Week 3

Data bases have a strong influence on today's business world. There are many aspects in which businesses whether big or small rely on data bases. One that I would like to focus on is how information is transferred.

I work at a corporation owned restaurant chain called Market Street Grill, or Gastronomy Inc. There each shift I am required to clock in and out each shift and report on the money I made. Many items are automatically calculated when I do this. For example, employee meals, at a mandatory cost of $2.99 a shift, are automatically applied to my employee number along with my vacation hours which are directly tied to how many hours I work each day. At the end of my shift, as I am tipped out or payed, credit card payments are automatically recorded on my name for tax and company record purposes. Without such automation, it would take more than hundreds of hours to calculate each of these aspects and many more for the 90 servers that work and my store's location and all 3 other large stores located in Salt Lake. This cuts back on wages, allowing one or just a handful of employees to manage and interpret the data given verses having dozens of employee record, transfer and record the same data.

This is only one of millions of examples in my own life of how data has be transferred and managed facilitation my life and the lives of many.

Learning about and how to create and use data bases is a very important tool and can make an employee very valuable in a business. My father who majored in Information Systems at BYU, and runs a successful law firm stated, "today more than ever, in almost any business, it is vital to be up to date on the latest and easiest way to store and transfer data. This can give a business a competitive advantage and also help to cut back on overhead costs" (Davis, Halston)

References:
Davis, Halston Attorney at Law. Sept. 25, 2009. Intervewer Jordan Davis

Week 2

The subject of competitive advantage really caught my eye this week as we studied and proved how technology can play a key role in this area. Walmart, a company that we spoke a lot about, has many competitive advantages. Many thought for a long time that it was their low prices on such a wide variety of products all in one place. In reality, their supply chain management system has proven to be one of the best in the nation. Such advantages would be nearly impossible without the information systems world in which we now live. For example, when a Walmart product is bought at the store, a signal is directly sent out, on the hour for that product to be restocked from a nearby warehouse. There at the warehouse, a highly developed packaging system highlights which and how many of each product goes into each specified box directed to each store.


Some may look down on Walmart because of this advantage, and the way many small locally owned businesses have gone out of business because of it's unbeatable low prices. I personally look at them as furthering the boundaries of competitive advantage driving small businesses to look for other ways to rise up. Such competition is healthy in the economy and drives innovation and new ideas to a new level.


As far as competitive advantage goes, I think that Professor Andrea Masini of the London Business School makes a very good point when she said, “[...] whatever you do make sure your processes remain unique, otherwise even poor companies will be able to catch you up buying the same processes off the shelf.” [1] True that discovering such advantages and maintaining them may be very time consuming and pricey, it can either make or break any company. Thus, because of it's significant importance, a company would be wise to put this item at the top of a priority list, embedded in mission statements, and constantly implemented and revised when necessary.



[1] Cristian Annesley, "Bank CIOs must help to keep competitive advantage", Journal, http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/10/04/218897/bank-cios-must-help-to-keep-competitive-advantage.htm, Accessed 19 September 2009.

Week 1

I'm new at blogging myself but I think I could really get into it, especially after watching the movie Julie/Julia, a newly released film were a housewife attempts to make all the recipes from a famous cook book by Julia Childs and blogs the results. (Not really a man-flick, but my girlfriend and I enjoyed it).

I recently transferred into the class and missed the first week but I do have a strong opinion about information systems and how technology plays a key roll in today's business world. In almost all of the business classes I've taken so far information systems has been mentioned. Only last week in my statistics class was it was mentioned that technology reinvents itself every four years. It's for that reason that it is so important to stay caught up and in tune especially in today's competitive business world.

With an effficient transfer of information and a strong system to base a company, the sky becomes the limit and growth opportunities becaome endless. In my marketing class we learned about how inportant it is to gather data and find out how your company is doing in terms of strenths, weaknesses, and growth opportunites. This information can be passed and analysed quickly and effectively if done correctly.

I'm excited to learn more in this class and expand my knowlege of how technology and information systems can help in an ever transforming world.