Blog 2, Week 3

 Chapter 2 Questions

Define TPS & DSS, and explain how an organisation can use these systems to make decisions and gain competitive advantages

Transaction processing system: is the basic business system that serves the operational level in an organisation. For example, an accounting system such as payroll.

Decision Support System: models information to support managers and business professionals during the decision making process.

 

Describe the three quantitative models typically used by decision support systems.

Sensitivity analysis, which is the study of the impact that changes in one (or more) parts of the model have on other parts of the model. Users change the value of one variable repeatedly and observe the resulting changes in other variables.

What-if analysis, which checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution.

Goal-seeking analysis, which finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output. Instead of observing how it changes in a variable affect other variables as in what-if analysis, goal-seeking analysis sets a target value for a variable and then repeatedly changes other variables until the target value is achieved.

Describe a business processes and their importance to an organisation.

A business process is a standardised set of activities that accomplish a specific task, such as processing a customer’s order. 

Business processes are designed to add value for the customer. Examining business processes helps an organisation to eliminate duplicate activities, combine related activities, and identify smooth-running processes. Developing a logical business processes is important to an organisation as it can help the in achieve the desired goals.

Compare business process improvement and business process re-engineering.

Business process improvement attempts to understand and measure the current process and make performance improvements accordingly. All business processes should be repeated over and over again as it continuously tries to improve. This process should be based on business strategic goals. On the other hand, Business process re-engineering is the analysis and redesign of work flow within and between enterprises. It relies on a different school of thought than business process improvement.

Describe the importance of business process modelling (or mapping) and business process models.

Business Process Modelling (BMP) = the activity of making a detailed flow chat or process map of a work processor. It aims to: 

• Show processes in detail in a gradual and controlled manner.
• Encourage consciousness and accuracy in describing the process model.
• Focus attention on the process model interfaces
• Provide a powerful process analysis consistent design vocabulary.
• Importance is: it sets a benchmark or a standard of behaviour for businesses to follow. It’s a visual      source for employees to view when at work.