Shahzaib Mubashar 16U03025

1. How is it possible, as Braddock noted, to have a great deal of data but little
information? How does the SAP database and business intelligence component
change this?

Most small firms that grow in size (and are successful in some sense) build systems
one-at-a-time, and without an enterprise-wide point of view.In part this is because
small firms do not have the resources or time to build more comprehensive systems,
and in part because nearly all attention is being paid to survival and growth, not back
office administration. Whatever the cause, small firms end up with a hodge-podge of
information systems that do not talk with each other or share information easily. The
management information required is “there” in a number of systems, but not easily
captured and used by managers. SAP’s enterprise system pulls together the
information being produced by this hodge-podge of old systems and can display and
analyze the data in a modern, integrated, fashion for managers.
1. What is meant by “visibility into the workflow” and why is it important to
FreshDirect's success? What are exception screens and how are they used?

Many firms, and many managers, do not have a good understanding of how work is
accomplished in their firms. They may know how many resources go into a business
process, and what is produced by a business process, but they often do not have any
intimate knowledge of what happens in-between input and output. Often there are
no measures of how the process is working, the steps in the process, and where
failures occur. “Visibility into the workflow” is an effort to map out the entire
business process in some detail and track information produced at each stage of
production.