Thursday, February 19, 2004

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior 10 e Hellriegel and Slocum

Chapter 6 - Motivating Individuals for High Performance

Unit6

  1. Model of Goal Setting and Performance
    Goals are future outcomes (results) that individuals and groups desire and strive to achieve. Goal Setting is the process of specifying what the goals will be.
    1. Importance of Goal Setting
      Goals guide and direct behavior. Goals provide challenges and indicators against which team or person can judge performance. Goals justify performance of various tasks. Goals define the basis for Organization's design. Goals serve an organizing function. Goals reflect where employees and mangers alike consider important.
      Locke and Latham developed a model of individual goal settings and performance that we will now look at.
    2. challenge
      Two key attributes for goals:
      • Goal difficulty
        Goal needs to be challenging but not impossible
      • Goal Clarity
        It must be clear and specific or it is on no use to the person trying to seek them.

      One method used is Management by Objective which uses goals to define what the person needs to reach.
      Self-efficacy is important also. It is the belief that a person can perform at a certain level in a situation.
    3. Moderators
      Four factors that moderate the ability to meet the goals:
      • Ability
        The person must have the ability to do the task
      • Goal Commitment
        The individual's determination to reach a goal. Public stated goals are stronger than private ones, Ones set by person or by person with management input are more likely met than one imposed my management. Ones that have a useable reward also have greater chance of being met.
      • Feedback
        Person needs feedback on how they are doing on meeting goals.
      • Task Complexity
    4. Mediators
      • Direction of attention
        Steers person away from irrelevant activities
      • effort
        Greater the difficulty the more person will have to exert effort if willing to achieve.
      • persistence
        Desire to work on a task over the long term.
      • Task strategy
        How a person decides to do a task.
    5. Performance
      performance can be met when the previous three have been done. Sometimes due to problems on job, a code of ethics needs to be developed.
    6. Rewards
      Once a performance level has been reached rewards should be used. They can be external (vacations, bonuses), or internal (achievement feeling, pride). Different cultures look on the rewards differently so be careful with cross cultural management.
    7. Satisfaction
      This is not the organizations satisfaction, but the employee's. Due to circumstances, it may be necessary to compromise, especially with goals set to high.
    8. The Effect of Goal Setting on Motivation and Performance
      1. Encourages people to develop action plans to reach goals
      2. Focuses people's attention on the goal relevant actions
      3. Causing people to exert the effort necessary to achieve goals.
      4. spurirng people to persist in face of obstacles
    9. Limitations to Goal Setting
      Goal setting will not work if person lacks skills to meet goals. Complicated tasks that require large amounts of learning may take longer. Rewarding wrong behavior can lead to problems (even illegal activity).
    10. Organizational Use
      Satisfaction and commitment to organization result when challenges are met.

  2. Reward Systems For High Performance
    Rewards, to be useful, should be:
    • Available 0 too small a reward is as good as no reward (think pay increase)
    • Timely - should be close to behavior it is trying to reinforce.
    • Performance Contingency - closely linked to performance
    • Durable - some rewards last longer than others, think autonomy v. pay increase
    • Equity - pay policies are equitable to all.
    • visibility - rewards must be visible to all.
    1. Gain-Sharing Programs
      Rewards people who reach specific goals but formula can be too complex
    2. Profit-Sharing Programs
      Rewards organizational performance but people might not see their impact on organization
    3. Skill-Based Pay
      Rewards people who acquire skills but cost can increase or employee can top out.
    4. Flexible Benefit Plans
      Benefits tailored to individual but higher cost to administer program.
    5. Organizational Use
      Management needs to look at trade offs discussed above.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

  1. Introduction to SQL
    SQL meets ideal database language requirements because it is a data definition language and has a data manipulation language, as well as it is fairly easy to learn. ANSI/ISO has described a standard SQL. Even so, there are many dialects of the SQL language.
  2. Data Definition Commands

    1. The DataBase Model
      Model we will follow is simple but since this is notes not needed to be reproduced now.
    2. The Tables and Their Components
      again, we have details about the sample data not necessary to take notes on.
    3. Creating the Database and Table Structures
      To create a data base we use the following structure: CREATE SCHEMA AUTHORIZATION <creator>;
      example Jones is creator CREATE SCHEMA AUTHORIZATION JONES;
    4. Creating Table Structures
      With the creation of the database we need to create tables. We will need to determine the components of the tables and what type of data they are (date, number, string). To do this we would use the CREATE TABLE command, the format would look like this (note: we would have as many attributes as needed).
      CREATE TABLE <table name>(
      <attribute1 name and attribute1 characteristics,
      attribute2 name and attribute2 characteristics,
      attribute3 name and attribute3 characteristics,
      primary key designation,
      foreign key designation and foreign key requirements>);
      Though we use one line per a attribute, it is not necessary as long as commas are there. It makes it easier to read and debug if done this way. If a table is using a foreign key, the table that it refers to should be created first. Sample table creation

      CREATE TABLE VENDOR(
      V_CODE INTEGER NOT NULL UNIQUE,
      V_NAME VARCHAR(35) NOT NULL,
      V_CONTACT VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL,
      V_AREACODE CHAR(3) NOT NULL,
      V_PHONE CHAR(8) NOT NULL,
      V_STATE CHAR(2) NOT NULL,
      V_ORDER CHAR(1) NOT NULL,
      PRIMARY KEY (V_CODE);

      Foregin keys would be created in another table and refered back to this one. Example: FOREIGN KEY (V_Code) REFERENCES VENDOR if this had been vendor table. NOT NULL means the item has to have a value to it, UNIQUE means it has to be a unique value in the table. Anything in () defines the values that are made. For example V_CODE is one character. It is not a good idea to give the column names (the attributes) anything that has a mathematical symbol in it. They can cause confusion.
    5. Using Domains
      Domains are permissable sets of values that can be in a row/column combination. We use the CREATE DOMAIN command to do this.
      CREATE DOMAIN <domain_name> AS DATA_TYPE
      [DEFAULT <default_value>]
      [CHECK (<condition>)]

      Example marital status:
      CREATE DOMAIN MARITAL_STATUS AS VARCHAR(8)
      CHECK (VALUE IN('Single','Divorced','Widowed'));

      This now creates a variable type that you could use.

      To remove this Domain later we: DROP DOMAIN <domain_name> [RESTRICT | CASCADE]
      CASCADE when used will change the type in the table that was used in creating the domain. RESTRICT will keep you from deleteing the DOMAIN untill no atributes are based on it. (NOTE: some RDBMSs do not support domains)
    6. SQL Integrity Constraints
      To maintain integrity, we use two commands ON DELETE RESTRICT which will not let us delete a row if it will effect another table (Vendor list for example - deleting it would make a product list have no vendor for an item). ON UPDATE CASCADE however forces changes to any other table that relies on it if changes are made to it.
  3. Data Manipulation Commands
    Common SQL Commands:
    CommandDescription
    INSERTLets you insert into a table, one row at a time. Used to make the initial data entries into a new tabel structure that already contains data.
    SELECTList the table contents. Actually SELECT is a query command rather than a data management command. Nevertheless SELECT is introduced in this section because it lets you check the results of your data management efforts
    COMMITLets you save your work to the disk
    UPDATEEnables you to make changes in the data.
    DELETEEnables you to delete one or more rows.
    ROLLBACKRestoes the database table contents to their original conditions (Since last COMMIT)
    1. Data Entry
      INSERT INTO <table name> VALUES(attribute1 value, attribute 2 value, ... etc.);
      Example
      INSERT INTO VENDOR
      VALUES (21225, 'Bryson, Inc.','Smithson',615',223-3234','TN','Y');
      String and date values are between apostraphes (') except dates in Access (uses pound sign #) If necessary and no value has been provided put NULL in the place of the data that would go in (but only if NOT NULL is not in the table creation).
    2. Saving the Table Contents
      COMMIT <table name>; will save the changes to the table.
    3. Listing the Table Contents
      Use the SELECT command with the porper attributes to get the information that you need. To get all the results of a PRODUCT table you would use
      SELECT * FROM PRODUCT;
      You could also use individual column names as well to only display that information.
    4. Making a Correction
      To update a particular piece of information
      UPDATE PRODUCT SET (attribute = value [,attribut2=value2,attribute3 = value3]) WHERE (other attribute = value);
    5. Restoring the Table Contents
      ROLLBACK takes table changes back to what they were after last save.
    6. Deleting Table Rows
      DELETE FROM <table name> WHERE <attribute = value>;

  4. Queries

    To Be Continued



    1. Partial Listing of Table Contents

    2. Logical Operators: And, Or, and Not

    3. Special Operators



  5. Advanced Data Management Commands

    1. Changing a Column's Data Type

    2. Changing Attribute Characteristics

    3. Dropping a Column

    4. Entering Data into the New Column

    5. Arithmetic Operators and the Rule of Precedence

    6. Copying Parts of a Table

    7. Deleting a Table from the Database

    8. Primary and Foreign Key Designations



  6. More Complex Queries and SQL Functions

    1. Ordering a Listing

    2. Listing Unique Values

    3. Aggregate Functions in SQL

    4. Grouping Data

    5. Virtual Tables: Creating a View

    6. SQL Indexes

    7. Joining Database Tables



  7. Updated Views

  8. Procedural SQL

    1. Triggers

    2. Stored Procedures

    3. PL/SQL Stored Functions



  9. Converting an E-R Model into a Database Structure

  10. General Rules Governing Relationships Among Tables


Thursday, February 12, 2004

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior 10e Hellriegel/Slocum

Chapter 5 Achiving Motavation in the Workplace


Unit 5


  1. The Basic Motivational Process
    There are four basic needs that need to be addressed in what motivates people. They are 1) meeting basic human needs, 2) Designing jobs that motivate people, 3) enhancing the belief that rewards can be achieved, and 4) treating people equitably. Unless these are met there can be no motivation. Motivation is the forces acting on or within a person that causes the person to behave in a specific goal-directed manner. motivation is not to be confused with performance. A highly motivated person can perform poorly if he or she does not have adequate skills.
    1. Core Phases of the Process
      Performance can be be put simply as a function of a persons ability times their motivation. You cannot do a task unless you have the ability, the talent to perform a goal-related task. The person must want to achieve this as well. To start this process we identify the persons needs deficiencies that a person is experiencing at a time. They break down to psychological (recognition), physiological (air, food) or social (friendship). Needs create tension that a person seeks to eliminate. Motivation is goal directed. A Goal is a specific result that an individual wants to achieve. These can be a driving force behind a person.
    2. Motivational challenges
      In concept, motivation is straight forward and simple. In reality it is not. First motivations can only be inferred, not seen. Second, the needs of a person are dynamic and change over time. Lastly there are differences in what motivates people. A manager needs to know what motivates his people and then do something about it.
  2. Motivating Employees Through Meeting Human Needs
    1. Needs Hierarchy Model
      Abraham Maslow suggested a needs Hierarchy with four assumptions.
      • When a need has been satisfied, its role in motivation goes down., but another will need to come up.
      • Needs network is complex with many needs affecting behavior. Emergency needs take precedence though.
      • Lower level needs must be met before higher level needs can be met.
      • There are more ways to satisfy higher level needs then their are higher level ones.
      There are five types of needs:
      1. Physiological: need for food, water, air, etc. These are the lowest level of needs. People will take any job that meets these needs. Managers that motivate this way assume people work only for money.
      2. Security Needs: safety, stability, etc. If these needs are not met, like physiological needs, people will be preoccupied with meeting them.
      3. Affiliation Needs: friendship, love, etc. When first two are met, people will look for a sense of belonging. Managers who believe that people are needing this will act in a supportive mode.
      4. Esteem needs: self-worth and recognition from others. These people want others to accept them for what they are and to look at them as competent and able. (Read Mary Kay Cosmetic sales force)
      5. Self-Actualization needs: These people strive to increase their problem solving abilities.
      Using Maslow's Needs Hierarchy
      The three lowest are called deficiency needs. If not met a person cannot grow into a healthy person. The last two are growth needs. Satisfaction here helps a person grow. These needs are really based on US cultural values. Top managers are able to satisfy their own growth needs than are lower level managers.
    2. achievement Motivation Model
      David McClelland proposed a learned needs model of motivation that he believes is rooted in culture. Everyone had three important needs: achievements, affiliation and power. Those who have strong power motive take action that affect the behavior of others. Those with strong affiliation motive tend to establish relationships with others. those with strong achievement motive compete against standards of excellence or against behaviors and achievements. These are influenced by childhood, personal and occupational experiences and the types of organizations they work for. These motives are stored in the preconscious mind, just below full awareness and can be determined by how a person interprets an unstructured picture called a Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT).
      Characteristics of High achievers Self motivators tend to have three characteristics. They like to set their own goals. They prefer moderate goals, ones that can be achieved but not with out a small challenge. They lastly prefer tasks that provide immediate feedback.
      Financial Incentives - The effect of money had a mixed effect on high achievers. Though they will not stay at a place that does not pay them well, routine or boring tasks will drive them away as well. They need something to motivate them as well as the money.
  3. Motivating Employees Through Job Design
    Frederick Herzberg developed another model, the motivator-hygiene model.
    1. Motivational Factors
      Motivator factors include the work itself, recognition, advancement, and responsibility. They are intrinsic factors which are directly related to the job and internal to individual.
    2. Hygiene Factors
      Hygiene factors are company policies and administrations, salary, benefits, etc. They are extrinsic factors that server as rewards.
      Cultural Influences In US 80% of factors that lead to job satisfaction can be traced it to motivators. In other cultures this can change.
      Using Motivators and Hygienes This model appeals to managers as it gives straighforward suggestions on motivating people. But it has critics as well. One was the method bound process that was used to develop it. Another is it is unclear if satisfaction and dissatisfaction are two separate parts.
  4. Motivating Employees Through Performance Expectations
    1. Expectancy Model
      The expectancy model says that people are motivated to work when they expect to achieve things they want from their jobs. Four assumptions are made here.
      • A combination of forces in the individual and the environment determine behavior.
      • Individuals decide their own behaviors even though organizations may place constraints are placed on individual behavior
      • Individuals have different needs and goals. Also they change over time
      • People decide among alternatives based on their perceptions of whether a specific behavior will lead to a desired outcome.
      There are things to help us understand things, they are called First-level and second-level outcomes, expectancy, valance, and instrumentality
      First-Level and Second-Level Outcomes Behavior associated with the job itself are first-level outcomes. Second-level outcomes are the positive or negative rewards associated with them.
      Expectancy If a person gives a particular level of effort, a certain level of performance should result, that is called expectancy. It can vary from 0, no chance, to 1 the fact that it will.
      Instrumentality This is the relationship between first-level and second-level outcomes. Ranges are -1 to +1. -1 indicates an inverse relationship, +1 indicates a normal relationship. 0 indicates there is no relation at all.
      Valance is the preference for a particular second level outcome. It is not just the level of reward, but what it means to the person receiving it. Negative outcomes, (lay offs), are ones to avoid. If it is 0 it does not affect things. Positive levels are preferable.
      Putting it all Together People expert work effort to achieve performance that leads to valued work-related outcomes.
      The Expectancy Model in Action If one studies hard, take good notes, attend classes regularly, then you can expect good grades. But maybe you only believe that you have a 20% chance of doing well. Then you will lower your effort. There are problems with this model because it makes wide assumptions and works best in cultures that emphasize internal attribution (like the US).
  5. Motivating Employees Through Equity
    1. Equity Model:Balancing Inputs and Outcomes
      The equity model says that an individuals feelings of how she is treated in comparisons with others. It has 2 assumptions. 1) people evaluate interpersonal relationships like they would some product they are buying. 2) people do not operate in a vacuum. they make comparisons to what is going on around them.
      General Equity Model based on two variables: inputs and outcomes. Inputs are what an individuals contribute to exchanges. Outcomes are what the individual receives from they exchange. Multiple inputs and outcomes can muddle situations.
      Consequences of Inequity Inequity causes tension. Tension is not pleasure. People are motivated to get rid of inequity.
    2. Procedural Justice: Making Decisions Fairly
      The fairness of rules and procedures is referred to as procedural justice. A strong example would be people who survive a layoff. Those left behind can judge the fairness of the layoff in how it was handled. If fair, then people will feel more committed to the company.
  6. Chapter Summary
  7. Developing Competencies

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Principles of Marketing

Principles of Marketing 10e

Chapter 5 Managing Marketing Information

Unit 5
  1. Assessing Marketing Information Needs
    Marketing Information Systems balance the information users would like to have against what they need to have to do their job. occasionally the information may not be available. For that research may need to be done.
  2. Developing Marketing Information
    1. Internal Data
      Internal databases are electronic collections of information obtained from data sources within the company. They are usually accessed more quickly and cheaply. One problem is that the data may not the meet then needs as it may have been collected for other needs.
    2. Marketing Intelligence
      Marketing Intelligence is the systematic collection and analysis of publicly available information about competitors and developments in the marketing environment. This information is available from many different sources. Some can even be word of mouth or just direct observation. Others can be legal but questionable such as searching publicly available dumpsters to get information on the company.
    3. Marketing Research
      Marketing researchis the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization. Some companies have departments that focus on doing this. Smaller companies and sometimes these companies will use marketing and research companies.
      1. Defining the Problem and Research Objectives
        This is the hardest thing to do. You may bring your own bias as to why the problem exist and it may not be the right question asked. To do this you need to do one of three types of research. 1)Exploratory research which is research to gather preliminary information that will help define problems and suggest hypotheses. 2)Descriptive research, research to better describe marketing problems, situations, or markets, such as the market potential for a product or the demographics and attitudes of consumers. 3)Casual Research research to test hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships.
      2. Developing the Research Plan
        Research objectives will need to be translated into specific information needs. This may be demographic information, usage patterns, attitudes as well as other things. The plan should be developed in to a written proposal. Both primary and secondary data will need to be collected.
      3. Gathering Secondary Data
        Secondary data information that already exist somewhere, having been collected for another purpose. Can be internal or can be purchased. For examples, grocery stores, especially ones with bonus clubs, can sell register information of what sells at what time. There are also online databases that can provide information like CompuServe, Dialog, and LEXIS-NEXIS. This type of data can present problems in that the needed information may not be available, or if available it is not usable. Researchers need to make sure that the information is accurate, relevant, current and impractical.
      4. Primary Data Collection
        • Research Approaches
          Observational research gathering of primary data by observing relevant people, actions and situations. Observers might go to a supermarket and observer the way people make purchasing decisions. Things can be observed by mechanical means as well (people meters on tv ratings machines). Cookies on a computer is another way of doing this. The most widely used method to collect this information is to ask them directly and is called survey research. Another information source is single-source data systems, electronic monitoring system that link consumers to television advertisements and promotions (measured using meters) with what they buy in stores (measured using check out scanners). Lastly experimental research is done. This is the gathering of primary data by selecting matched groups of subjects, giving them controlling related factors and checking for differences in group responses.
        • Contact Methods
          Information can be collected many ways. While mail questionnaires can prevent interviewers bias, they can take a long time to get back or may not come back at all. Telephone interviews are a good way but very often they can be confused with telemarketers, who have developed the questionnaire technique as a way to sell products. It is also higher in cost. Personal interviews, can come in individual and groups. Both involve talking with people directly and can be the most costly way of doing things. Group interviewing is sometimes done as focus groups. Lastly is Online (Internet) marketing research. This can be done in many ways.
        • Sampling Plan
          A sample is a segment of the population selected for marketing research to represent the population as a whole. One must decide three things in making this group; who should be interviewed, how many people should be interviewed, and how should they be chosen. These are often broken up into probability samples (random) and nonprobability samples (not random).
        • Research Instruments
          questionnaires and mechanical devices are the two instruments used by researchers. questionnaires are mot popular and they come in open and closed ended questions. Closed questionnaires tend to give you a collection of answers to choose from. Open ones let the respondent answer questions in their own words. researchers need to be careful in how the questions are worded and in what order as these can lead to biases.
      5. Implementing the Research Plan
        At this point collecting and processing the information should take place. Care should be taken to not let erroneous information be gathered.
      6. Interpreting and Reporting the Findings
        Once all done, conclusions need to be drawn. Managers and researchers need to work together with this to prevent bias from either group.
  3. Analyzing Marketing Information
    1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
      CRM is managing detailed information about individual customers and carefully managing customer "touch points" in order to maximize customers loyalty. It consists of software that analyzes information in the company. The information is usually stored in data warehouses and is dug through using data mining techniques. The information should be kept in a secure location. For others to use this information could violate privacy.
  4. Distributing and Using Marketing Information
    This information needs to be made available to people in the company so that they can make use of it. Usually this is set up with an intranet, an internal internet. Sometimes it can be used with suppliers in an extranet .
  5. Other Marketing Information Consideration
    1. Marketing Research in Small Business and Not-for-Profit Organizations
      Small business can do marketing research in a simple way, Observe things! Watch their competitors ads, watch how many people are in their own store at any given time, go into competitors businesses to see how things are done. Another thing would be simple experiments, changing ads to see what works is one thing. Lastly, libraries can be be a good source of information.
    2. International Marketing Research
      International research can be a little bit more troublesome. Translations of the questionnaires can have problems when some idioms get translated. There may be some bias when it comes to answering questions to show the people are higher up the economics ladder than they are, or to not answer personal questions.
    3. Public Policy and Ethics in Marketing Research
      • Intrusions on Consumer Privacy
        Companies collecting data should not distribute personal information without permission of the people that information comes from, This becomes a matter of consumer privacy being violated. While it is OK to pass the information on in aggregate form, the collection and selling of this personal information can lead to trouble. Large companies may need to hire a Privacy officer who makes sure that the information is used appropriately.
      • Misuse of Research Findings
        By not designing the questions properly, or leaving out key information, some studies can be biased the wrong way. This needs to be watched for.
    4.  

Friday, January 30, 2004

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior 10e
Hellriegel and Slocum

Unit 3

Chapter 3
  1. Preview Case: Naveen Jain at Info Space
  2. The Perceptual Process
    Perception is the process by which people select, organize, interpret and respond to information from the world around them. SInce different people perceive things differently the keywords here are selection and organization. Managers need to be aware of the way that people select, organize and interpret their perceptions.
  3. Perceptual Selection
    Why do you ignore barking dogs but hear a phone ringing, the answer is selective screening. You filter out what is not important based on certain factors.
    1. External Factors
      The following are external characteristics that cause people to notice things and the more likely way it will be noticed:
      • Size: Larger
      • Intensity: Brighter, forcefulnesses
      • Contrast: stand out from background
      • Motion: things moving
      • repetition: more repetition
      • Novelty and familiarity: strange things and common things both.
    2. Internal Factors
      1. Personality
        The way that you perceive the big 5 factors (chapter 2), will influence how you see the world around you.
      2. Learning
        The place you grew up, your age, and a number of other factors influence what the way you see things in life. Realize this when putting people together to work on teams and encourage them to learn to work together. Even hand signals can mean different things in different countries.
      3. Motivation
        Urgent needs and desires play a role in what OU will perceive as important at any time. Another factor in this is the pollen prizefight, the fact that pleasant things get more notice.
  4. Person Perception
    Person perception is the process by which individuals attribute characteristics or traits to other people. It is what we refer to very often as the 'first impression" of a person and it revolves around:
    1. The perceived
      You will tend to evaluate people based on things you notice about them, the gender, skin color, posture, age, voice quality, facial expressions. These bring about implicit personality theories based on what you know.
    2. The Perceiver
      the fact that you may be from a different culture than the person you are perceiving affects what you see.
    3. The Situation
      Things and peoples around the person that you are perceiving will influence what you are thinking.
    4. Impression Management
      Impression management is the attempt to manipulate or control the impressions that others form about them.This happens often with people that are in charge of the person controlling the impression. It is not good or bad and some people focus on it more than others.
  5. Perceptual Errors
    1. Accuracy of Judgement
      An inaccurate judgement of a person by a manager could result in and ruin their prospects. They include:
      • similarity: predisposed to people similar to you
      • Contrast error: comparing candidates against each other instead of against a standard needed
      • Overweighing of negative information: if negative information happens, it seems to weigh higher on the perception than it should.
      • Race, gender and age bias: Based on interviewers age he/she may be predisposed to the age of interviewer
      • First-impression error: once you get a first impression, no matter what else is there to change it, you will not.
      People need to learn to avoid generalizing from one trait, avoid assuming a behavior will be repeated, and avoid placing reliance on physical appearance.
    2. Perceptual Defense
      Perceptual defence is the tendency for people to protect themselves against ideas, objects and situations that are threatening.
    3. stereotyping
      stereotyping can cause problems when managers cannot look past gender, skin color, or age.
    4. Halo Effect
      The Halo effect come from one person judging another on just one attribute and ignoring all others.
    5. Projection
      Projection is the tendency to see your own traits in other people.
    6. Expectancy Effects
      Expectancy effect is the extent to which prior expectations bias perceptions of events, objects and people. Some things that can happen is the self fulfilling prophecy, the tendency that you will cause people to act the way that you expect them to. Another is the Pygmalion effect, the fact that you will hold the person to a higher standard and they will fulfill it.
  6. Attibutions: Why People Behave as They Do
    The attribution process refers to the ways people come to understand the causes of their own and other's behaviors.
    1. The Attribution Process
      This process is done in order for people to make sense of things that are happening around them. It goes from information internal to the preceiver, added to what the preceiver believes and the motivations of the preceiver.
    2. Internal Versus External Causes of Behavior
      Internal causes are things that you belive are under a persons control External causes are things that you believe that are out of that persons control. You have to be careful to avoid the fundamental attribution error, the tendency to over or under estimate the personal factors in success or failure of a person. Managers can be part of this, attributing success to themselves but failures to their underlings. Or success for employees they expect it from and failure from those they expect it from.
    3. Attribution of Success and Failure
      People attribute their success or failure to four things
      1. Ability
      2. effort
      3. task difficulty
      4. luck
      Not surprisingly the self-serving bias comes into play here. If they do well, it is because of their ability and effort. If they do poorly it is because of difficulty and bad luck.

Thursday, January 29, 2004

Principles of Marketing


Principles of Marketing 10e
Kotler, Armstrong


CHAPTER 3

MARKETING IN THE DIGITAL AGE:
MAKING NEW CUSTOMER CONNECTIONS


  1. LOOKING AHEAD: PREVIEWING THE CONCEPTS
    A look at Charles Schwab and it choices in going on line or not.

  2. MAJOR FORCES SHAPING THE INTERNET AGE
    1. Digitalization and Connectivity
      Intranets - Network that connects people within a company to each network and to the company network
      extranet - A network that connects a company with its suppliers and distributors
      internet- A vast public of computer networks connecting users of all types around the world.
    2. The Internet Explosion
      Growth of the internet has been from a techy few in the early 90's to 400 Million by the end of the 90's. It has helped to create a new economy.
    3. New Types of Intermediaries
      Because of the rise of the internet, companies had to decide how to modify their business to keep their channels happy on one side and not loose business to the internet upstarts on the other side. The had to decide to stay as brick and mortar or add to the click only companies and become click and mortar.
    4. Customization and Customerization
      The old economy focused on the standardization of products. The new economy focuses on customization, customizing a product for a customer, and customerization, letting a customer customize their purchase.
  3. MARKETING STRATEGY IN THE NEW DIGITAL AGE
    In reality it will take a mixture of the old and new economies to survive in today's economy
    1. E-Business, E-Commerce, and E-Marketing in the New Digital Age
      1. E-Business
        The use of electronic platforms to conduct a company's business.
      2. E-Commerce
        Buying and selling process supported by electronic means, primarily by the Internet.
      3. E-Marketing
        The marketing side of e-commerce -- companies efforts to communicate about, promote, and sell products and services over the Internet.
    2. Benefits to Buyers
      There are many ways that benefit the buyer. They include: convenience, easy, private, product access and selection. It is also possible to gather information about products you are looking at as well as be interactive and immediate. Not all these are available in the non-internet world.
    3. Benefits to Sellers
      It is a powerful customer relationship building tool. While reducing cost it also increases speed and efficiency. flexibility is increased as well as it being global in nature.
  4. E-COMMERCE DOMAINS
    1. B2C (Business to Consumer)
      The online selling of goods and services to final consumers.
      1. Online consumers
        Though people think of the on line user as the geek, in reality it is more a wide variety of people that transverses most socioeconomic categories. There is also a wide range in the age groups as well. Major difference is that the internet consumer is more the one to initialize the interaction and the one who tends to control it.
      2. B2C Web Sites
        Web sites are available for almost everything that you need. Still some people have trouble with this cause they cannot touch or feel anything.
    2. B2B (Business to Business)
      Though most emphasis is on the B2C more takes place Business to Business.
      1. Open trading networks
        Most of this takes place in open trading networks where businesses put up their needs and what they have available.
      2. Private trading networks
        Also available are Private trading networks, trading networks that link a particular seller with its own trading partners.
    3. C2C (Consumer to Consumer)
      The online exchange of goods and information between final consumers.
    4. C2B (Consumer to Business)
      Online exchanges in which consumers search out sellers, learn about their offers, and initiate purchases, sometimes even driving the transactions.
  5. CONDUCTING E-COMMERCE
    1. Click-only versus Click-and-Mortar E-Marketers
      1. Click-only companies
        The so called dot-com companies that exist only online without any brick and mortar market presence. They range from Internet Service Providers (ISP) to e-tailers, companies that do all business on line. Many of the dot com companies burst because of a bad business model, spending more money to advertise themselves then they were bringing in.
      2. Click-and-Mortar Companies
        Traditional brick and mortar companies that have added e-marketing to their operations. Many traditional companies had problems in joining the market as they were afraid to alienate their current partners or to cannibalize their sales in their own stores. But many of them have come through stronger. This was because many of them were established names that people went with versus the unknown.
    2. Setting Up an E-Marketing Presence
      1. Creating a Web Site
        1. corporate web site
          A web site designed to build customer goodwill and to supplement other sales channels, rather than to sell the company's products directly.
        2. Marketing web site
          A web site that engages consumers in interactions that will move them closer to a direct purchase or other marketing outcome.

        The seven C's of effective web design should be focused on when designing a site
        • context
        • content
        • community
        • customization
        • communications
        • connection
        • commerce
      2. Placing ads and promotions online
        Online advertising appears while consumers are surfing the web and include banner, ticker ads, intersitials and skyscrapers. Another form is viral marketing, using word of mouth (or word of email, chatroom, etc) to get people to come to visit your site.
      3. Creating or participating in web communities
        Web Sites which members can congregate and exchange views on issues of common interest. Because people are drawn their for the content, it is safe to assume that you could use that to specialize the ads to the site.
      4. Using E-mail and webcasting
        Emailing involves collecting names of people interested in your product and sending them regular advertising that interest them. Webcasting is the automatic downloading of customized information of interest to the owner of the PC. Also known as Push.
  6. THE PROMISE AND CHALLENGES OF E-COMMERCE
    1. The Continuing Promise of E-Commerce
      The promise that the Internet would replace all ways of doing things has always been over rated. For the most part, it will remain part of the mix of things done by marketers.
    2. The Web's Darker Side
      1. Internet profitability
        because of the volume of information, customer's attention can easily be diverted. Also, marketing is hard to do in an area where things can be so tightly narrowed down. Many sites will go unnoticed because of this.
      2. Legal and ethical issues
        1. online privacy and security
          Like other companies, web sites can collect information. There are the facts that this information could fall into wrong hands, especially with the companies failing and their assets being sold. Customers also are concerned with people hacking into the information that is kept as well. It is up to the company to protect the customer
        2. other legal and ethical issues
          Because of lack of personal contact, internet fraud is a high concern. Also the fact that this market tends to divide or segment the population, only the more affluent having access to it. Lastly their is the problem of unauthorized access to information.
  7. LOOKING BACK: REVIEWING THE CONCEPTS



Saturday, January 24, 2004

Data Modeling

Database Systems 5e; Rob Cornel

Unit2


Chapter 2
  1. A Logical view of data
    1. Entities and Attributes
      Entity something that we need to collect data on.
      Entity Set named collection of entities
      Attributes characteristics of an entity
    2. Tables and Their characteristics
      Table a two dimensional structure composed of rows and columns, a group of related entities. Tables are the easiest way for us to visualize the data. Important characteristics of a relational table
      1. perceived as two dimensional structure composed of rows and columns
      2. Each table row (tuple) represents a single entity within the entity set
      3. Each table column represents an attribute, and each column has a distinct name
      4. Each table must have an attribute or combination of attributes that uniquely identifies each row
      5. All values in a column must conform to the same data format. Example: attribute is assigned integer format, all values must be integers
      6. Each column has a specific range of values known as the attribute domain
      7. The order of rows and columns is immaterial to the DBMS
      The various data types break down as follows:
      • Numeric: strictly numbers that can be manipulated by mathematics
      • character: text or numbers not for mathematics computations.
      • Date: Specific day, usually in the Julian calendar format
      • Logical: true or false, yes or no, 1 or 0
      Each table must have a primary key, something that uniquely identifies a row in the table. In can be one or a combination of attributes. A range of permissible values for an attribute is the domain.
  2. Keys
    A key is one or more attribute that uniquely identify an entity. There are other keys besides the primary key talked about already. Keys are used to find determination, this means that knowing the value of one item we can look up or determine the value of another attribute. It is usually written in the format A -> B. If multiples it would be A -> B,C,D. Related to this is functional dependence, where the value of B is functionally dependant of A if A determines or returns only one value of B. If it takes more that one key to show determination, then we have a composite key. Any part of this composite is a key attribute. A superkey is any key that determines each entity uniquely. A candidate key is the same but without redundancies. A superkey can be multiple keys even if one could stand by itself. the candidate key means it can stand by itself to give desired results. Null values, or values that have no value, are not allowed in a key value. A foreign key represents an attribute whose value matches the primary key in a related table. referential integrity is maintained if the foreign key contains a value that returns a valid row (tuple). A secondary key is one for retrieval purposes only. It helps in narrowing down a search if one does not know the primary key.
  3. Integrity Rules Revisited
    Database's should have entity integrity each entity is represented by a primary key. It should also have referential integrity, where a foreign key returns a unique entity. In some cases a dummy variable may be necessary for this, or a null value. For integrity it is better to use a dummy or flag variable as nulls cause problems with data integrity.
  4. Relational Database Operators
    Relational Algebra manipulating table contents using the eight relational operators.
    1. Union - combines all rows from two tables. (columns and domains must be identical or union compatible)
    2. Intersect - only the rows that appear in both tables. Must be union compatible
    3. Difference - all rows in one table that are not found in another table. Must be union compatible
    4. Product - all possible pairs of rows from two tables.
    5. Select - returns values for rows that mach specifications, or if none given will return all
    6. Project - returns all values for a selected attribute. Attributes can be combined.
    7. Join - Combines information in two tables that have a relationship. Multiple types of joins    
      1. Natural Join - it is broken into three steps
        1. a product of the two tables.
        2. This product fed through select so that only related columns displayed - this returns joined columns
        3.  
        4. A project is then done to return only non-redundant information
         
      2. equi Join - tables linked on basis of equality if not equal it is referred to as theta Join
      3. outer Join - matched pairs retained and others left null. Broken down into left and right
    8. Divide
  5. The Data Dictionary and the System Catalog
    The data dictionary is the information about the database. It contains at a minimum the all the attribute names and characteristics for each table in a system. This is defined as the metadata or data about the data. The system catalog would contain more detailed information about the database including the file structure, creator and other important data. It will check for homonyms in the database, same attribute names in different tables that mean different things. It will also check for synonyms, different names to describe the same attribute.
  6. Relationships Within the Relational Database
    To explain the relationships in a database we use entity relationship (E-R) models. There are two types, 1) Crow's feet and 2) Chen. Chen is better used for conceptual material, Crow's feet better for implementation. They have been explained in notes for last chapter and do not bear repeating here.
  7. Data redundancy Revisited
    Foreign keys will minimize data redundancy, but will not eliminate it altogether. Though we should strive to eliminate data redundancy there may be times when it is necessary evil. In a retail business it is possible that a sales invoice would result in certain price, but that price for a product may change the next day. Changing the price in the database would change the reflections of sales for that day. So even though line_price in the invoice may be the same as product_price in the inventory, it is best to separate them (though the relationship could be used to populate the fields upon initial use.
  8. Indexes
    An index is used to locate information in the database quicker. It wold be the equivalent of using the index in a book to find data rather than having to read the whole book to get the same data.

[Listening to: BVOV Radio 128 kbps Stereo Stream - Kenneth Copeland Ministries - (00:00)]

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Principles of Marketing


Priciples of Marketing 10e; Kotler, Armstrong


Unit 2, Chapter 2


Chapter 2: Company and Marketing Strategy: Partnering to Build Customer Relations
  1. Strategic Planing
    Strategic planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization's goals and capabilites and its changing marketing opertunities. It starts with defining the overal purpose and mission of a company which are then made into specific objectives. Lastly steps are detailed to decide what needs to be done to meet objectives.
    1. Defining a Market Oriented Mission
      The mission of an organization is clear when it first gets created, but time allows it to become fuzzy. For that reason, Mission statements, or a statement of the organization's purpose, get created to get them back on track. Mission statements should be marketing focused as technologies change. Marketing focused means 'what can I do to satisfy basic customer needs.' It should not be too broad and should be specific. They should match the market enviornment and motivating.
    2. Setting Company Objectives and Goals
      The mission statement then needs to be translated to objectives or goals that managers should meet. In some cases, one department may have to meet goals in orfer to support another department. Steps must be defined to figure out how to meet those goals (hire more people, create more brochures, etc.).
    3. Designing the Business Portfolio
      A business portfollo is the collection of businesses and products that make up the company. A business needs to analyze its current portfolio and then decide what it wants to do with what it has.
      Analyzing the Current Business Portfolio
      A Portfolio Analysis will need to be done to identify and evaluate all the businesses that make up the company. This is done by determing Strategic Business Units (SBU) or units of the company that have their own mission and plan individualy from the rest of the company. Next the company has to decide how much support each one of these units needs. Generally the units are tied together in one type (company might own several different fast food companies) but sometimes the unit can be varried and totally different from each other (GE is the example that the book uses). This analysis can be done one of several ways. We will look at a few.
      Boston Consulting Group Approach - The BCG groups the SBUs according to the following table
      High Growth rate/High Market Share
      Star
      High growth rate/low market share
      Question Mark
      Low growth rate/high market share
      Cash Cow
      Low grwoth rate/low market share
      Dog

      Stars require heavy investment. Eventualy they will slow down and turn to cash cows.
      Cash Cows need little investment to keep going. Produce income for company and for the other SBUs in company
      Question Marks require a lot of support to keep them going not to mention increase share. Could go to star or dog. Management needs to look at closely.
      Dogs generate enough cash to hold there own, no promise of cash growth.
      Each group needs to be put into the table where it belongs with an indication of how much money it brings in. This will be the determining factor in how the company does things. You will need strong Cash Cows, with some stars. Question Marks and dogs should be evaluated as to how much growth they can have over the long run and sold or disbursed if they can not bring in enough to keep company strong.
      The problem with this approach is the growth and market share can sometimes be hard to determine. It also focuses on the here and now not what could be in the future. Many companies are droping this aproach in favor of customized approach.
      Developing Stratergies for Growth and Downsizing - Similar to the table above is the product market expansion grid. It helps companies decide what stratergies to take for growth opertunities that will be profitable.
      Exsisting Market/Exsisting product
      Market Penetration
      Exsisting Market/New Products
      Product Development
      New Markets/Exsisting Products
      Product Development
      New Markets/New Products
      Diversification

      Market Penetration - Stratergy for company growth by increasing sales of current products to current market segment without changing the product.
      Market Development - stratergy for company growth by identifying and developing new market segments for current company products.
      Product Development - stratergy for company growth by offering modified or new products to current market segments.
      Diversification - stratergy for company growth through startup or aquiring businesses outside the company's current products and markets.

      Downsizing - Reducing the business portfolio by eliminating products or business units that are not profitable or that no longer fit the company's overall stratergy.
    4. Strategic Planning and Small Business
      Small business can benefit from doing these studies, not just the large corporations.
  2. Planing Marketing: Partnering to Build Customer Relationships
    Partner Relationship Management - Working closely with partners in other departments and outside the company to jointly bring greater value to customers.
    1. Partnering with Others in the Company
      Value chain - The serie of departments that carry out value-creating activities to design, produce, market, deliver and support a firm's products. A company's chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Marketing tends to think from consumer's point of view, and that can upset the other departments Therefore marketing management must work with other departments to get a harmony.
    2. Partnering with Others in Marketing System
      Often a company will have to look to what it can do for its suppliers to help them provide the products that the company needs. This creates a value-delivery nettwork.
  3. The Marketing Process
    The Marketing process is the process of: 1) analyzing marketing opportunities, 2) selecting target markets, 3) developing the marketing mix and 4) managing the marketing effort.
    1. Relationships with Consumers
      Companies must be customer centered, delivering what the customer needs and wants. This involves several things:
      Market segmentation - Dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers who have distinct needs, charectersitics, or behavior and who might require seperate products or marketing mixes. A Market segment is consumers who respond in similar ways to marketing efforts.
      Target Marketing - Process of evaluating each market segment's attractiveness and slecting one or more segments to enter. Decide who you want to go after
      Marketing Position - Arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive, and desireable place relative to competing products in the minds of comsumers. Decide how you want the customer to see your product.
    2. Marketing Strategies for Competitive Advantage
      One has do do a better job than their competiors of identifying target consumers if one is to succeed. SO to develope good marketing strategies you begin with comptative analysis. Who are our competitors? What are their objectives and strategies? What are their strength and weaknesses? How will they react to strategies that we might use?
    3. Developing in the Marketing Mix
      Marketeing Mix - set of controlable tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target merket. It is best to think of the 4 Ps.
      Product the goods and services the company offers to the target market.
      Price the amount of money customers have to pay to obtain goods.
      Place activities that make the product available to consumer
      Promotion activities that communicate the mertis of product and persuade target customers to buy it.
      There is concern that the four P's focus on seller's point of view. Instead the sugestion is the four C's for the consumer point of view. Consumer solution, customer cost, convenience, and communications.
  4. Managing the Marketing Effort
    1. Marketing Analysis
      A company begins this process by analsis of its situation. Find the opertunities and avoid the threats.
    2. Marketing Planning
      Planning has the company develope each business unit. From this a marketing stratergy, , the logic by which the business unithopes to achive its marketing objectives, will be developed.
    3. Marketing Implementation
      All the good statergies do no good if you do not have the marketing implementation, the process that turns marketing stratergies into marketing actions, in place. All in the company have to be in tune with and floow the implementation. Of course, the implemtation should fit in with the companies culture.
    4. Marketing Department Organization
      Company needs to design an operation to do the marketing for the organization. One person could do it in small organization, but larger companies need multiple people or even departments. The functional units can be broken down many ways, regions of the company, products that the company sells, etc.
    5. Marketing Control
      marketing Control is the process of measuring and evaluating the results of marketing stratergies and plans for taking corrective action to ensure the objectives are archived. They are broken up int to operating controls (ones that kick in when necessary for corrections) and strategic controls (ones that makes sure that stratergies are matched to opertunites).
    6. The Marketing Environment

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior 10e
Hellriegel and Slocum

Unit 2 - Chapter 2 Notes

  1. Personality Detriments
    Personality represents the profile or combination of stable characteristics that capture the uniqueness of a person. Theories of personality describe what people have in common and what sets them apart. People tend to define personality in terms of stability and continuity. The question is, how is personality determined? Two variables are heredity and environment. Personality seems to be a mixture of those.
    1. Heredity
      Heredity is what people seem to inherit from the traits of their parents. Though some may seem learned, twins raised apart often exhibit similar characteristics so what may be learned may actually be genetics.
    2. environment
      environment has many parts to it.
      • Culture - the distinctive ways that people in different societies organize and live their lives. It helps determine the broad patterns of behavior of a people group.
      • Family - Family is primary source for placing individual culture. Other things that are parts of the mixture that come from family are birth order, size, economic level, race and religion.
      • Group Membership - Though family is primary group that people are in, others come along in their lives, from school to social groups. Each influence the way a person thinks about things. To understand a person one may need to look at the groups that they are in.
      • Life Experience - Things that happen and when the happen influence things in a person, from self-esteem to goal seeking.
  2. Personality and Behavior
    Personality traits refer to the basic components of personality and there are thousands of them They seem to be able to break these down into the 'Big Five' Personality Factors
    1. Big Five Personality Factors
      The 'Big Five' personality factors describe the individual's adjustment, sociability, conscientiousness, agreeableness and intellectual openness. There is a relationship between these five traits and job performance.
    2. Self-Esteem
      Self-esteem results from an individual's continuing self-evaluation. Self- esteem affects vocational choices. High self-esteem seems to relate to risks in job selection, taking jobs that high-status and/or unconventional. Low self-esteem people tend to lead to inflated value of the opinion people place on them. Self-esteem is important in terms of work behavior.
    3. Locus of Control
      Locus of control refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events affecting them. People who believe they control their own destiny (internals) are more likely to influence and persuade others and be achievement oriented. The other group (externals) prefer a structured directive style of supervision.
    4. Goal Orientation
      Goal Orientation is broken up in to two components, learning goal orientation (acquiring and mastering mew competencies) and performance goal orientation (seeking favorable opinions from others). Strong performance goal people are likely to avoid challenges. When failure results these people will withdraw. Strong learning goal orientation people tend to try to overcome obstacles and treat failure as a feedback to what to fix. In fact, the slogan, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going, " reflects them.
    5. Introversion and Extroversion
      Introversion is the tendency to direct thoughts inward, and have greater affinity for abstract ideas. Extroversion is oriented towards people, events and objects. Most people are moderately between the two. Extremes on either part will affect how a person reacts on the job. The tendency is for extroverts to be managers though. Introverts tend to perform better it quiet surroundings, extroverts in places with lots of sensory stimulations.
    6. Organizational Uses
      Mangers or companies should not try to change or directly control employee personality. It is basically impossible, but if it were, it would likely be unethical. The challenge is to harness the employee's personality.
    7. The Person and the Situation
      Though in some cases employees may all act the same way, this does not mean they share the same personality. There is a personal and a situational aspect to behavior.
  3. Attitudes and Behaviors
    Attitudes are lasting feelings, beliefs and behavioral tendencies aimed at people, groups, ideas, or objects.
    1. Components of Attitudes
      • affective - feelings, sentiments, moods and emotions
      • cognitive - thoughts, opinions, knowledge, or information
      • behavioral - predisposition to act favorably or unfavorably on something
      • These all come in to play together, but other things may modify what actually happens.
    2. Links to Behavior
      Three things improve the accuracy of predicting behavior from attitudes.
      • General attitudes best predict general behavior
      • Specific attitudes best specific behaviors
      • The less time that elapses between attitude measurement and behavior, the more consistent will be the relationship between attitude and behavior
      One link for attitude and behavior is hope. Hope can be defined as mental will power added to the waypower (determination) to achieve goals. Managers can increase hope in three ways.
      1. Help employees set clear goals
      2. Help employees break long term goals into smaller sub-goals
      3. Help employees figure out how to motivate themselves.
  4. Work Attitudes
    1. Job Satisfaction
      Job satisfaction is the feelings that reflect the attitude towards a job. If it is low there will be high job turnover. To change one has to look at:
      • Sources of Job Satisfaction
      • Relation to Job Behavior - between job satisfaction and job behaviors and other outcomes in the workplace.
    2. Organizational Commitment
      Organizational Commitment is the strength of an employee's commitment to the organization. It goes beyond loyalty, including a contribution to accomplishing the goals of the organization. Sources vary from person to person and can change over time (pay when young, job market of person when older. SInce lack of commitment leads to turn over it is something that organizations need to understand.
  5. Individual Differences in Ethical Behavior
    1. Types of Management Ethics
      • Immoral Management - behavior devoid of any ethical principles. Belief in maximum exploitation of any opportunities for corporate or personal gains.
      • Moral Management - behavior focused on doing what is right, and profits come second to ethics.
      • Amoral Management - indifference to ethical concerns. There is no thought about what will occur if actions taken in organization.
    2. Establishing Ethical Attitudes
      Though organizations cannot change personalities of employees, they should establish moral management from the top person on down.

Monday, January 19, 2004


Principles of Marketing


Priciples of Marketing 10e


Unit 1/Chapter 1 notes


CHAPTER 1

MARKETING:
MANAGING PROFITABLE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
I. LOOKING AHEAD: PREVIEWING THE CONCEPTS
A review of Amazon.com and how it has been successful so far.
II. WHAT IS MARKETING?
Marketing has two purposes
   1. attract new customers by promising superior value
   2. Grow current customers by delivering satisfaction.
      A. Marketing Defined
A social and managerial process whereby individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with each other.
               Core terms we need to know.
               " Needs, Wants, Demands
               " Marketing offers (products, services and experiences)
               " Value and satisfaction
               " Exchanges, transactions and relationships
               " Markets
      B. Needs, Wants and Demands
                   Needs - state of felt depravation
                                 Wants - the form taken by a human needs as shaped by culture and individual personality
                                 Demands - Human wants that are backed by buying power
                                 Marketing must reach out to all three of theses.
   C. Marketing Offers - Products, Services, and Experiences
                   Marketing offer - Some combination of products, services, information, or experiences offered to a market to satisfy a need or want.
It is possible to have 'marketing myopia', thinking that you have what the customer needs (a drill bit) when he has a different need (a need to drill a whole). If something else comes along that will do job better, customer will switch. Some marketers try to build meaning or experience into their marketing so that customers stay with them.
   D. Value and Satisfaction
                   Customer value - the difference between value customer gains from owning product and the cost of obtaining the product.
                                 Customer Satisfaction - how well the product lives up to the customer's satisfaction.
                                 Marketers need to balance these. If expectation is too low they may attract some buyers but not enough. If they set to high, buyers get disappointed.
   E. Exchange, Transactions, and Relationships
                   Exchange - act of obtaining a desired object from someone by offering something in return.
                                 Transaction - a trade of values between two parties.
                                 A marketer tries to bring about a response to a marketing offer. Marketing tries to maintain desirable exchange relationships, not only getting new customers but marinating older customers.
   F. Markets
                   Market - the set of all actual and potential buyers of a product or service.
                                 Market was originally a place where buyers and sellers gathered to exchange their goods. Economists see a market as a collection of buyers and sellers. Marketers see sellers as industry and buyers as the market
   G. Marketing
                   Marketing means managing markets to bring about profitable exchange relationships. This is done by creating value and satisfying needs and wants.
This means work. Sellers need to search for buyers and identify what then need, design the goods and set prices for them as well as promote store and then deliver them.
III. MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Marketing management - the art and science of choosing target markets and building profitable relationships with them.
   A. Customer and Demand Management
                   Marketing Management - learning to serve selected customers well and profitably. This may mean that demarketing, the reduction of customers, may need to take place in order to serve your customers. The aim is not to destroy the demand, only to reduce or shift it.
   B. Marketing Management Orientations
      1. The Production Concept
                     The idea that consumers will favor products that are available and highly affordable.
                     This concept can lead to marketing myopia, focusing on their own needs and not customer satisfaction.
      2. The Product Concept
                     The idea that consumers will favor products that offer most quality, performance, and features and that the organization should therefore devote its energy to making continuous product improvements.
                     The problem is that the seller will be making a better mouse trap and the buyer wants a way to get rid of rats, which the seller may or may not meet.
      3. The Selling Concept
                  The idea that consumers will not buy enough of the organization's product unless the organization undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort.
                  This is typically done when organization feels that it has or will have overcapacity. The focus is on creating sales rather than long term customer relations.
      4. The Marketing Concept
                  The marketing management philosophy that holds that achieving organizational goals depends on determining the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more efficiently and effectively than competitors do.
                  The focus is on satisfying the customer. This works when customers know what they want, but since a customer may not know what they want, the marketer may need to lead them to it.
      5. The Societal Marketing Concept
                     The idea that the organization should determine the needs, wants, and interests of target markets and deliver satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than do competitors in a way that maintains or improves the consumer's and society's well-being.
                     It questions customers short-run wants versus the long-run welfare.
IV. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Customer relationship management - the overall process of building and maintaining profitable customer relationships by delivering superior customer value and satisfaction.
The purpose here is to stop up the 'leaky bucket' and not loose any older established customers. The reason is that is a company keeps a customer for a lifetime than there is a value there that can be replace by attracting another customer but at what cost.
   A. Attracting, Retaining, and Growing Customers
      1. Relationship building blocks: Customer value and satisfaction
         a. customer value
                  Customer Perceived Value - The difference between total customer value and total customer cost.
                  Example - Does FedEx's extra cost give a better value than the Postal Service? The Postal Service can do it cheaper but FedEx has prestige to it.
         b. customer satisfaction
                     Customer satisfaction - the extent to which a product's perceived performance matches a buyer's expectations.
                     Satisfied customers tell others about their satisfaction and make repeat purchases. Smart companies promise only what they can deliver and then deliver more than they promise. This brings customer satisfaction.
      2. Customer loyalty and retention
         A satisfied customer is less price sensitive and will talk favorably to other people. Satisfaction and loyalty vary among industries though. Non-competitive markets (monopolies or protected business) tend to have loyal customers but pay a high price for dissatisfaction in the long run.
      3. Growing "Share of Customer"
                  This is done by becoming the only supplier of the product, or by expanding your business to take on other products.
   B. Building Customer Relationships and Customer Equity
      1. Customer equity
                     Customer - Equity - The total combined customer lifetime value of all the company's customers.
                        It reflects the future of the customer and the more loyal the customers are the higher the equity will be.
      2. Customer relationship levels and tools
                  Customer relationships are built depending on the nature of the target market. But commonly a few things are done
                  Frequency marketing programs reward customers who buy frequently or in large amounts (frequent flier miles).
                  Social Benefits add value to the purchase by making the customer part of some organization promoting member communities.
                  Structural ties offer special tools to the customer (web site links for FedEx for example).
V. MARKETING CHALLENGES IN THE NEW "CONNECTED" MILLENNIUM
                     Yogi Bera - "The future ain't what it used to be." Marketing development now can be summed up in one word, connecting.
   A. Technologies for Connecting
                  Technology allows to be anyplace in the world and never set foot on a plane. Advertising can be done many new ways now (CD ROMS and cell phones for example).
         1. The Internet
                     Companies do not need to have a physical presence any more; they can be virtual on the net now. Established customers also need a presence as well.
   B. Connecting with Customers
      1. Connecting with more carefully selected customers
                  Marketers today realize they do not want to market to just anyone, they want to market to fewer more profitable customers. Once they identify these customers based on the data they have they can deliver special offers to them. But what of the other customers? Though they do not fire them they discourage them in ways.
      2. Connecting for a customer's lifetime
                     The emphasis now is connecting with a customer and then growing your share of that customer.
      3. Connecting directly
                  Direct marketing and the internet have become the model for many companied. Even ones that do not sell directly to the consumer place information on the internet that relates to the customer needs (child care information on a Papers Diaper web site).
   C. Connecting with Marketing Partners
                  Partner relationship management - Working closely with partners in other company departments and outside the company to jointly bring greater value to the customer.
      1. Connecting inside the company
                  All departments in the company need to realize that they are equally responsible for the customer's satisfaction.
      2. Connecting with outside partners
           a. Supply chain management
                        The supply chain is the channel from raw material to the final product. Companies today realize that they can only do well if the companies that feed them perform. In this respect they become partners in satisfying the customer.
            b. strategic alliances
                     This is often done though strategic alliances, partners who compliment their strengths and offset their weakness.
   D. Connecting with the World Around Us
      1. Global connections
                     All companies, large and small are touched by global competition. Questions need to be asked by the company how they are to go global.
      2. Connections with our values and social responsibilities
                     Few companies can afford to ignore the environmental movement.
      3. Broadening connections
               Marketing has become not just for products, but for non-profit organizations that do not sell anything but a sense of belonging.
   E. The New Connected World of Marketing
VI. LOOKING BACK: REVIEWING THE CONCEPTS

Saturday, January 17, 2004

Data Modeling

Database Systems; Design, Implementation, and Management
Rob/Coronel

Chapter 1

  1. Introducing the database
    It is necessary in study of databases we need to know the diffference between Data and information. Data are raw facts. Information is data that has been procesed so that it can be useful to people who must make decisions. Out of necessity, for this information to be accurate, it must be clear, timely and useful. For this to be done efficently a computer is used normally and the main tool for this would be a database. A database is shared, integratedcomputer structure that houses a collection of: 1)End user data (raw facts) 2) Metadata, or data about the data. A Database Management System (DBMS) is a collection of programs that manage the database structure and controls access to the data stored in the database. When we speak of database design, we speak of the data structure itself since we cannot change the software that we purchace to do the databases.
    1. Why Database Design is Important
      You must have a well designed structure to your data for it to be able to be used well. The best DBMS will not work well with poorly designed data. Redundant data, same data in several places, is a sign of a poorly designed error proned database. This will lead to poor decisions based on poor information.
    2. A Practical Approach to Database Design
      We will study good database design and not the outer limits of database theory.
  2. The Historical Roots of Database:Files and File Systems
    File systems are now for the most part obsolete but the study of our past lets us see the mistakes not to make in the future. Originally the data was kept in a system of physical folders and cabinets and data that was needed to be extracted to useful information took a long time. As computers became more prevalant, the data processing (DP) specialist became a new professional in many companies. They used File systems for this. Some terminology:
    DataRaw facts. Has little meaning unless organized in logical manner. Smallest piece is charachter
    FieldCharachter or group of charachters that have a specific meaning. Used to define and store data
    RecordLogically connected set of one or more fields.
    FileA collection of related records
    As file systems grew and the need for maintaining them did also, the data processing manager became a prominante position.
  3. A File System Critique
    1. File System Data Management
      Data retirvial is done with use of 3GL, third generaltion languages, time consuming and high skill. This makes 'ad hoc' or at the spur of the moment data needs an impossibility. Furthermore changing field in a file system can cause extensive reprograming not only in the file in question, but in any programs that reference that file. File system method promotes ownership of the data which tends to scatter the same data over many locations.
    2. Structural and Data Dependence
      File systems exhibit structural dependence, meaning that access to file is dependant to its structure. Changing any one field is also a problem, and the means a file system is data depandent. Data Logical Format, how the human sees the layout of data, and data physical format, how the computer actual stores it, are two important concepts. In a file system, this layout has to be known and the program accessing things needs to know how the data is stored(how the computer stores it) and the format of the information the program is storing.
    3. Field Definitions and Naming Conventions
      A person designing a file system as well as any database should be aware of definitons and naming conventions. Definitions deals with what is being stored. Do we want to store a person's name as one long string or break it up in to last name and first name. Naming conventions also is important. Generaly you would put the ownership as part of the nameplus a short sesical representation of what the data contains. An example of this would be CUS_Renew_Date.
    4. Data Redundancy
      As noted, data redundency is a common problem with File Systems. This can lead to data incosistancy where data is not updated accross the whole system, effecting the data integrity. Because the way the data is stored, one column may have several repeat entries, this can lead to data anomalies, like when a sales agent leaes the company and a new one is assigned. If the agent is not corrected in all fields, a non-exisitant sales agent is assigned to account.
  4. Database Systems
    1. The Database System Environment
      The database system is composed of five major components.
      • Hardware - the physical devices used by a system. Computer(s) and peripherals
      • Software - Programs used by the computer in the database system. These include:
        • Operating system - the programs that run the computer be it a mainframe or a micro (and inbetween)
        • DBMS software - programs that mange the database
        • Application programs/utilty software - used to access and manipulate the data in the DBMS.
      • People
        • System administrators - oversees the database system's general operations
        • Database administrators - (DBA) - manage the DBMS and makes sure it is functioning properly
        • Database Designers - Design the database, and if the foundation is not good, the rest will crumble.
        • Systems analysts/programers - design and implement the programs needed to access the data
        • End Users- the people who all this was put together for in the first place
      • Procedures - instructions and rules that govern the design and use of the database system. These are the rules that the company runs itself by. Though important part, it is usually fogotten.
      • Data - the facts stored in the database.
      The exsistance of these will be as complex as the enviornment is.
    2. Types of Database Management Systems
      • How many users
        • single user - only one user at a time
        • muti-user - many users can access database at same time
      • Location
        • centralized - data at one location
        • distributed - accross several different sites.
        • Type of information
          • transactional/productional DBMS - designed to give immediate response to time critical information
          • decision support system - uses large pools of data, often called data wharehouses, to help decision makers make decisions. Data comes from many sources and often time is not as critical as in transactional systems
      Desigining a data base these items must be taken into concideration.
    3. DBMS Functions
      Data directory management definitions of the data elements and their relationships
      Data storage managementThe complex structures of the data storage are handeled by the DBMS
      Data transformation and presentationThe DBMS handles the transformation of the data in the format it is stored in to the format that can make sense to the user.
      Security managementThe DBMS handles the user security and data privacy as preset by what the admnstrators create.
      Multiuser access controlThe DBMS handles the necessities so that multiple users can access the database at the same time.
      Backup and recovery managementThe DBMS has tools that make backup and recovery procures for both normal and special circumstances
      Data Integrity ManagementThe DBMS will enforce rules so that the data is not redundant nor in the wrong format for use.
      Database Access Language/Application Programming InterfacesDBMS provides access per a query language, a way for users to get information. This consist of data definition language (defining the data structure) and Data manipulation language (the way the data is extracted for use).
      Database communication interfacesThe DBMS allows for requests through a network (example, a query form a browser that is then fed back to browser in format that it can use)
    4. Managing the Database Systems: a Shift in Focus
      A shift in focus has happened as can be seen. The DBMS takes over many of the tasks that the file system's DP specialist had in the past.
    5. Database Design and Modeling
      Database design is done with models, simplified abstractions of the data. If the model is good, the databse design should be as well. If the design is good, then the applications should be. Like a building, if the foundation (model) is not good, then the building (database and applications) will be faulty and not do what it is designed to do.
  5. Database Models
    A conceptual model is based on what is represented in the database. An implementation model is based on how the data is represented in the database. Conceptual models are based on three types and show the realtionship of entities. They are:
    1. one to many relationship - 1:M - example painter paints many paintings, painting only has one painter
    2. many to many relationship - M:N - example employee has job skill, job skill is had by many employee
    3. one to one relationship - 1:1 - example one store has one senior manager

    1. The Hierarchical Database Model

    2. In 1960's Rockwell was doing the contracting for the Apollo project and much of the data for it was stored in computer file systems, leading to large amounts of data derdundency. Because of this they developed the Generalized Update Access Method (GUAM). Later IBM jined Rockwell in what they created, changed it from tape to (new) disk dtorage and called it the Information Magement System (IMS). It used a hierarchial database model, resembling a upside down tree, or an organizational chart for a company. This created a one to many approach.
      Basic structure As noted it took on the structure of a organizational chart. This allowed for an entity to have many children, but it could only have one parent. The base layer is called the root. In order to store the data the way the computer would see it, the tree would have to be flatened a bit. The final asembly might have 3 parts off of the root, 1, 2 and 3. 1 may have 1A and from it 1a1 and 1a2. 2 may have no other parts. 3 might have 3A and 3B, with 3a having 3a1, 3a2 and 3a3, and 3b having nothing. Drawing this out as a tree makes sense. But the computer would store it in order, in a manner like this:

      root -> 1 -> 1A -> 1A1 -> 1A2 -> 2 -> 3 -> 3A1 -> 3A2 -> 3A3 -> 3B

      The dat goes left to right and top to bottom. This is called preorder travel or hierarchial sequence. This order would be the way the data is stoed on the computer. Because of the data that is used more activly should be moved more to the front of the storage. If 3A2 were the most changed item than the data model should be changed to put the 3 to the left side.
      Advantages Simplicity, security, independece of data, integrity of data and efficiency (if in a 1:M relationship).
      Disadvantages Complex to implement, difficult to manage, no structural independence, complex application programing, limitations of implmentation (1:M realtionships only), lack of standards.
    3. The Network Database Mode
      Created to reprresent more complex data. It also improved database performance and imposed a database standard. The Confrence on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL) attempted to create a standard for databases after they had standardized Cobol. The recomended three things
      1. A network schema or conceptual organization of the data
      2. A sub schema that defines what the application program sees
      3. A data management language to define the characteristics and data structure.

      Though ANSI implemented it as a standard, it was 'stretched' to meet the vendor's needs at many times.
      Basic structureResembles the hierachial model. Major difference is that an entity could have more than one parent.
      Advantages Simple concept, M:N relationships handled better, Data access flexibility, data integrity, data independence, and conformace to standards.
      Disadvantages Complexity of system, lack of structural independence.
    4. The Relational Database Model
      First created in 1970 but impractial till the 90's.
      Basic structureInformation is stored in tables with rows and columns. Each table in the databse will share some information with another table. These columns will have the same name so that the information stored in one could be brought into the other table by relation. This allows for all three relational types to be met.
      Advantages Structural independence, conceptual simplicity, easier design/implementation/management/use, ad hoc querying, powerful.
      Disadvantages high overhead for software and hardware, poor design is too easy to do, islands of information are possible because it is too easy for many create their own systems.
    5. The Entity Relationship Data Model
      Because of the complexity of the data, tools are needed to allow user to graphicaly create the database. This becomes the entity relationship model (E-R).
      Basic structureEntity instances or entity occurances (rows in tables), has an attribute (collumn in tables). This entities can have relationship to other information elsewhere. This model was developed by Peter Chen, named the Chen Model in 1976. It uses rectangles to represent entities and diamonds to depict the relationship between them. A similar model, the Crow's foot model uses single or 3 prong lines to represent the various type of relationships that are handled by charachters in Chen's model.
      Advantages simple concepts, visual representation, allows for good communications, integrates with relational databse model.
      Disadvantages Limited constraint representation, limited relationship representation, no data manipulation language, loss of information content.
    6. The Object-Oriented Database Model
      First called the semantic data model (SDM) it uses the concepts of an object of a model. The object contains the structure of the data as well as the things that can be done to that data, as well as the relationships they have.
      Basic structureObject represents one instance of an entity. Attributes describe the properties of an object. Objects that are similar are grouped in classes. Classes are organized in a class hierarchy. An object can inherit attributes and methods form another class.
      Advantages Semantic content added, visual presentation (includes samantic content, integrity of database, structure and data indpendence.
      Disadvantages Standards, complex to navigate date, steep learning curve, high system overhead.
  6. Wrap-Up: The Evolution of Data Models
    1. Database Models and the Internet
  7. Summary
  8. Key Terms
  9. Review Questions
  10. Problems