Broadway Cafe - Business Intelligence Case Study

Business Intelligence

Data are raw facts that describe the characteristics of an event. Characteristics for a sales event could include the date, item number, item description, quantity ordered, customer name, and shipping details. Information is data converted into a meaningful and useful context. Information from sales events could include best-selling item, worst-selling item, best customer, and worst customer.

Business intelligence is a broad, general term describing information that people use to support their decision-making efforts. An early reference to business intelligence occurs in Sun Tzu’s book titled The Art of War . Sun Tzu claims that to succeed in war, one should have full knowledge of one’s own strengths and weaknesses and full knowledge of the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. Lack of either one might result in defeat. A certain school of thought draws parallels between the challenges in business and those of war, specifically:

Collecting information.

Discerning patterns and meaning in the information.

Responding to the resultant information.

1. Business Dilemma

You maintain many different customer lists from your Music customers to Art Gallery and Book Club customers. You want to begin mailing a monthly newsletter to your customers discussing everything from current coffee growing trends to community events. To date, your customer lists have been maintained primarily for e-mail addresses and you are unsure if customer addresses are even correct. You do not want to use e-mail to distribute your newsletter as you want to place a coupon marketing a free cup of the coffee in each newsletter. If you e-mail the newsletter you could not control the free cup coupon.

PROJECT FOCUS:

• Analyze the data below and determine if you will be able to use it to mail your newsletters.

• Be sure to highlight all of the issues with the data, potential causes of the issues, and solutions you can follow to correct the issues.

ID First Name Middle...