Information Systems: Research

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1. What are the business benefits of BI deployments such as those implemented by Avnet and Quaker Chemical? What roles do data and business processes play in achieving those benefits? Avnet deployed systems from three BI vendors- Informatica, Business Objects, and InfoBurst- to generate reports on orders and shipment schedules. To serve customers Avnet gave access to its 2000 salespeople so as to incorporate information into meaningful flow of day-to-day interactions with customers. From then on, employees could utilize the information to improve the performance among the sales team. CIO Philips says that Business Intelligence helps to recognize the difference among “sales teams” and helps the laggard teams to achieve the level of Leaders. Therefore, BI helps to make Avnet’s sales team to be more flexible and get adapted to the information at hand. Overall Business Benefits: time saving, efficiency, flexibility, boosting performance. Quaker Chemical used BI to alert the system of managing its accounts receivable. By using BI the company was able to identify which customers were not paying at all, which of them were paying late. This saves time and makes the company more efficient in coping with daily concerns about the customer transactions. The intelligent system supports decision making by giving clear information on customers’ sales history. Data plays an important role in generating those benefits by helping to organize the relevant information in totally deploying Business Intelligence. 2. What are the main challenges to the change of mindset required to extend BI tools beyond mere reporting? What can companies do to overcome them? Use examples from the case to illustrate your answer. The main challenges in extending BI tools are the scope of implementation and time needs which are required to improve the system beyond mere reporting.

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