SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DATABASE ENVIRONMENT - Database Design and Development: An Essential Guide for IT Professionals - page 76

data requirements apply to supervisory and executive level users attached to diverse
divisions.
Viewed from the context of functional divisions, the organization's database
system supplies the information needs of users in the following ways:
• Provides each department within each division with data specific to each
process in that department.
• Enables every department to perform its processes.
• If necessary, allows one department to use data collected by another.
• Collectively, provides data for processes of all functions of the organization.
• In essence, affords data for the carrying out the core business of the
organization.
At Geographic Regions
Today's organization has a worldwide presence. As the world has become smaller
because of improved communication facilities and rapid transportation methods, it
is easy for businesses to expand globally. It is not uncommon for many companies
to have offices in the U.S., the U.K., Europe, and Asia.
In a global company with worldwide offices, where are your users? Who are the
users that need to be serviced by the company's database? One user may be located
in Chicago, another in London, one in Paris, another in Milan, and yet another in
Hong Kong. All users in the company need information to perform their various
processes. Although the processes may be similar to the ones performed by users
in operational, supervisory, and executive levels in domestic companies, the infor-
mation needed in a global organization by the same type of users is conditioned by
local requirements. The user in Hong Kong is more interested in the customers from
China. The user in Paris depends on the information about sales to French cus-
tomers to complete his or her process.
Information needs of users in various geographic regions of a company may be
classified into two categories as indicated below.
Local Information Consider a user in the accounting division of the Paris office
of a company with worldwide branches. To prepare an invoice to cover a sale to a
French customer, the user needs information about that French customer, the
product, units supplied, the price, shipping charges, and French tax rates. When you
examine these pieces of information, you will note that these are not needed by a
user in Hong Kong to prepare an invoice for a Chinese customer.
Names and addresses of customers in France, shipping charges within France, and
French tax rates are examples of local information for the users in the French region.
In the same way, names and addresses of customers in China, shipping charges
within China, and Chinese tax rates are examples of local information for the users
in the Chinese region. Users in each geographic region require local information to
perform their business processes. The nature and extent of local information varies
from region to region. Some regions may require a substantial volume of local infor-
mation, more than other regions.