Looking back to week one and the recommendations you made in the week one assessment in conjunction with this week’s material consider EC’s position in the industry, their current customers and those in the future and identify trends, ideas, and technology that you feel Dwight should consider in growing the company. For this skill, Dwight wants to see how well you can judge the external trends for the business by measuring your understanding of a SWOT analysis. 

 Below is the SWOT chart that Dwight has developed.

Strengths

Weaknesses

• Strong Internet growth
• Sound financial status
• Use of state-of-the-art technology to produce competitive products
• Made in America Qualified
• Employment of Wounded American Veterans

• Medical Insurance is very high because of the wounded employees
• revenue based on individual buyers rather than larger industry customers
• Sourcing material is becoming harder
• More leadership is needed
• No KM department
• Understaffed IT department

Opportunities

Threats

• AI in Production and Customer Service
• New Engineering of Wheel Chairs is leading to new in-home products (EC can diversify)
• Expanding EC workforce by dropping the Wounded American Vet Hire policy
• Regulations making lithium batteries safer will make new product line possible
• AI in Production and Customer Service
• Many large companies are buying smaller companies and becoming one stop shops for medical accessories
• Law suits for engineering and design flaws are increasing dramatically
• Losing larger heath center customers
• Sourcing material is becoming harder

Skill #5: Know the basics of knowledge management.

Inga Swanson was one of the first employees Dwight and Ike hired. She runs the customer relations department and now the online returns and rewards programs as well. Recently she has gone to Dwight and Ike with the idea that her commitments to the webstore are getting so demanding that she needs help in several areas. She wants to hire people to take over the customer relations department and online returns so she can focus on the webstore and move into a marketing role. She thinks that Dwight and Ike should consider this move for two important reasons; better decision making and should anything happen to her the whole online and customer relations departments would shut down. Ike agreed immediately and Dwight was right behind him. The problem Dwight realized almost immediately was how would the transition work with all that knowledge in Inga’s head? and all the tools she uses to measure her marketing goals etc. How can we make good decisions without them? 

Dwight wants you to examine the idea of collecting and storing the knowledge Inge and others have (captured and accumulated) in the company. Using the course material and prior business class experience complete a 2-3 page memorandum outlining the steps a manager might take to achieve a smooth transition.

In the outline include:

Explain how to capture, collect, and store knowledge for the company.

Explain how these actions will affect performance in the company.

• Describe how you go about collecting knowledge from Inge.

Explain how the knowledge will affect the hiring decisions for the new departments or should it be teams?

Explain how it could affect Inge’s new role.

Directions: 

You must use course material to support your responses and APA in-text citations with a reference list.

Additional Requirements and How to Prepare the Weekly Attachment Submission

• Follow the instructions carefully if the assignment asks for a memo, email, plan, report, etc. be sure to follow the format templates provided.
  • Submissions should be in proper business writing form.
• APA formatting with in-text citations and a reference list is required.
• Review the grading rubric for the assignment.
• Carefully read all of the instructions to make sure all elements of the assignment have been covered.
• Third-person writing is required. Third-person means that there are no words such as “I, me, my, we, or us” (first-person writing), nor is there use of “you or your” (second-person writing). If uncertain how to write in the third person, view this link.
• Contractions are not used in business writing, so the expectation is that students do not use contractions in assignments.
• Paraphrase and do not use direct quotes. This means you do not use more than four consecutive words from a source document; put a passage from a source document into your own words and attribute the passage to the source document. Provide the page or paragraph number. Note that a reference within a reference list cannot exist without an associated in-text citation and vice versa.
• Do not use books as source material.
• Use a variety as well as multiple course readings and research to support ideas, reasoning, and conclusions.
• Submit the final project into the appropriate assignment submission folder.  Once submitted, the project is eligible for grading and students will not be permitted to make changes or make another submission.

ARTICLE BELOW: 

Data-Driven Decision Making: 10 Simple Steps For Any Business 

Bernard MarrContributor

Enterprise Tech

I believe data should be at the heart of strategic decision making in businesses, whether they are huge multinationals or small family-run operations. Data can provide insights that help you answer your key business questions (such as ‘How can I improve customer satisfaction?’). Data leads to insights; business owners and managers can turn those insights into decisions and actions that improve the business. This is the power of data.

In this post I look at the process for applying data to your decision making – broken down into a simple ten-step process. Don’t be tempted to skip steps or jump ahead to juicier parts – the strategic steps are as important (if not more) than the data itself.

Start with strategy

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the possibilities that a big data world provides, and it’s easy to get lost in the noise and hype surrounding data. Starting with strategy helps you ignore the hype and cut to what is going to make a difference for your business. Instead of starting with what data you could or should access, start by working out what your business is looking to achieve.

Hone in on the business area

You now need to identify which business areas are most important to achieving your overall strategy. If you could only work on improving one or two areas, which would you choose? For most businesses, the customer, finance and operations areas are key ones to look at.

Identify your unanswered business questions

Now that you’ve identified your strategic objectives, the next step is to work out which questions you need to answer in order to achieve those goals. By working out exactly what you need to know, you can focus on the data that you really need. Your data requirements, cost and stress levels are massively reduced when you move from ‘collect everything just in case’ to ‘collect and measure x and y to answer question z’. 

Decision Making (Source: Shutterstock)

Find the data to answer your questions

The next step is to identify what data you need to access or acquire in order to answer these questions. It’s really important to understand that no type of data is inherently better or more valuable than any other type. Focus on identifying the ideal data for you: the data that could help you answer your most pressing questions and deliver on your strategic objectives. Make a note of which data sets you could use to answer those questions. You can then choose the best data options to pursue based on how easy the data is to collect, how quick and how cost effective it is.

Identify what data you already have

Once you’ve identified the data you need, it makes sense to see if you’re already sitting on some of that information, even if it isn’t immediately obvious. Internal data accounts for everything your business currently has or could access. If the data doesn’t already exist, then find ways of collecting it either by putting data collection systems in place or by acquiring or accessing external data.

Work out if the costs and effort are justified

Once you know the costs, you can work out if the tangible benefits outweigh those costs. In this respect, you should treat data like any other key business investment. You need to make a clear case for the investment that outlines the long-term value of data to the business strategy. Although the cost of data is falling all the time, it can still add up if you get carried away. This is why it’s crucial to focus only on the data that you really need. If you believe the costs outweigh the benefits, then you may need to look at alternative data sources.

Collect the data

Much of this step comes down to setting up the processes and people who will gather and manage your data. You may be buying access to an analysis-ready data set, in which case there’s no need to collect data as such. But, in reality, many data projects require some amount of data collection.

Analyze the data

You need to analyze the data in order to extract meaningful and useful business insights. After all, there’s no point coming this far if you don’t then learn something new from the data. The most common types of analytics are text analytics, speech analytics and video/image analytics. The past few years have seen an explosion in the number of platforms available for big data analysis. Some platforms require nothing more than a working knowledge of Excel, meaning most employees can dip their toes into big data analysis. However, in many cases, data requires a more experienced analytical hand.

Present and distribute the insights

Unless the results are presented to the right people at the right time in a meaningful way then the size of the data sets or the sophistication of the analytics tools won’t really matter. You need to make sure the insights gained from your data are used to inform decision making and, ultimately, improve performance.

These days there are more interesting ways to present data and exciting tools to help you do it.

Incorporate the learning into the business

Finally, you need to apply the insights from the data to your decision making, making the decisions that will transform your business for the better … and then acting on those decisions. For me, this is the most rewarding part of the data journey: turning data into action 

Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to govern

I believe data should be at the heart of strategic decision making in businesses, whether they are huge multinationals or small family-run operations. Data can provide insights that help you answer your key business questions (such as ‘How can I improve customer satisfaction?’). Data leads to insights; business owners and managers can turn those insights into decisions and actions that improve the business. This is the power of data.

In this post I look at the process for applying data to your decision making – broken down into a simple ten-step process. Don’t be tempted to skip steps or jump ahead to juicier parts – the strategic steps are as important (if not more) than the data itself.

Start with strategy

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the possibilities that a big data world provides, and it’s easy to get lost in the noise and hype surrounding data. Starting with strategy helps you ignore the hype and cut to what is going to make a difference for your business. Instead of starting with what data you could or should access, start by working out what your business is looking to achieve.

Hone in on the business area

You now need to identify which business areas are most important to achieving your overall strategy. If

you could only work on improving one or two areas, which would you choose? For most businesses, the customer, finance and operations areas are key ones to look at.

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Identify your unanswered business questions

Now that you’ve identified your strategic objectives, the next step is to work out which questions you need to answer in order to achieve those goals. By working out exactly what you need to know, you can focus on the data that you really need. Your data requirements, cost and stress levels are massively reduced when you move from ‘collect everything just in case’ to ‘collect and measure x and y to answer question z’.

Decision Making (Source: Shutterstock)

Find the data to answer your questions

The next step is to identify what data you need to access or acquire in order to answer these questions.

It’s really important to understand that no type of data is inherently better or more valuable than any other type. Focus on identifying the ideal data for you: the data that could help you answer your most pressing questions and deliver on your strategic objectives. Make a note of which data sets you could use to answer those questions. You can then choose the best data options to pursue based on how easy the data is to collect, how quick and how cost effective it is.

Identify what data you already have

Once you’ve identified the data you need, it makes sense to see if you’re already sitting on some of that information, even if it isn’t immediately obvious. Internal data accounts for everything your business currently has or could access. If the data doesn’t already exist, then find ways of collecting it either by putting data collection systems in place or by acquiring or accessing external data.

Work out if the costs and effort are justified

Once you know the costs, you can work out if the tangible benefits outweigh those costs. In this respect, you should treat data like any other key business investment. You need to make a clear case for the investment that outlines the long-term value of data to the business strategy. Although the cost of data is falling all the time, it can still add up if you get carried away. This is why it’s crucial to focus only on the data that you really need. If you believe the costs outweigh the benefits, then you may need to look at alternative data sources.

Collect the data

Much of this step comes down to setting up the processes and people who will gather and manage your data. You may be buying access to an analysis-ready data set, in which case there’s no need to collect data as such. But, in reality, many data projects require some amount of data collection.

Analyze the data

You need to analyze the data in order to extract meaningful and useful business insights. After all, there’s no point coming this far if you don’t then learn something new from the data. The most common types of analytics are text analytics, speech analytics and video/image analytics. The past few years have seen an explosion in the number of platforms available for big data analysis. Some platforms require nothing more than a working knowledge of Excel, meaning most employees can dip their toes into big data analysis. However, in many cases, data requires a more experienced analytical hand.

Present and distribute the insights

Unless the results are presented to the right people at the right time in a meaningful way then the size of the data sets or the sophistication of the analytics tools won’t really matter. You need to make sure the insights gained from your data are used to inform decision making and, ultimately, improve performance. These days there are more interesting ways to present data and exciting tools to help you do it.

Incorporate the learning into the business

Finally, you need to apply the insights from the data to your decision making, making the decisions that will transform your business for the better … and then acting on those decisions. For me, this is the most rewarding part of the data journey: turning data into action.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website. 

Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to govern