Assignment 1 - Case Study

Gathering Business Intelligence

When consideration new business opportunities, you need knowledge about the competition. One of the things many new business owners fail to do is gather business intelligence on their competitors, such as how many there are and what differentiates each of them. You may find there are too many and that they would be tough competition for you. Or, you may find that there are few competitors and the ones who are out there offer very little value.

Generate a new business idea you could launch on the Internet. Research the internet to find similar business on the area you have chosen. How many sites did you find that are offering the same products or services you are planning to offer? Did you come across ant sites from another country that have a unique approach that you did not see on any of the sites in your own country? How would you use this information is pursuing your business idea?

Assignment 2 - Review Questions

1. How does a database turn data elements into information?

2. Why does a business need to be concerned with the quality of its data?

3. How can data governance help protect a business from hackers?

4. Why would a company care about the timeliness of its data?

5. What are the five characteristics common to high-quality information?

6. What is data governance and its importance to a company?

7. What are the four primary traits that help determine the value of information?

8. What is the difference between an entity and an attribute?

9. What are the advantages of a relational database?

10. What are the advantages of a data-driven website?

11. What is a data warehouse and why would a business want to implement one?

12. Why would you need to use multidimensional analysis?

13. What is the purpose of information cleansing (or scrubbing)?

14. Why would a department want a data mart instead of just accessing the entire data warehouse?

15. Why would a business be data rich but information poor?