Discussion 1:

The HR department is responsible for many functions of a business, such as:

• Staffing
• Development of Workplace Policies
• Compensation and Benefits
• Retention
• Training and Development
• Dealing with Laws Affecting Employment
• Worker Protection
• Communication and Awareness of External Factors

It's very costly for businesses to train employees, which is why HR takes retention very seriously. It's a lot more efficient to train one employee and then retain them long term as opposed to hiring someone new every couple of months. This is why companies nowadays are very competitive in providing many quality benefits, such as health care and 401k. They want to make sure their employees are taken care so that the employees have no reason to seek work elsewhere. HR takes hiring very seriously as well. I've had the opportunity to take part in several interviews, and am familiar with the process HR goes through when pick the best candidate. Overall, HR plays a very important role for a business, taking care of employees in numerous ways. HR isn't a cost center but rather a profit center. This is a business wouldn't be profitable without its employees running the store. There wouldn't be any employees without HR.

Digital Textbook (2017) Chapter 1: The Role of Human Resources

Brooks, Art. "Overcoming Top Myths in HR." HRM Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

Discussion 2

QUESTION 1: What does Strategic HR mean?

Strategy regarding human resources (HR) is the process of laying the framework for policies that address a spectrum of the processes like hiring requirement, training requirement, employee benefits, and internal the external environmental factors that can affect the business. The strategy efforts of the HR management department are intended to move employee's' efforts toward the organization's goals and objects (Krishnan & Singh, 2011).

Base on this week's reading, I believe that we are studying HRM in the first week because it lays the foundation for what need to happen to move employees toward business objectives. Strategy from HR manager is meant to support the overall mission of the organization. To include writing and enforcing the policy are in aligned with the organization's mission, goals, and objectives. HR management must also be aware of the internal and external environment to ensure they are allied with the organization's goal and objective. For example, HR manager's strategy will need to include organization culture, multicultural hiring, retention of employees, benefits and processes that move employee toward company objectives and goals. For external factor, HR managers will need to understand external threat, strength, weakness, and opportunity that effect employees and the overall organization, for example new laws and regulation (Business Jargons, n.d.).

Reference

Business Jargons. (n.d.). Strategic Human Resource Management Process. Retrieved fromhttp://businessjargons.com/strategic-human-resource-management-process.html

Krishnan, S. K., & Singh, M. (2011). Strategic Human Resource Management: A Three-Stage Process Model and Its Influencing Factors. South Asian Journal of Management, 1(1). Retrieved 2017, from https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-2347124721/strategic-human-resource-management-a-three-stage.

Discussion 3

1. Databases are an integral part of Zillow; now consider and list some reasons that a business might use a database.

Store customer information and buying history to target marketing campaigns

Large business may store data for sale to smaller business

To record business statistics for management reporting examples sales amounts, inventory, labor costs

Creating schedules for large call centers and general workforce management functions

Transactional processing in the credit card industry and banks

2. Zillow uses business intelligence to create a unique product for its customers, how can business intelligence be used in the course case study?

They can sell their trending data to mortgage lenders to do a less expensive initial appraisal of the property. It is also used so homeowners can see the data on their house or a prospective house to help in home buying decisions. Customers may also use it to see the tending of their property value or their property in relation to similar properties.

3. In the course case study, how could a data mart be used to help with the release of a new-product launch?

Data mart could be used specifically for lending data of the consumer, including salary, credit score, location, etc. This consumer data mart would be separate from the data mart for houses.

4. Categorize the five common characteristics of high- quality information and rank them in order of importance to the course case study.

1. Timeliness
2. Accuracy
3. Validity
4. Completeness
5. Consistency
6. Uniqueness

5. Zillow uses a data- driven website to run its business, would this be useful to the business in the course case study? Explain why or why not.

1. A data driven website would not be useful for the Hair salon in the case study. It is a useful product because Zillow is an internet based company, the service they provide is an online tool for consumers relating to housing, therefore being data driven and having an accessible reliable user interface vie the web is critical to what they do. A hair Salon's primary service they perform is cosmology with in person service at a specific location. The use of technology in the hair salon would be mostly to streamline internal business process and not to use an ecommerce model like Zillow does.

Discussion 4

I do understand that hackers could posses a great danger on an individual, however I was not fully aware of the damage they can do to a country, such as Estonia. After watching the video, I was really surprised at learning about the cyber attacks! The hackers affected all Estonia's parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and broadcasters. I think that hackers nowadays, could cause more harm to a country today than hackers back in the day, since technology has advanced tremendously. Databases for major businesses in the country could be stolen, and the hackers would have access to personal or political information such as people's names, addresses, and financial information from businesses and organizations within the country.

I was able to find a web article by Darren Anstee, How DDoS attacks evolved in the past 20 years, which talks about a few DDoS attacks after the 2007 Estonia attack. In 2011, there was a DDoS on Sony, "allegedly used to disguise the theft of millions of customer records for PlayStation Network Users". In 2013, Spamhaus was targeted for "naming and blacklisting cybercrime hosting, spam and botnet operations". Later on 2014 Lizard Squad claimed to have been the ones to perform the DDoS attack on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on Christmas Day.

I was able to pull some information regarding the arrack but not the exact ways the attack was conducted. The primary weapon was the ping attack, a simple request for a response from a Web server, hackers who could infiltrate individual Web sites, delete legitimate content, and post their own messages

Repeated hundred of times per second. The pings then overwhelmed the served. Then the computers, zombies, were made to repeatedly flood designated Internet addresses with a variety of useless network-clogging data. After, there were the Special Forces, hackers who could infiltrate individual Web sites, delete legitimate content, and post their own messages. I am assuming it took so much time to plan to conduct this attack on Estonia, and lots of preparation with technology and hacking skills to perform this (Davis, 2007).

Firewalls could provide a certain form of protection, however they were not designed to protect against such attacks like DDoS. These attacks are way too large; they could help aid in the attacks, but they cannot completely prevent them from happening, maybe one day in the future an even larger form of protection could be created to diminish such attacks.

References:

2007 cyberattacks on Estonia. (2017, February 20). Retrieved fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia

W., Gish. (n.d.). The Effects of Computer Hacking on an Organization. Retrieved fromhttp://smallbusiness.chron.com/effects-computer-hacking-organization-17975.html

Anstee, D. (2016, December 29). How DDoS attacks evolved in the past 20 years. Retrieved from https://betanews.com/2016/12/29/two-decades-of-ddos/

Davis, J. (2007, August 21). Hackers Take Down the Most Wired Country in Europe. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2007/08/ff-estonia/

Video: https://youtu.be/Oa80xBbfKq4