INFOSYS 110 (15/02/2022 12:30) Digital Systems (Exam)

Exam Case

TakeLead (TL) is a dog walking business located in Whangārei, New Zealand. TL’s founder, Simon, started the business in the summer of 2011. At the time Simon was a keen cricket player, and his team needed to raise funds in order to attend the national tournament in the following year. Having already walked his neighbour’s dog for a year, Simon sprung to life with an idea – walk all the dogs in his neighbourhood to slowly reach his funding goal.

With this new idea, Simon began attending local community events, talking to friends at school, and approaching various people in dog parks. Simon would sit outside these locations with freshly printed poster advertisements and pen and paper sign- up forms. As Simon was on a budget, he could not afford an EFTPOS machine and so all his customers paid with cash. At first it was tough to get any responses at all, but   as    time   passed,    Simon   was    quickly   growing    his    reputation   as    the neighbourhood’s go-to dog walker.

Over time, Simon realised that many of his customers began asking to pay with card as opposed to cash, and so he bought an EFTPOS machine at an affordable price from a family friend.  He also  identified that  he  had  many  repeat  customers who wanted Simon to walk their dog daily. From here, Simon decided that it would be a great idea to introduce ‘daily-walk’ coupons to encourage more customers to sign up for  regular,  daily walks –  and  these turned  out to  be  a  great  success.  To  keep organised, Simon began storing information about his customers and their dogs on an  Excel  Spreadsheet. As  his  business  grew  drastically,  he  found that  as these spreadsheets grew in size, and they were becoming very inaccurate, clunky, and messy.  For example, the  prevalence of popular dog  names  in  Simon’s customer base meant that multiple customers are recorded in the same file.

Fast-forward  a  few  years  and  Simon’s  business  has  grown  considerably  with  8 employees spread out over 3 locations. Given such tremendous success, Simon has ambitious plans to further develop his company into the largest dog walking business in Northland and is working hard on making that happen.

1 TL’s Chief Data Officer, Madeleine, suggested that it was better to use an online sign-up form as opposed to the paper sign-up version. When TL implemented this, Madeleine also found that the paper version contained many unnecessary questions, and so these were later excluded in the online sign-up forms.

Using the information from this exam case, provide:

a. Two benefits produced by utilising the ‘digital’ version of the sign-up forms. Explain your answer for each benefit. (4 marks)

b. Two drawbacks/negatives of using the ‘digital’ version of the sign-up forms. Explain your answer for each drawback. (4 marks)

c. One  challenge that those  unnecessary  questions  may  have  posed  to TL’s overall  Data Management and why. (4 marks)

d. An explanation as to how Garbage  In, Garbage Out (GIGO) may occur when using the paper sign-up forms at TL, what the likely outcome will be, and how such problems may be avoided. (4 marks)

Construct your answer using the following template (a - d). Copy and Paste it into the answer area and fill in your answers accordingly:

a. Benefit 1 and why:

Benefit 2 and why:

b. Drawback 1 and why:

Drawback 2 and why:

c. One challenge in relation to Data Management:

d. How GIGO may occur:

Likely outcome:

How it may be avoided:

2 To stay competitive and reach their goal of becoming the largest dog-walking business in

Northland, TL must be able to generate useful information to guide their strategy. At the same time, Simon has also been approached by a software development business that has offered to   create a Collaboration system to improve the workflows, completion, and organisation of tasks at TL.

Using the information from the exam case, provide:

a. An explanation as to what  Business  Intelligence  is  and  how  it  may  be  useful to TL. (4 marks)

b. Two examples of data collected by a TPS at TL and two examples of information generated by a DSS at TL. (4 marks)

c. An explanation as to what type of Collaboration System is being offered/proposed and why it is that type. (2 marks)

Construct your answer using the following template (a - c). Copy and Paste it into the answer area and fill in your answers accordingly:

a. What Business Intelligence is and how it is useful:

b. Data example 1:

Data example 2:

Information example 1:

Information example 2:

c. Type of Collaboration System and Explanation:

3 Over the three office locations, TL has various departments ranging from Accounting & Finance, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Operations. TL has the option of (a) having an information system running with a centralised database over all offices and departments, or (b) to let each office and department run and maintain its own information system.

Based on what you have learnt from INFOSYS110, which option would you recommend to TL? Explain your recommendation. Suggest two advantages and two disadvantages associated with your recommendation.

Construct your answer using the following template. Copy and Paste it into the answer area and fill in your answers accordingly:

Your recommendation:

Explanation for your recommendation:

Advantage 1:

Advantage 2:

Disadvantage 1:

Disadvantage 2:

4 Ashley, TL’s Chief Technology Officer is frustrated. She’s been asking Simon for funding to move away from using Excel to store their customer data. She believes using a database will be more efficient, easier to use, and will be able to handle the ever increasing amount of data the business is storing.

Simon has finally agreed to provide the funding for Ashley to make this happen, but has some specific requirements for this implementation.

· The database must be able to handle all of the data requirements for at least the next 10 years.

· The work must be finished within the next four weeks, as Simon needs Ashley to focus on already planned office fit out upgrades after that.

· Ashley cannot use existing staff to help her with the implementation as they are all busy. However, Simon has approved a business case for her to hire two contractors to assist.

a. Explain whether the work required qualifies as a project. If you believe that it does meet the requirements  of  a  project,  state  four  characteristics  about  the  work  that  results  in  it qualifying as a project. If you believe that it does not meet the requirements of a project, state which of the four project management characteristics it does not meet. Provide an explanation for your answer. (10 marks)

b. What is the time constraint? (2 marks)

c. What is the cost constraint? (2 marks)

d. It soon becomes clear that the team of 3 will not be able to complete the job in four weeks Suggest one way that Ashley can still proceed, and the impact on the "quality” of the work. (6 marks)

e. Ashely knows how important this is to the business, and therefore to Simon. However, she is not sure how and when to update him on any progress. Explain how using the Agile Methodology  might assist Ashely  in  ensuring that  Simon  is  up to  date on the work.  (8 marks)

Construct your answer using the following template ( a - e). Copy and Paste it into the answer area and fill in your answers accordingly:

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

5 Although the dog walking business has been very profitable over the years, Simon is now looking to take things to the next level. One of the options available to him is to partner with various companies within the wider pet industry. He has been approached by a large pet food franchise who are interested in the valuable data he has collected. This data includes customers details, how much they spend, dog breed, and frequency of engagement.

Simon knows that this partnership will be very profitable. Provide two security and two ethical considerations Simon should be aware of when providing access to this data to the pet food franchise.  For  each  consideration,  recommend  one  way  that  the  risk  can  be  mitigated  or minimised. Explain and justify your recommendations.

(Marks:   1  for  each   consideration,  2  for  each  recommendation,  2  for  each  explanation/ justification).

Construct your answer using the following template. Copy and Paste it into the answer area and fill in your answers accordingly:

Security consideration 1:

Risk mitigation/minimisation recommendation:

Explanation:

Security consideration 2:

Risk mitigation/minimisation recommendation:

Explanation:

Ethical consideration 1:

Risk mitigation/minimisation recommendation:

Explanation:

Ethical consideration 2:

Risk mitigation/minimisation recommendation:

Explanation:

6 Simon has decided to proceed with the pet food partnership (described in Question 5). As part of this lucrative deal, both parties will share all the data they have on their customers. Some of the information the pet food franchise will provide to TL includes: the amount and type of pet food purchased, location, customer details, and dog breed.

In class, we discussed two data mining techniques that can help Simon and the pet stores to gain useful information.

a. Provide a  brief  description  of  each  technique  and  a  short  explanation  about  why  this technique will be useful for both TL and the pet food franchise. (10 marks)

b. For each technique, provide one example of a potential piece of information that could be beneficial for TL, and one potential piece of information that could be beneficial for the pet food company. (4 marks)

Construct your answer using the following template ( a - b). Copy and Paste it into the answer area and fill in your answers accordingly:

a. Technique 1:

Description:

Explanation (for TL and pet food franchise):

Technique 2:

Description:

Explanation (for TL and pet food franchise):

b. Technique 1 Example (for TL):

Technique 1 Example (for pet food franchise):

Technique 2 Example (for TL):

Technique 2 Example (for pet food company):