How to improve
Quality of Business Information -Lisa Rowland-
Reference
Appreciation of the following, can Improve the Quality......
Two main types of data which are qualitative and quantitative.
Qualitative Data information which is just about quantities. This means that information is written in numeric forms and not alphabetical. This means it is all numbers and no letters of any form.
Quantitative Data which is usually descriptive data, harder to analyze. This information is typically personal, subjective and isn't statistical as stated in leaflet 1 above.
Primary data is data in which you have collected yourself. You can do this many ways, one of which being a survey as referenced in the leaflet image above. If your using surveys you could improve the quality of business information by using mainly closed questions just so you can analyse the results more accurately later on. In leaflet 1 imaged above i give another description of Primary data and give more examples of the types.
Secondary data is data which you have collected from outside/external sources. These sources can be things such as the internet, television, magazines and also things which people have told you. You should try not rely on secondary sources as you cant always know if they are accurate or not. By using secondary data you are helping improve the quality of business information as it can be seen as gathering public information about good points and bad points in your organisation and because you would be saving money as it costs less to gather secondary data than primary.
Having more primary data for the council would benefit them better than secondary because primary is more reliable and can be trusted more than secondary.
Appreciation of the following, improves information.....
Purposes of Information-
The council uses business information in various amount of ways, they do this in order to help themselves become more effective. The most important ways which will help the council become more effective are; Operation Support, Analysis, Decision Making and Gaining Advantage.
Operation Support: While monitoring and controlling activities an organisation can make use of the data immediately through its operational support system in order to make its minute-by-minute or even there hour-by-hour decisions. Operations support have systems such as EPOS systems which will benefit the organisation as they provide fast and efficient way which can be used to deal with customers. This is good for the organisation(council) as it provides a fast way for customers to get dealt with and so which cause less hassle within the organisation. Operational Support can help improve the information which the council receives because it allows you to access data immediately no matter what the time.
Analysis: This is used to identify patterns and trends within the council and also used to monitor the organisation which would be the council. The council might create a annual or weekly report on the costs they have spent, this report can then be analysed and would show whether there is a trend in how much is being spent and what the money is going on. This would help the council because you will be able to determine what is using the most money. This helps an organisation because analysis can happen within the council and then you could compare the local council to other councils within the district/county. Patterns within the council can also be found and identified through using analysis, this helps improve the quality of information because you can analyse the information you have and compare it to other councils and see who is better and what could be improved.
Decision Making: This is information systems which can support decision making when a problem occurs or when an issue arises and management has to step in and take action in order for these problem to be resolved. The various levels the management can categories decisions into are; Operational, Tactical or even Strategic. The management of the council may want to reduce the costs which are happening and so they could do this by reducing certain things. The council may want to reduce costs and so may decide to close a certain shop or thing which is costing them (Operational), they may decide to reduce the costs to multiple things (Tactical) or may decide to cut the cost to a thing across the nation (Strategic) This helps improve information because you are able to make smart decisions which will benefit the organisation and you are able to use decision making to decide what you are going to do, this can improve the information the organisation can gather.
Gaining Advantage: This does not mean you resolve the problem, its the opposite. It means you take advantage of an event whether that be external or an internal event. This is done when the opportunity arises and not all the time. Its also used in order to identify patterns and trends but this time it has the aim of making decisions in order to benefit from the events. If an event happens which requires more staff then the council would have to get these staff in but it would benefit the council in the long run. Gaining advantage improves information because you take advantage of a situation and you gather positive information through this.
Sources of Information-
Appreciation of the following, Improves Information.....
Internal Information: Internal information is information within the business, the council. Each department inside the council produces information which can be used and valued within other departments. For example the Finance department would gather information about the income, costs, assets and also future costs. This helps improve information because without the m you wouldn't be able to gather information or collect reliable information about the costs which are happening inside the council. Leaflet one tells us more about how this could benefit the company through telling us what it does for the council, see image above. Administration helps improve the quality of information because they store the data and so do so in a safe place, this means the information would be to a high quality if you wanted to ever refer back to it. In the first leaflet imaged above, i talk about what finance is in more detail and tells you what that department are capable off.
External Information: There is information which is available to the council through external sources or externally to the organisation. A lot of this information can be used to help with decision making. For example Commercially Provided Databases, this is information on the councils customers, this information is either individual or grouped by categories of customers. This is also responsible for the definition of a product within the council and also how that product has been grouped within a certain thing. This helps improve information because it makes it easier to browse through certain customers or products as there are grouped into categories which define them. Trade Grouping help improve the quality of information because having formed grouping of organisation which may trade with you benefits your trade as a council.