DATA: THE NEW CORPORATE RESOURCE - Fundamentals of Database Management Systems - page 12

DATA IN TODAY'S INFORMATION SYSTEMS ENVIRONMENT

Using Data for Competitive Advantage
Today's computers are technological marvels. Their speeds, compactness, ease of
use, price as related to capability, and, yes, their data storage capacities are truly
amazing. And yet, our fundamental interest in computers is the same as that of the
ancient Middle-Eastern shepherds in their pebbles and sacks: they are the vehicles
we need to store and utilize the data that is important to us in our environment.
Indeed, data has become indispensable in every kind of modern business
and government organization. Data, the applications that process the data, and
the computers on which the applications run are fundamental to every aspect of
every kind of endeavor. When speaking of corporate resources , people used to
list such items as capital, plant and equipment, inventory, personnel, and patents.
Today, any such list of corporate resources must include the corporation's data. It
has even been suggested that data is the most important corporate resource because
it describes all of the others.
Data can provide a crucial competitive advantage for a company. We
routinely speak of data and the information derived from it as competitive weapons
in hotly contested industries. For example, FedEx had a significant competitive
advantage when it first provided access to its package tracking data on its Web
site. Then, once one company in an industry develops a new application that takes
advantage of its data, the other companies in the industry are forced to match it to
remain competitive. This cycle continually moves the use of data to ever-higher
levels, making it an ever more important corporate resource than before. Examples
of this abound. Banks give their customers online access to their accounts. Package
shipping companies provide up-to-the-minute information on the whereabouts of
a package. Retailers send manufacturers product sales data that the manufacturers
use to adjust inventories and production cycles. Manufacturers automatically send
their parts suppliers inventory data and expect the suppliers to use the data to keep
a steady stream of parts flowing.

Problems in Storing and Accessing Data
But being able to store and provide efficient access to a company's data while also
maintaining its accuracy so that it can be used to competitive advantage is anything

1.2 D ATA AS A C OMPETITIVE W EAPON

YOUR

TURN

T hink about a company with which
you or your family regularly does business. This might be
a supermarket, a department store, or a pharmacy, as
examples. What kind of data do you think they collect
about their suppliers, their inventory, their sales, and their
customers? What kind of data do you think they should
collect and how do you think they might be able to use it
to gain a competitive advantage?

Q UESTION :
Choose one of the companies that you or your family
does business with and develop a plan for the kinds
of data it might collect and the ways in which it might
use the data to gain a business advantage over its
competitors.