ERC : E-Counselling (fictitious organization) have asked a business analyst (report writer) to produce a knowledge management strategy as they are struggling with BI understanding and implementation.
ERC Limited have experience in their own market and are successful at what they do but realise that they need to be more prepared for the current information and knowledge era. There is a distinct lack of knowledge share throughout the company and lack of an information management system to encourage efficient information share. The primary objective of your report will be to inform that strategy.
In addition, ERC Limited would like to pilot a BI system, but have no idea what this is and the type of products they should be looking for and require advice on how best to approach this. They appreciate that part of the BI system should incorporate an evaluation of their current available data.
Ideally, they would like something custom made and have asked if you could design a functional prototype to demonstrate how this would work for the company. This will be demonstrated to the company Managing Director (Lecturer) during the practical class in Week 11/12 (depending on time slots).
In summary, the report should reflect 6 phases of a BI project development and will address:
- the issues raised specifically in the company brief (as below) to form a BI strategy;
- how the company might best approach the challenge of adopting/creating a BI, critical review of current systems and recommendation for adoption; and
- presenting and analyzing the recent available data.
A fully functional prototype along with maximum 5 presentation slides will be demonstrated within 8 minutes during class in Week 11/12.
Developing the Report
The first challenge in the report is to consolidate the information and the ideas posed in the questions presented in the company brief. You should consider how best to structure a response which presents the various options, challenges and opportunities in a structured and yet concise format which will assist ERC Limited in the formulation of their strategy.
The report must address all of the areas given in the brief (as below) to include the content management/data analysis challenges.
Company Brief:
The company brief is as follows:
It is clear that Knowledge Management (KM) is an emerging management philosophy and practice to enable innovative, dynamic business operations. The company requires a report to address the following areas and plan a BI strategy to help them start their KM journey:
- What is BI and why is it important for SMEs?
e.g: At its most basic level, HR for small businesses encompasses compliance with applicable labor laws, hiring and creating a channel for dealing with employee issues. If your business is growing, it can be good to include strategic planning as well. Benefits also fall under the HR umbrella.
- What characteristics of BI should the company be considering and why?
- What should the company be considering for knowledge capture, creation, share, application and dissemination?
- What type of tools can be used for KM?
- What is the proposed BI plan?
BI/Content Management Challenge
A fundamental challenge for ERC Limited is ensuring they have up-to-date, timely information which is provided to relevant staff ‘at the right time, in the right format’ to improve decision-making and streamline current operations. The lack of a current BI/CMS (content management system) is proving challenging, and staff is showing lack of confidence in the current information infrastructure that is mainly paper based. ERC Limited has conducted initial research into information system solutions (placement student researched this area and provided a verbal report but they have no documentation to support this recommendation) and ‘think’ they need a BI/CMS.
Knowing that you have studied data analytics (as part of this module) the company has presented some available data that they would like to understand better (this will be provided in Week 1). Choose three data analysis techniques, outline why you have selected them and present the results of your findings (as part of the report and during the demonstrations).
Choose three data analytics techniques and apply to the data. Include a description of the techniques, outlining why you chose them, and present the results as part of your report.
e.g.: Data Analysis is a process of collecting, transforming, cleaning, and modeling data with the goal of discovering the required information. The results so obtained are communicated, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data visualization is at times used to portray the data for the ease of discovering the useful patterns in the data. The terms Data Modeling and Data Analysis mean the same.
Then she wants a breakdown of the Sketch, wireframes, storyboard and final dashboard implementation (I can do that)
Picture of final dashboard (It is not a website) it is implemented in Power BI, it can be changed, updated and it provides visual information for the Managers, HR at a glance. It shows them how the employees are behaving and helps to control their workforce.
In terms of the six BI project development phases that should be included in your coursework report, the below guidance may be helpful for your report preparation:
- Scope & plan
More in-depth details in:
Weeks 4 – Defining scope, plan, and budget
- Analysis & definition
More in-depth details in:
Week 8 – DI design & development
Week 9 – BI design & development
- Architecture & design
More in-depth details in:
Week 7 – Architecture framework
Power BI Data modelling for building ER diagram
Week 8 – DI process
Week 9 – BI design & development
- Build, test & refine
More in-depth details in:
Week 8 – DI design, development and process
Week 9 – BI application, design & development
- Implementation
More in-depth details in:
Week 8 – DI design, development and process
Week 9 – BI application, design & development
- Deploy & roll-out
Product communication
Product training
Product support
Product marketing
Also refer to Week 10 – People, process and politics
In the meantime, please follow up the marking scheme in coursework specification.
Regards,
Xuemei
