MIS Case study

5.1 : THE GREENING OF THE DATA CENTER

1. What business and social problems does data center power consumption cause?

The business of data center cause is such as video on demand, maintaining web sites, analyzing large pools of transactions or social media data that require more and more power-hungry machines businesses. Besides that, the social problem that the data center power consumption cause is high corporate operating costs.

2. What solutions are available for these problems? Are they people, organizational, or technology solutions? Explain your answer.

People, for  example Acorda.

• A $210 million-per-year maker of drugs to treat nervous disorders such as multiple sclerosis.

• Installed motion sensors and invested in intelligent cooling system to boost energy efficiency at the new facility.

• Preparing to test virtualized desktops.

Organizational, for example Facebook

• Publicly posted the specifications for the design of its data centers.

• Facebook’s engineers modified the programming in the servers.

Technology, for example cloud computing system

• Optimized for virtualization and for supporting as many different subscribing companies as possible.

• Produce major savings when doing the computing for large numbers of companies.

3. What are the business benefits and costs of these solutions?

- Reduce the human resources in data centre

- Virtualization in data centre helps to reduce the number of servers and storage resources in a firm's IT infrastructure.

-Make firm more energy- efficient

- Installed motion sensors will shut off light after five minutes if no movement is detected. This enable firm greatly reduce the power required to run workstation.

- Reduce corporate operating costs

- Intelligent cooling system will automatically changes setting of computer as the conditions change. Intelligent cooling system helps the firm to save the electric supply and thus, reduce the operating costs.

4. Should all firms move toward green computing? Why or Why not?

-Yes.

-It is very efficient to reduce their power requirements

-Reduce costs

-Reducing impacts on environmental and human health

-Helps to minimize the energy consumption by educating consumers on efficient ways to keep power   usage low.

6.1 : BUSINESS INTELLIGENT HELPS THE CINCINNATI ZOO KNOW ITS CUSTOMERS

    Question 1.     What people, organization, and technology factors were behind Cincinnati Zoo losing opportunities to increase revenue?

The factors of losing opportunities to increase revenue are the management and the systems of Cincinnati Zoo itself.  This is because the management had limited knowledge and understanding of what was actually happen in the Zoo om daily basis. They also did not know what was the total revenue and the amount of people came to the Zoo every day. The system that embedded now is out of date, because they are using different system for different department, which is a different point-of-sale platform. Other than that, they are still relied on manual cash registers, so the management had to sift through paper receipts to understand daily sales total.

       Question 2.     Why was replacing legacy point-of-sale systems and implementing a data warehouse essential to an information system solution?

         Replacing legacy point-of-sale systems and implementing a data warehouse because point-of-sale system are not synchronise and centralise because they had different point-of-sale, so it’s hard to identify and analysis the revenue for each day, the amount of visitor came to the zoo. Data warehouse make it much easier to provide secure access to this management. Data warehouse is all in one, the ability of receiving data from many different sources, meaning any system in Cincinnati Zoo can contribute data of the visitors.

       Question 3.  Describe the types of information gleaned from data mining that helped the Zoo better understand visitor behaviour.

Firstly, Business Intelligence, Zoo needed to focus more on analytics and data management. The Zoo replaced its four legacy point of sale systems with a single platform. It enlisted IBM and BrightStar partners to build a centralized data warehouse and improvement IBM Cognos Business Intelligence to provide real time analytics and reporting. Secondly, high velocity automated decision making. The zoo now feeds weather forecast data from U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website into its business intelligence system. By comparing current forecast to historic attendance and sales data during similar weather condition, the zoo is able to make more accurate decision about labour scheduling and inventory planning. In addition, zoo’s loyalty reward card, the zoo’s system captures this data and analyses them to determine usage and spending patterns down to the individual customer level. This information helps the zoo segment visitors based on their spending and visitation behaviours and use this information to target marketing and promotion specifically for each customer segments.

Question 4.  How did the Cincinnati Zoo benefit from business intelligence? How did it enhance operational performance and decision making?

          Cincinnati Zoo enhances operational performance the operation by providing real-time analytics and reporting. Besides, the Zoo make more accurate decisions about labour scheduling and inventory planning by feed weather forecast data from U.S. national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Websites to comparing current forecasts to historic attendance and sales data during similar weather conditions. 

            The Zoo use the information to achieve target marketing and promotions through use the Zoo’s Loyalty Reward card. The Zoo give rewarded to loyal customer to achieve targeted marketing and recognition programs. The Zoo’s soft-serve ice cream outlets are open for the entire day to achieve their income. Their use IBM analytics to identify which beer is selling best, on what day, and what time to make sure inventory meets demand which is previously take long time and required hiring part-time staff to sift through register tapes. 

            The Cincinnati Zoo benefit from business intelligence is an operation has led to dramatic improvements in sales. Besides, the Zoo achieve a 30.7 per cent  increase in food sales, and a 5.9 percent increase in retail sales compared to the same period a year earlier.    

            The Zoo making decision to change information systems that aimed to focus more on analytics and data management. The Zoo replaced four legacy points of sales systems with a single platform like Galaxy POS from Gateway Ticketing Systems, enlisted IBM and BrightStar Partners.

                                             

            Question 5. The Zoo’s management recently stated that it might have to ask for more revenue from taxes in order to provide the same level of quality and service in the future. How might business intelligence be used to prevent this from happening?

            Business intelligence can be used to prevent Zoo’s management from ask for more revenue from taxes in order to provide the same level of quality and service in the future. By using business intelligence, Zoo’s management was sending a special offer to its entire mailing list to tailor campaigns more precisely to smaller group of people. So, it can increase the chances of identifying the people who were most likely to respond to their mailings.

            Besides that, by using business intelligence, Zoo’s management also get more detailed data analysis of a big spike in soft-serve ice cream sales. The detailed data analysis showed that a big spike in soft-serve ice cream sales occurs during the last hour before the Zoo closes. As a result, the Zoo’s soft-serve ice cream outlets are open for the entire day.

            Business intelligence help Zoo’s management make some IBM analytics. With the result of IBM analytic, management can now instantly identify which beer is selling best, on what day, and at what time to make sure inventory meets demand. Its help Zoo’s management get the information in a short period of time without required hiring part-time staff to sift through register tapes.

            Conclusion, with using business intelligence, it improve the Zoo’s ability to make better decisions about operations has led to dramatic improvements in sales. So, in the future, Zoo’s management can get more revenue from taxes in order to provide the same level of quality and service.


VIOLET Group Members:

SHEIKH ARHAIZIQ B SHEIKH ARZIMAN	B061410194
NIK NADHIRAH BT NIK AHMAD KAMIL	B061410236
NURHASYIMAH BT AB HAMID	B061410217
NYEW MUI KIN	B061410050
MOHD FARHAN HELMI B JAUHARI	B061410117
NUR SYAFIQAH AUNI BT KAMARUZAMAN	B061410097