Question

Question :

Identify and describe two specific instances of business intelligence that (to the best of your current knowledge) your organization does not currently have, but should aggressively pursue obtaining or creating within the next 2 – 6 months. In the space below: describe the intelligence you think you need to pursue, tell me what data the intelligence should be based upon, tell me how that data could be collected, tell me how the raw data should be turned into intelligence (I don’t need algorithms or specific formulas- just give me a high-level description of the process). Next, tell me how that intelligence can be used- what decisions would that intelligence facilitate? Give me a rough estimate of how much this intelligence would cost to obtain/create, and also, the value of this intelligence to your organization.

Instructions: Please write your answers in the format of a memo directed at your immediate supervisor- this of this as a proposal you will make to your boss, in the hope that your boss will get “on board” and want to champion your idea to his or her boss.  

Your essay should be a maximum of 2 pages of writing, with 2 extra pages of appendices allowed for tables, charts, etc. if you so require.

Your memo should be the last 2-4 pages of this document.

Answers based on Information Systems .

Answer 1

1.Introduction and Background

As a part of an educational institution which specializes on Business Administration and Management, it is imperative that the marketing strategies have to be immediately improved especially during the commencement of academic year and a much needed renovation of the infrastructural facilities provided to the students, faculties and staff.The areas are improvement have been suggested on the basis of ongoing complaints from the existing students, faculty and staff members which has presumably affected the new admission rate in the recent years as well as higher levels of employee resignation.However to devise a proper planning on how the organization can improve on the two specific aspects mentioned,it can implement certain Business Intelligence (BI) tools to uncover the actual cause behind these aforementioned deficiencies by conducting an extensive statistical analysis.With the main objective towards betterment this report mainly describes the data description and data sources, the main BI analytical methods that will be implemented in these 2 specific instances,the value of BI analysis to the organization,expected findings from the studies and future considerations in marketing decision making and infrastructural improvements.

2.Data Description and Sources

As a part of the strategic decision making regarding marketing for enhancing admission, the organization can conduct a thorough consumer survey (in this case potential candidate survey) well ahead of the new academic year to identify the main criteria/factors that affect the admission decision of the students and the parents. Now, initially the organization must focus on enhancing market share by putting emphasis on the local area as majority of the new candidates come from the local area.In this regard,the organization can prepare a questionaire which could include some of the important factors such as admission cost and tution fees,college facilities,faculty credibility,student development program,teaching methods,student performance from previous years,infrastructural factors etc. which could potentially affect the admission decisions of the students and parents.These are the possible explanatory variables in the statistical model and dependent variable in this case is the admission decision of the students and the parents.

Now, the data could be randomly collected from the students who have completed their schooling and beggining the undergraduate program.In this context, the organization has to clearly identify the data sources and utilize them to their best advantage.Some of the major data sources in this case comprise of student community pages in social media such as facebook, instagram or pinterest and also deploying current students/employee to distribute the questionaire to their personal connections (friends,relatives,family members) who will be the potential candidates for new admission.

Now,concerning the second issue which is based on infrastructural improvements for students, staff and faculty, the organization can directly undertake a transparent and unbiased survey within the organization which would include only the present undergraduate students from all years,faculty members and staff from all internal departments.As it is an internal employee survey,the organization has to strictly ensure the unbiasedness and transperancy of the survey which depends on the mentality of the students/employee and the existing work culture.In this case, the major research objective is to distinctly recongnize the areas which can be improved to provide a better work environment for both students and employees.Some of the pivotal factors involved in this model might include classroom facilities (comfort level, availability of proper teaching tools etc), other student facilities such as advanced computer lab,necessary tutoring or external assistance outside classroom,teaching quality,salary obtained by staff/faculty,facilities provided to faculty/staff such as personal office space,other amenities such as computer, proper work area and so forth.Again, these are the main explanatory variable in the model and the dependent variable could be the satisfaction level of students,faculty and staff members.

3.Main Research Method under BI

In the first instance pertaining to new admission, the organization can construct a frequency distribution table in the form of a bar graph or pie chart reflecting the percentage of candidates in each of the categories in the model such as admission cost and tution fees,teaching methods,student development program,college facilities and henceforth.Consequently,the organization can obtain a clear insight into whar factor/s or criteria the local candidates put most emphasis into when deciding about undergraduate admission based on what percentage of candidates fall into each cateogory in the bar graph or pie chart.As an extension of this intial estimation the organization can conduct a Regression Analysis (possibly a Probit/Logit Model as the dependent variable "admission decision by students or parents" is not a continous variable) to estimate what are the factors that most significantly impact the admission decisions of the future students and consequently implement marketing strategies for new admissions incorporating these decisive factors.

Secondly,similar to the first instance, to determine the areas of infrastructural improvements for existing students,faculty and staff, the organization can construct a summary statistics table for each of the explanatory variables such as classroom facilities,faculty and staff salary level and the ones mentioned in part 2 or the data section.Summary statistics includes the mean,standard deviation,variance of each of the variables or factors indicating an overview of the number of respondents emphasizing on each of the variables.Furthermore,like the first instance,a bar graph or pie chart illustrating frequency distribution of each of the variables would also provide a better idea of the most important factors that might be considered in implementing infrastructural improvements and facilitate decision making in this aspect.

These statistical studies can be conducted by using any advanced statistical software such as SAS,STATA,MATLAB,PYTHON OR SPSS.However, considering the subscription fee for each of these tools,SPSS or SAS would be relatively cost effective compared to the other ones.All of these tools are highly advanced and comprehensive and can carry out any basic or advanced statistical analysis.Furthermore,by providing minimum training anyone can use these software tools even without much IT or statistical expertise thereby saving salary for another IT professional or a statistical expert.Hence, the BI tools are usually simple to learn and implement thereby providing value to the organization both practically(strategic decision making both internally and externally) as well as financially.

4.Expected Findings and Future Considerations

Under the BI analysis it is practically expected that many significant factors can be unravelled which could potentially lead to effective decision making in the areas of marketing for admission and student/staff retention by improving existing infrastructural facilities.It is evident that students or parents are much more concerned about additional attributes other than just teaching such as tution fees,education cost,extracurriculur activities,student development programs,cultural engagements in the campus and much more.An effective BI mechanism would expectedly unravel many of these factors which could be incorporated into marketing strategies for the upcoming academic year.

Likewise,in the area of student/employee satisfaction,the organization has to work on maximizing involvement and cooperation to create a better work environment and ensure higher retention rate both for students and employee.In this regard,The BI tools could assist the company to find out major factors such as salary issue,existing facilities for students/faculty/staff etc to change the organizational structure in their favor and prevent future dropouts.Some of the practical attributes of employee and student satiafaction in modern educational institutes are related to salary and monetary issues which are some of the universal concerns.

As mentioned in this particular instance, BI tools are used only in two specific aspects.However, it is advisable that the organization starts utilizing at a much broader scale because as explained its value is indeed immense to any business organization in multiple areas.