integrated business intelligence system pulls the data from ERP systems to a data warehouse and enables to perform data analysis and deliver superior reporting for making timely and accurate decision (Chou et al, 2005). Closer integration of corporate wide data warehousing data with ERP data potentially enhances companies return on their ERP and data warehouse investments (Wiley, 2009). ERP contains a set of analytical tools to facilitate sales planning. Yen et al (2002) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“many companies deploy data warehouses for facilitating the data analysis in ERP. They will buy packaged analytic applications that include a data warehouse, analytical tools, and predefined data models to accelerate the data analysis in ERPà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . But, in spite of deploying ERP and an integrated data warehousing and BI, there is no guarantee that the forecast generated is up to the accuracy. As discussed by Peng and Nunes, one of the reasons for inaccurate forecasting is due to inherent difficulties in predicting the fluid market. This results in significant impact in companies. ERP systems are usually designed to record business transactions data, make changes to existing data, reconcile data, keep track of business transactions, run predefined business reports, and manage business transactions. In contrast, analytical systems are designed to examine large volumes of data and then to generate essential information for decision-making. There are five major software vendors offering ERP solutions to business worldwide. According to reports from Gartner Dataquest, quoted by destinationcrm (destinationcrm, 2006) SAP is the market share leader in ERP, followed by Oracle, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics and SSA Global Technologies. DATA WAREHOUSING AND DATA MINING Data Warehousing Bill Inmon (2002) says that the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“data warehouse contains a very useful source of data for the explorer and data miner. The data found in the data warehouse is cleansed, integrated, organized. And the data is historicalà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . To help managers and decision makers retrieve information they need from tremendous amount of data reside in database, many enterprises have built system environments focusing on data warehousing technology, deployed that as an integral part of a decision support systems (DSS). Data warehouse is responsible for providing information needed for supporting executive decision making. As a result, data warehousing technology has been integrated into ERP systems (Zhang et al, 2006). Yusuf et al (2004) defines Data warehouse as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“an integrated collection of data. The data is stored centrally and is extracted from operational, historical and external databasesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Data warehouses are used for decision support. Historical, summarized and consolidated data is more important than detailed, individual records. Data Mining Data mining is the study and extraction of patterns from a large set of data. It can be defined as the process of analyzing data from different viewpoints and summarizing it into useful information for planning and increase revenue. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified (Anderson, 2009). Data mining can also be defined as the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“practice of automatically searching large stores of data to discover patterns and trends that go beyond simple analysisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Oracle, 2009). Data mining uses sophisticated mathematical algorithms to slice the data and evaluate the probability of future events. The key properties of data mining are (thearling, 2009): 1. Automatic discovery of patterns 2. Prediction of likely outcomes 3. Creation of actionable information Data Mining is widely used in applications such as product analysis, demand and supply analysis, understanding consumer research marketing, investment trend in stocks real estates, telecommunications, e-commerce and so on (Chou et al, 2005). However, a database which is new and which has only a current piece of information is not suitable for data mining as it can never detect trends and long term patterns of behaviour. Historical data is very essential for data mining as historical data contains valuable chunk of information hidden in it. Mature data is crucial for understanding the seasonality of business and the larger cycles of business to which every corporation is subject (Inmon, 1996). Data mining uses data from data source in order to provide users with meaningful indicators. Data from ERP systems is used as data source. Modern ERP systems provide advanced BI tools out of the box, avoiding the hassle of connecting a stand-alone BI system, and lowering the cost which is a critical capability to consider ERP for midsize companies, with limited staff and resources to maintain multiple systems (Newcomer, 2009). After implementing the ERP system in organizations, they tend to concentrate more on the return on investment (ROI). Chou et al (2005) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“In order to justify their return-on-investment (ROI), more and more organizations are turning to BI tools that make data collected by ERP, customer relationship management (CRM), and other data-intensive applications meaningfulà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Since a BI system includes technologies for reporting, analysis, and sharing information, many ERP vendors have integrated these solutions with ERP systems to truly maximize the ROI of ERP. The integration of BI and ERP systems can strengthen corporate decision-making capability through utilizing the analytical capability of BI system and data managerial capability of ERP system (Chou et al, 2005). Business Intelligence (BI) can help in competition analysis, market research, economical trends, consume behaviour, industry research, and geographical information analysis and so on. Business Intelligence using data mining helps in decision-making (Naxton, 2006). ERP VENDOR CLAIMS Modern ERP systems may provide advanced BI tools, avoiding the hassle of connecting a stand-alone BI system, and lowering the cost. Integrated business intelligence contains a broad category of analytical applications that help companies in making decision based on the data in their ERP systems (Moller, 2005). Oracle and SAP are currently the only major ERP vendors with such offerings. Analytical applications can be broadly classified as follows: Financial Analytics Financial analysis refers to an assessment of the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or project (Wikipedia, 2009). It is concerned with optimising the profitability of the business. When used effectively it can provide a competitive differentiator. Financial analytics helps the business focus on the most important customers and the most profitable products and services (Brook, 2009). It helps them to (Schroeck, 2001): * Understand the overall performance of the organization * Identify ways to measure and maximize the value of intangible assets (eg. Services) * Effectively manage enterprise-wide investments and reduce operating costs * Forecast variations in the marketplace, * Optimize the capabilities of information systems, and * Business processes improvement. Integrated analytics allow organizations with an ERP infrastructure to facilitate reporting and tools required for decision-makers. Oracle E-Business Suit (EBS) is one suite of applications that contains ERP and integrated BI. Oracle says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Oracle Financial Analytics helps front-line managers improve financial performance with complete, up-to-the-minute information on their departments expenses and revenue contributionsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . SAP Business Suite is a range of software modules with an integrated Business Intelligence. SAP states that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“SAP ERP provides powerful analytic software that enables powerful financial analysis to help you analyze your business, develop business plans and budgets, and track performance during execution.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (SAP AG, 2009). Few of the features and functions that support financial analytics as stated by SAP are * Financial and management reporting Providing a set of tools to meet the financial and management reporting needs. * Planning, budgeting, and forecasting Support traditional budgeting, rolling forecasts, and collaborative planning, such as cost center planning. * Working capital and cash flow management Optimize cash flow, including cash flow calculations and middle- and long-term planning. Sales Analytics Sales analytics is a procedure involving the gathering, classifying, comparing, and studying of company sales data. It may simply involve the comparison of total company sales in two different time periods. Or it may entail subjecting thousands of component sales (or sales-related) s to a variety of comparisons, like comparison with s for earlier periods of time (Wikipedia, 2009). SAP says that the SAP sales analytic help the organization to obtain the data necessary to proactively address trends and measure success and revenue shortfalls. Oracle states that analytics solutions provided by its E-business suite dramatically improve the effectiveness of sales people by providing real-time, actionable insight into every sales opportunity at the point of customer contact. With more accurate sales forecasts and enhanced identification of potential problems and opportunities, Oracle Sales Analytics helps close business faster and increase overall sales revenue. It lists the following benefits: * Resource allocation Identifying critical opportunities so that executives can assign the appropriate resources to increase the chance of winning * Sales forecasts Analyzing pipeline opportunities to determine actions required to meet sales targets. Provide the information about sales documents, such as opportunities, sales orders and sales contracts. Thus, help in future revenue forecasting. Integrated sales planning and analysis enables sales managers to understand the financial status and overall effectiveness of the sales organization quickly and easily. These scenarios help users obtain the data necessary to proactively address trends, measure customer retention and revenue shortfalls, and assess future opportunities (SAP, 2009). Operational Analytics Operational analytics is a process that facilitates delivery of the in-depth and focused analysis of the performance of each key operational area of the business. Operational Analytics try to provide comprehensive and focused analysis of every aspect of the operational area of a company (Information Management, 2007). Oracle says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Oracles Business Intelligence Suite delivers real-time operational analytics that enable you to make better business decisions fasterà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Operational analytics is also a part of SAP business suite. SAP says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“SAP ERP provides features and functions for operational analysis to help you optimize the entire supply chain, improve revenues, and increase customer satisfactionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Few of the features and functions that support financial analytics as stated by SAP are: * Manufacturing reporting Provides various standard reports and analyses detailing production-related information. * Customer service analysis Used for monitoring financial trends, costs, and revenues per customer, as well as service contracts and operations. * Sales planning Used for opportunity planning and analysis and partner planning. * Sales analysis Provides an accurate overview of current sales performance and an overview of sales force effectiveness. Workforce Analytics Workforce Analytics is a powerful decision-making platform using business intelligence tools that offer to the management at every level the right and timely information at point of decision making process for a better visibility and accountability in regards to workforce-related issues (Information Management, 2007). Workforce Analytics is used by HR professionals, and line managers. It provides an analysis option that gives real-time insight into your workforce. They can identify trends at an early stage and make well-informed decisions, enabling you to manage your human capital more effectively, predict human-capital investment demands, and track workforce costs and the ROI associated with HR projects (Wikipedia, 2009). The focus is to analyse current and historical employee data to identify key relationships among variables and use this to provide insight into the workforce they need for the future. Oracle says that Oracle workforce analytics in the e-business suite à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“provides the strategy management and performance tracking needed to measure the effectiveness of HR initiatives. It helps to evaluate and communicate company performance, staffing, turnover, HR readiness, compensation, and competencies.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Managers need information that will help guide your strategic decisions. Implementing an Enterprise Resource System (ERP) that integrates all the information and processes into one coherent environment is a first and major step towards improved decision-making. But capturing and processing data is not sufficient to give the insight into the business that decision makers need today. Only when coupled with a business intelligence system can your ERP software enable users analyse and act on that data quickly and effectively. IT industrial leader, Microsoft quotes that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Forecaster for Microsoft Dynamics ERP helps you manage financial performance through accurate budgeting and planningà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Microsoft, 2009). A CRITIQUE OF VENDOR CLAIMS Data Warehousing In todays ever-competitive business climate, the ability to understand business conditions and gain timely insight into business performance is essential for survival. Business users have long faced the challenge of being unable to easily analyze business data in their enterprise resource planning (ERP) environment. Oftentimes, the reporting tools available are too complex for business users to utilize effectively, and IT experts do not have the business background to sufficiently understand business users analytical needs. The delay in IT departments turnaround time can quickly render information irrelevant and outdated by the time it is available to business users. ERPs serve as transaction engines in many organizations. It provides mission-critical operational workflow but do not support decision support systems (DSS) directly (Inmon, 2000). Therefore, the need to source a data warehouse from the ERP system and other legacy systems is obvious. Many organisations are now discovering that the solution to leveraging investment decisions in and retrieving useful data from, an ERP system is to undertake a Data Warehousing initiative in conjunction with the implemented ERP system. But, the harsh reality of ERP systems implementation, to the expense of those organisations that invested resources in the initiative, is that ERP only gets data into the system, it does not prepare data for use and analysis (Inmon, 2000). ERP systems lack certain functionality and reporting capabilities. It has been realised that ERP systems are good for storing, accessing and executing data used in daily transactions, but it is not good at providing the information needed for long term planning and decision making (Radding, 2000) as ERP systems are not designed to know how the data is to be used once it is gathered (Inmon, 2000). Consequently, in the post-implementation phase organisations are often dismayed to find that they havent improved their an alytical and decision support capabilities (Inmon, 2000; Radding, 2000) as ERP systems do not provide an environment for decision support activities such as analysing historical trends, drawing conclusions, scenario building and planning. Business Intelligence using Data Warehouse built on ERP System Analytical and forecasting features are provided by the business intelligence tools that are linked to the data warehouse. Some of the common functions of Business Intelligence technologies are reporting, analytics, data mining and benchmarking (Wikipedia, 2009). Integration of ERP and BI can provide a consolidated analysis of the data and user-friendly reporting capabilities and help users make and correct decisions and gain advantages over their competitors. Financial analytics, sales analytics, operational analytics and workforce analytical, may provide the facility to analyze relationships and understand trends that ultimately support business decision. However, few of the challenges faced by data warehousing in ERP systems are in its capability of providing a valuable and accurate reporting service, data analysis and forecasting. Chou et al says (2005) says à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Organizations recognize the wealth of information within ERP systems, the challenge lies in the ways of min ing themà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . The lack of historical transaction data in the database containing the data from ERP is the most significant obstacle in successfully implementing a BI on ERP system. One of the key elements in accurate forecasting like trend reporting is the need for historical data. Most of the ERP vendors claim that the reports and forecasts generated by ERP or a BI that is integrated with ERP environment are of high accuracy. Zhang et al (2006) says that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“although ERP system is powerful, a serious challenge is how to make use of previous experiences and knowledge to support managerial decision makingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . Still the research has to be carried out to know the accuracy of the reports as ERP system does not contain the historical data in the enterprises data warehouse. Traditionally, the enterprise data warehouse needs historical data. When a large amount of historical data starts to stack up in the ERP environment, the ERP environment is usually purged, or the data is archived to a remote storage facility. When an enterprise data warehouse needs to go back in time and bring in historical data that has not been previously colle

Friday, October 25, 2019

Essay --

DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHM Topic: SHELL SORT Names: Maryum Waris Tahir Khan Isra Jameil Farrukh Ahsan Semester : III Section : A Submitted to : Sajid Saleem INTRODUCTION: Shell sort, also known as 'diminishing increment sort', was devised by Donald Shell in 1959.It is known to be one of the long-standing sorting algorithm. The basic logic of this sort is that it virtually divides the original list into smaller list, which consists of elements which are present at a specified gap, and performs sorting. As the gap decreases original list becomes more and more sorted ,finally when gap is reduced to one, comparison between adjacent elements of list occurs which finally sorts the list. Shell sort utilizes insertion sort. SHELL SORT: While sorting a list, insertion sort compares first two elements of list (we consider a list with array based implementation) and sorts them, such that first and second element of list are arranged in required order. After this initial step, third element is involved and is sorted according to the two elements previously sorted and so on. Short comings of insertion sort: While performing insertion sort if list is arranged in most unsorted manner(worst case) or list of to be sorted is lengthy, the process can be extremely time consuming as it involves the comparison and arrangement of every new element considered with other elements already sorted. Improvements with shell sort: If the list is comparatively sorted with slight disordering, it is easier to sort the list as it will require less swapping upon comparison of elements in the list Shell sort improves the sorting process because it compares and non adjoining elements which are far apart, and swaps th... ... and 10 while SPACE ≠¥ 1 3- Set J := SPACE + 1 [initialize counter J] 4- Repeat step 5 ,6 and 9 while J ≠¤ N 5- Set K := J - SPACE [initialize counter K] 6- Repeat step 7 and 8 while K ≠¥ 1 7- If ARRAY[K+SPACE] a- Interchange ARRAY[K+SPACE] and ARRAY[K] [end of if structure] 8- Set K := K-SPACE [decrements counter K ] [end of while loop in step 6] 9- Set J := J+1 [increments counter J ] [end of while loop in step 4] 10- Set SPACE := SPACE/2 [decrements counter SPACE] [end of while loop in step 2] 11- Return [takes control back to calling function]

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Tips for a Successful Relationship

Tips for a Successful Relationship Ezell ORR Communication Instructor: Macy Dailey October 17, 2011 ? Dear Jack and Jill, My advice to you for a successful and everlasting relationship is good communication. Without good communication the relationship/engagement will not develop to the next level of marriage. In the beginning your communication was limited to conversations of neutral agreements because of the initial stage of your relationship. Researchers have found that one of the reasons a new relationship is usually so pleasant and friendly is that people emphasize the similarities they have and ignore the differences (Brown & Rogers, 1991). As your relation blossoms the differences in both of you will surface. Some maybe too minute to entertain, and can be easily overlooked or digested. Constant differences amongst partners that are everyday habits can be discussed and settle without harming the relationship. Disregarding or overlooking major concerns such as, financial matters, sexual preferences, and raising of children can be harmful to the relationship if not handle properly. Counseling may be recommended or advisable in most cases. Every relationship is different, no two relationship are the same. As the relationship unfolds and you both begin to know each other better, you will begin to release information to the other which was somewhat private at the start of the relationship. The most important characteristic of a deep interpersonal relationship is the self-disclosure of our innermost thoughts and feelings (Roeckelein, 1998). When you both begin to exchange personal information, building trust and confidence that is a sign that the relationship is progressing. As the relationship progresses you will be more incline to disclose more of your identity. Self Disclosure is sometime give-and-take, where both parties have equal risk when disclosing personal information. Shared disclosures will increase the vulnerability to being hurt or disrespected by others, and the fact that you both have devoted so much of yourself may make it complicated to break the bond you all have together. Forming a relationship with someone is not like what you see on TV. Communication problems can surface and disrupt the relationship or even bring it to an end. Certain behaviors can really ruin a relationship. Being silent, nice, and playing games; these behaviors can damage a relationship and stand In the way of trust. Everyone tends to be silent at times, but lengthy silence is not good for the relationship. Refusing to talk to someone is frequently a means of controlling the other person or exerting power in a relationship. If it is prolonged, it can even be a form of psychological abuse (Chang, 1996). It is best to try and talk things out oppose to not talking at all. You know the old saying â€Å"time heals everything† so sometime it is better to let things along for a while if both of you understands that there is a problem. Another area of concern is being too nice or being overly agreeable. Don’t put yourself in a position where you would rather let someone have their way or just take the blame to make the problem go away. Playing Games will also destroy a relationship. In 1964, Eric Berne wrote a best-selling book titled Games People Play, which describes how people sometimes have ulterior motives. He called these strategies â€Å"games† (Berne, 1996). He defined games as a dysfunctional way of communicating, and it is a negative pattern of interacting that can develop between people. Berne said, â€Å"In most cases, the participants of the game are unaware that they are playing; they have simply developed a pattern of interacting that is not constructive or useful in growing the relationship†. Playing games at the expense of someone’s feelings is never a good thing. Relationships can easily take a turn for the worst when games are involved. The games will terminate when one of you decides to stop playing. The end result of playing games is that sometimes ends with one person becoming angry or upset. Berne also states that â€Å"regardless of the strategy, open and honest communication can prevent the continuation of a game and its effects on the parties involved. It is best to not play games and let the relationship run its course without any kind of interruptions. ? Another component of having a successful relationship is being a good listener. Everybody who can speak, read, and write were taught to achieve these three components through parenting and school. We take classes in reading, writing, or even speaking but we rarely hear of someone taking classes in listening. You cannot understand others, respond appropriately to what they say, and provide helpful feedback if you have not listened (Hayes, 1991). Listening is one of the most important factors in interpersonal communication. One study estimated that 45 percent of all communication time is spent listening, compared with 30 percent speaking, 16 percent reading, and 9 percent writing (Hayes, 1991). Most people are also generally inefficient listeners; they tend to forget rather quickly what has been said. Within 48 hours, we forget about 50 percent of that information, for an overall retention of about 25 percent efficiency (Lee & Hatesohl, 1993). Most people think that hearing is listening, but much more is involved than just hearing something and waiting for it to get transmitted to your brain to be interpreted. Effective listening is a process that requires six distinct components: (1) motivating yourself to listen, (2) clearly hearing the message, (3) paying attention to the message, (4) correctly interpreting the message, (5) evaluating the message, and (6) remembering and responding appropriately (Adair, 2003). You all must learn to be motivated and have an open mind and be willing to gain something from one another. During conversation between the two of you make sure you can hear each other clearly without any interruption. Virginia Satir (1976) suggests that when you do not clearly hear the speaker, you often make up what you think the other person said. We tend to make an assumption and then hold the other person responsible for not communicating effectively. Paying Attention is another means of effective listening. Messages are sent by verbal and nonverbal means. To be an effective listener you must give your undivided attention to both verbal and nonverbal messages. Never jump to conclusion, let the other party finish their thoughts before you intervene to ensure that you have interpreted the message correctly. ? Interpreting the wrong message or signal can result in causing an interpersonal conflict. Being able to indentify conflict and handle it without incident will improve your relationship. Daniel Dana, a pioneer in the field of mediation, suggested that four factors must be present for a disagreement to be considered a conflict: Two people are interdependent; they each need something from the other. Both parties blame the other or find fault with them for causing the problem. One or more of the parties is angry or emotionally upset. The parties’ behaviors are affecting their relationship with each other and/When conflict emerges, tension are high, and the relationship can be put in jeopardy if not resolved as soon as possible. In all relationships, whether friendly, romantic, or family, conflict is unavoidable. Conflict can be hazardous to your health because it has the potential to get out of control, but it can also have value that can reinforce the relationship. Researchers Patricia Noller and Judith Feeney (2002) reported that some conflict may actually be good for a marriage over time and can lead to the personal growth of both parties if the negative communication is aimed at the other person’s specific behavior and not at the whole person. Another scholar from Harvard University reported that conflict has other value as well. He noted, in businesses and other organizations, conflict increases the necessity to accomplish tasks, it helps people understand their positions because it brings issues out into the open and forces them to support their arguments, and it gives all parties to the conflict a greater awareness of their own identities. Walton also suggested that conflict can help people be more creative in finding solutions to problems. Avoiding conflict is always better than promoting conflict. Sometimes it is best to get away and let the air clear. When emotions are high and tensions are peaking, a little space between each other will relax the atmosphere. I am not saying to just â€Å"sweep it under the rug† and hope it just go away. However, researchers found that the pattern that indicates a relationship is failing is that angry words are exchanged, the anger escalates, and then the withdrawal occurs. In other words, in falling relationship, negative emotions overwhelm the interaction between the parties, who then withdraws from each other (Zautra, 2003). Psychotherapist and author Virginia Satir suggests that we are initially attracted to people because of what we have in common with them, but we grow on the basis of our differences (Aatir, 1976). When you first meet someone you try and field them out. For a relationship to develop, you must have some initial interest. Some people will ask questions about another person, or they will watch someone to see if they meet the physical qualification. Some may listen to how someone speaks, there are several different techniques we use to gather information about someone whom we may be attracted to or want to get to know better. Theorists believe that several factors may influence your attraction to certain people. These factors are physical proximity, physical attractiveness, perceived gain, and similarities and differences (Hartley, 1999). Physical attractiveness is one of the first thing most people explore prior to entertaining a relationship. Some like their mate to be slim, some like them to be a little on the heavy side, some like them to be tall, short, or even short and round. Psychologists have found, however, that you are strongly influenced by prototypes of the idea male and female form as portrayed by media in our culture (Cattarin, Thompson, Thomas, & Williams, 2000). Some people is attracted to others because of what they think they can gain from being in the company of superstars or other high ranking individuals. Do you find yourself associating with people because who they are, or what you think they have and maybe you could be a part of it, in other words, you just want to be seen with someone who you believe you can benefit from. You have probably heard the saying, â€Å"Birds of a feather flock together. †Which saying is true? According to researchers, both are accurate (Hartley, 1999). It is good to know someone of importance or someone who is a superstar, but trying to put yourself in a position to gain something thru someone else’s fame, it just not worth the trouble. If you grew up with someone who have recently gain fame and fortune and you wish to associate yourself with them and they welcome your interest that will be entirely up to you. Emotional Intelligence is another area you should be familiar with to have a successful relationship. Knowing how to manage, communicate, and understand emotional feelings. Emotional Intelligence is similar to emotional health, the higher your emotional intelligence-the higher your emotional health is. Emotional health allows you to stay in touch with your own feelings while you are exposed to the feelings of others. It also enables you to handle life’s emotional setbacks in a healthy manner instead of taking your feelings on others (Segal, 1997). Emotional intelligence has three components: (1) the ability to effectively perceive, communicate, and manage negative emotions; (2) the ability to experience, communicate, and ustain positive emotions; and (3) the ability to retain perspective during difficult times and to recover following stressful events (Zautra, 2003). Most positive and negative feeling you encounter is a condition of your thoughts and your interpretation of events within the relationship. Psychotherapist and author Richard Carlson (1997) suggests that you think of negative thoughts similar to the way you think about your dreams. Y ou may awaken and be upset about something that occurred in a dream. But you understand that dreaming is merely thinking while you are asleep, and you dismiss the negative dream because you realize that it is not reality. The negative thoughts you have while awake also seem real, but they are not necessarily the truth. You can dismiss them like bad dreams and not allow them to spiral out of control until they ruin an entire day or even a lifetime. When negative thoughts assail you, Carlson suggests you remind yourself of the following: â€Å"We all produce a steady stream of thoughts, twenty-four hours a day. . . Pick and choose which thoughts you wish to react to â€Å". Everybody has different moods happiness. You can be happy and be in a good mood, or you can be mad or sad about something and keep your feelings inside and you can appear to be in a good mood. Moods are simply a part of being human, and being able to understand these moods oppose to letting them get the best of you will help you manage conflict. When you are in a good mood, everyth ing look good, you feel good, and life if great. However, a bad mood can ruin your day and the people around you. We know that words are not things; they are merely symbols that represent things. So as linguist Robin Tolmach Lakoff asks, â€Å"How can something that is physically just puffs of air, a mere stand-in for reality, have the power to change us and our world? †(Lakoff, 2001). Words are very powerful, they can cause pain, damage, excitement, and they can inspire you. Words are magical in the way they affect the minds of those who use them. â€Å"A mere matter of words,â€Å" we say contemptuously, forgetting that words have power to mould men’s thinking, to canalize their feeling, to direct their willing and acting. Conduct and character are largely determined by the nature of the words we currently use to discuss ourselves and the world around us. (Huxley, 1940). One of the first things children do when they first learn language is to identify parts of their bodies such as their eyes, mouths, or toes. They can say a word and touch the body part at the same time, so they tend to think that words have direct correlation with objects in the physical world. Thus, as children, and then as adults, we are misled into thinking th;at this item or object is what the word â€Å"means. Because we communicate with others, and they understand us, the word must mean the same to everyone else as it does to us (Kreidler, 1998). Words can mean different things to different people. Words are symbols, and they do not have the same meaning to everyone. Words reflect attitude, some words can be offensive to some cultures and less offensive to others. When words are interpret wrong it can caused confusion and proble ms. The meaning you interpret from a message is always personal and is the result of many factors including your personality and experiences. Communication always occurs in a context, so the meaning of a message often depends on the context of the communication. ? References Satir, V. (1976). Making Contact. Millbrae, CA: Celestial Arts. Zautra, A. J. (2003). Emotions, stress, and health. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press. Segal, J. (1997). Raising your emotional intelligence: A practical guide. New York: Henry Holt. Huxley, A. (1940). Words and Their Meanings. Los Angeles, CA: The Ward Ritchie Press. Hartley, P. (1999). Interpersonal communication. Florence, KY: Routledge. Lakoff, R. T. (2010). Language war. Ewing, NJ: University of California Press. Cattarin, J. A. , Thompson, J. K. , Thomas, C. , & Williams, R. (2000). Body image, mood, and televised images of attractiveness. The role of social comparison. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19(2), 220–239. Retrieved, March 9, 2011, from Pro–Quest Research Library. doi: 55606627. Lee, D. , & Hatesohl, D. (1993). Listening: Our most used communication skill. CM 150, Communications. University of Missouri Extension. Retrieved December 5, 2010, from http://extension. missouri. edu/publications/DisplayPub. aspx? P=CM150?

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Divine perfection of a woman Essay

The play Richard III shows power, greed and ambition and how doing these things can effect other people and change how you act and think. In the world today someone who is like Richard in the way that he is greedy and power hungry is Saddam Hussein. The whole play shows how Richard is ambitious, greedy and power hungry. At the start of the play he is ambitious because he has set himself a task to become king. This shows that he is greedy because he is not happy with what position he is at that moment and wants more power. The way in which he does this is by killing anyone who could prevent him from becoming king. I think Shakespeare may have wanted to show that having ambition, power and a little greed is ok but if you lose your head and want more and more power making you become more greedy it could result in not just other people getting hurt but you getting hurt in the end as well. Like in the end of the play Richard ends up dying as a result of his extreme amount of power and greed. I think he wanted the audience to admire him for his cleverness in his schemes and the way he has organised everything. In some points the audience do admire him for his cleverness but straight after he has brought the audience to his side he does something extremely viscous and evil that the audience off liking him. People who are like Richard always end up getting paid back for all their wrong doings, well in some cases any way. Like Adolf Hitler who ended up dying because of all the bad things he had done i.e. WWII. So what Shakespeare is saying is, all bad you do to others you will get back to you. The opening speech that Richard says is to the crowd is directly at them and makes you think he’s a nice person because he makes a few funny comments which makes the crowd laugh and grow to like him. This also makes the audience watching the film like Richard too because he seems like a nice person, but when he walks into the toilets away from the crowd he talks at the audience saying that he’s ugly, which makes the audience feel sorry for Richard. Straight after he says this he tells you about a plan he’s made. First of all you admire him for being ambitious but long after when you find out what his plan will involve, i.e. killing many people who could prevent him from becoming king, you start to really dislike him and wonder how on earth you liked him in the first place. He says, â€Å"I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of the day,† meaning that basically Richard is going to become evil and never have pleasure. This little extract of something that Richard says shows him to be very evil in the fact that he wants to become hated. Another thing Richard says is â€Å"Plots have I laid, induction’s dangerous† which means that Richard is plotting some dangerous schemes, and is another reason why people watching the film would turn their nose up at Richard. The audiences overall impression of Richard is that he is a very ambitious man but his ambition will lead to murders being committed so therefore they would think he is a very sly and wicked man. Also the audience would think that Richard is two-faced because first of all he is very nice to Lady Ann and wants her to marry him, but when he has done this he then wants her to be killed. Shakespeare makes you both admire and hate Richard. For example, you would hate Richard in scene one when he talks to you about what evil things he has planned. Where as in Act one Scene two you grow to admire him again because of the way he flatters and wins over Lady Ann with words. He says things like â€Å"Sweet saint† and â€Å"Divine perfection of a woman† meaning he thinks she is perfect. But when Richard has said these flattering comments to Lady Ann, she immediately repels him by saying insults like â€Å"Diffused infection of a man† meaning that she thinks he is a grotty, disgusting and horrible man and â€Å"Thou unfit for any place but hell† which means that Lady Ann thinks that the only place that Richard could possibly live in is hell. Despite all these insults she throws at Richard he still wins her over with his flattering comments. He eventually marries Ann after having killed her husband and father, which she knew he had done. Richard should be admired for his cleverness for the way he won over Lady Ann and set up his schemes, never the less he shouldn’t be praised too much because he is still an evil and devious man who has committed murders. Also towards the end of Act One Scene Two he starts to get cocky after winning over Lady Ann and says some evil comments like â€Å"Was ever woman in this humour won? I’ll have her; but I will not keep her long† this is saying that he will marry Lady Ann but after a little while he will kill her. This will give the audience a very nasty image of Richard because of his evil antics. Act One Scene Three is where Queen Margaret curses all the people she hates. She says horrible remarks like â€Å"God, I pray him, that none of you may live your natural age† which means that she is saying that all the people she hates she doesn’t want to live a long life, and another quotation is â€Å"Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest, and take deep traitors for thy dearest friends† which means that she wants all the people she hates to die so they can’t hurt her friends. Richard is one of the people Queen Margaret hated so therefore she cursed him. When she curses Richard she says to him â€Å"No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, Unless it be whilst a tormenting dream, affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!† This curse actually comes true and like the quotation says Richard has a terrifying dream making him panic and sweat. What happens in the dream is ghosts surround Richard and curse him saying â€Å"despair and die!† over and over again terrifying Richard through the night. But the scene with Richards terrifying dream was not included in the film.