Chapter 1

Data: The New

Corporate Resource
Fundamentals of Database Management Systems
by
Mark L. Gillenson, Ph.D.
University of Memphis


John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Chapter Objectives
Explain data as a corporate resource that
can be used to gain a competitive
advantage.
Describe the database management
systems (DBMS) environment.

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Data
Data - the foundation of organizational business
activity

Database - a highly organized collection of
logically related data

Database Management System - sophisticated
software that controls the database and the
database environment

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Using Data for Competitive
Advantage
Data has become indispensable to 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.
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Using Data for Competitive
Advantage
Data is a corporate resource, possibly the
most important corporate resource.
Data can give a company a crucial
competitive advantage.
e.g., FedEx had a significant competitive
advantage when it first provided access to its
package tracking data on its Web site.
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Problems in Storing and
Accessing Data
Difficult to store and to provide efficient,
accurate access to a companys data.
The volume of data that companies have
is massive.
Wal-Mart estimates its data warehouse
contains 70 terabytes (trillions of characters)
of data.
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Problems in Storing and
Accessing Data
Larger number of people want access to data:
the whole supply chain needs access to data.
This creates the problem with data performance
Employees
Customers
Trading partners
Suppliers
Additional issues: data security, data privacy,
and backup and recovery.
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Data Security
Involves a company protecting its data
from theft, malicious destruction,
deliberate attempts at making phony
changes to the data.
e.g., someone trying to increase his own bank
account balance.
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Data Privacy
Ensuring that even employees who
normally have access to the companys
data are given access only to the specific
data that they need in their work.
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Backup and Recovery
The ability to reconstruct data if it is lost or
corrupted.

e.g., following a hardware failure

e.g., following a natural disaster
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Data Accuracy
The same data is stored several,
sometimes many, times within a
companys information systems.

When a new application is written, new
data files are created to store its data.

Data can be duplicated within a single file
and across files.
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Data as a Corporate Resource
Data may be the most difficult corporate
resource to manage.

We have tremendous volume, billions,
trillions, and more individual pieces of
data, each piece of which is different from
the next.
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Data as a Corporate Resource
A kind of software is required to help
manage the data.

Faster hardware is required to keep up
with the increasing volume of data and
data access demands.

Data management specialists need to be
developed and educated.
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The Database Environment
Database Management System (DBMS)

Personnel - database administrator and
data management specialist

Fast hardware

Massive data storage facilities
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The Database Environment
Encourages data sharing

Helps control data redundancy

Improvements in data accuracy

Permits storage of vast volumes of data
with acceptable access.
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The Database Environment
Allows database queries

Provides tools to control:
data security
data privacy
backup and recovery

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Data Usage in Companies
Think about the data usage in a company.
Make a list of the things in the business
environment about which the company would want
to maintain data.
Do some or all of these qualify as corporate
resources?
Develop some ideas of how the data can be used to
gain competitive advantage.