Exam 15: Managing Information

In today's hypercompetitive business environments, capital (i.e., money)is still more important than information for business success.

WWYD Delta Airlines lose bags. They need to handle thousands of bags per day and then rush them to connecting planes or baggage carousels. The challenging logistics, however, don't make up for the impact of delays on passengers. In all, 31 million bags are delivered late worldwide each year. In the U.S., seven people per 1,000 passengers, or roughly one per plane, don't get their luggage on time, and they file 7.5 million mishandled baggage reports a year. Over the last decade, the three largest airlines, American, United, and Delta, have been the worst. Delta is 30 percent worse compared to the best airlines. Second, 28 percent more bags are delayed today compared to a decade ago. No wonder passengers are frustrated, especially when charged a handling fee for checked bags. Nothing like paying extra to have the airline lose your bags, especially when Delta brings in $952 million a year in bag fees! Passengers are beginning to realize that bag fees bring in much more than the cost to deliver bags, so they have every right to expect Delta to do a better job delivering bags. After all, if Amazon can send emails and texts notifying customers when their orders leave the warehouse, arrive at their local airports, and are delivered to their homes, then why can't Delta do the same thing with luggage that's supposed to never leave the airport? Delta Airline's historically poor job of handling baggage is clearly related to Delta trailing its competitors in the use of information technology to track and manage baggage handling. While Delta catches up with its competitors in terms of high-tech baggage handling systems, it is the first airline to offer real-time tracking of passengers' bags. Not unlike tracking an Amazon shipment, Delta's real-time tracking allow passengers to know precisely where their bags are from check-in, to the flight on which they're loaded, to the baggage carousel where they're hopefully waiting. Passengers receive a tracking number for each bag and can track its whereabouts using their smartphones. Should a bag be delayed, that tracking number is easily entered into baggage claim forms on Delta's website. The challenge for airlines such as Delta, which have begun or are considering self-tagging systems, is not capturing information or processing information, but protecting information. All airlines use bar codes on boarding passes, either printed from your home computer or from the check-in kiosk at the airport. An increasing number of airlines, including Delta, now send electronic boarding passes containing bar codes via email to passengers' smartphones to be scanned in place of bar codes on printed boarding passes. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA)says that paperless boarding passes are more secure "and will prevent fraudulent paper boarding passes that could be created and printed at home." Why? Because instead of physically examining a printed copy of a boarding pass, TSA agents will scan the bar code on the electronic boarding pass to ensure its validity at the checkpoint. Passengers will still be required to show photo identification so officers can validate that the name on the boarding pass matches the name on the ID. Refer to WWYD Delta. Delta's new real-time tracking system, in which each bag is assigned and tracked via a unique bag code, is an example of turning _____into ____ for passengers.

Using ____ data mining, the user simply tells the data mining software to uncover whatever patterns and relationships it can find in a data set.

According to the resource-based view of information technology, what are the three critical issues that companies need to address in order to sustain a competitive advantage through information technology?

By examining checkout data, supermarkets have learned that people who are buying beer typically also buy a bag of salty snacks. As a result of this finding from ____, supermarkets often place displays of beer near the chips and pretzel aisle.

In the process of capturing information, ASCII text is generated by ____.

The key to sustaining a competitive advantage is using information technology to continuously improve and support the core functions of a business.

Describe the two critical steps that can be used to ensure that an organization's data can be accessed only by authorized users. How does biometrics relate to this process?

Discuss the issues, advantages, and risks associated with using information to gain or maintain strategic advantage.

Data mining often reveals data clusters where three or more database elements occur together.

A company has built a(n)____ that will automate its purchasing transactions and other e-commerce activities with its small- to mid-size suppliers. It will provide thousands of the company's suppliers with secure access to critical trading partner information and will facilitate trading partner automation.

Association patterns are also called sequence patterns.

Understanding that consumers wanted clean, convenient food when they were away from home was the information the first fast food restaurant founder used to ____.

Moore's law accounts for the rapid increase in power and reduction in both size and price of computer equipment over the past 35 years.

A(n)____ uses internal and external sources of data to provide managers and executives the information they need to monitor and analyze organizational performance.

Three major types of information technology are used by executives, managers, and workers inside the company to access and share information. They are executive information systems, intranets, and corporate portals.

When Billy Ingram founded White Castle, much of the public thought that hamburgers were made from rotten beef and not fit for human consumption. Ingram ground fresh beef in front of customers to prove it was safe and was the first to successfully sell hamburgers to the middle class. Today Ingram is credited as the founder of the fast-food industry. Yet, today White Castle has 330 locations, and McDonald's has 25,000 stores. From this information, you know ____.

Although firewalls can protect personal computers and network services connected to the corporate network, people away from their offices who interact with their company networks via the Internet face a safety risk. Which of the following technologies has proven to be an inexpensive solution to this problem?

The data used in data mining typically come from ____ that store huge amounts of data that have been prepared for data mining analysis by being cleaned of errors and redundancy.

According to the resource-based view of information technology, sustainable competitive advantage ____.