Question

1. Should a company have the right to mine data on their customers. Does your opinion change if their data contains your personal information? 2. Define a DBMS, describe how it works, and explain how it benefits a company. 3. List and describe the different types of decisions and how does the decision-making process work?

Answer 1

1. No company should have the right to mine customer data if it includes the personal information. Almost all companies use the information provided during registration and the data obtained through trackers to bucket the customers into groups and show selected information, provider specific services to them. But while doing the analysis using personal information, it is highly possible that the data may get leaked and can be misused by others. If the personal information is not taken for analysis, the generic information would not help anyone to get detailed insights into the customer profile. To ensure the customer profiling stays to a particular level and does not drill down to the granular level and cause data insecurity, companies are working with internet security consultants to raise the security standards and implement the best practices. While the companies may argue that the customer profiling helps them to get better insights and provide better personalized service, the customer may not want them if he is made aware that his day to day web browsing, shopping preference, location history etc. are being tracked by any company.

2. DBMS stands for database management system. Every company has multiple services with multiple customers. Each service has numerous sub layers of internal service and links associated with it. When a customer visits a shopping website and places an order, he is calling a service to do the work he wants. That service is linked to many shops, logistics partners and tracking platforms. All these data needs to be stored in servers so that customers and internal employees can easily uses the system. The data is stored in Databases and to manage them a centralized system is used. Such systems are called database management systems. They act as a single point to call the data, read, write, retrieve and update information in the placeholder in the day to day operations. DBMS helps in ensuring all data is easily accessible to the internal and external stakeholders. In the scenario described, suppose the customer has to go into one data base select the product, then go into another select the payment option, then into another and select the logistics provider it would be trouble and something that the customer does not need. All these linkages and data retrievals are done via DBMS systems. The major benefits for companies are DBMS acting as single SPOC for data movement and seamless transition of data across multiple data bases.

3. Decision making process in a DBMS environment can be broadly classified into following types (Waman Jawadekar)

• Status inquiry system: Decisions in daily operations and management are based on one or two aspects of a decision making scenario. In such cases, detailed computations and analysis are not used. If the status of a problem is known then decision is automatic. In such cases, the system provides an update on the status and solution based on specific inquires since they has unique relations.

• Data analysis system: Data analysis systems are based on comparative analysis and use multiple formulae’s or algorithm to aid in decision making. But these processes are not structured. Fund flow analysis, inventory management etc. are couple of examples. The use of simple data processing tools and business rules are required to develop this system.

• Information analysis system: In this system, available data is deeply understood, results are driver and corresponding reports are provided to users. The reports highlight any exceptions. The decision makers use these reports for assessment of the situation for decision making.

• Model based system: They are simulation models or optimization models for decision making. Some outcomes of such models are used in network design, warehouse optimization, vehicle management, slot management, route optimization etc. Such models provide an optimum solution to the users using which they can take informed decision on real time issues.