 Welcome back everyone. Today we're going to be talking about business information systems, business information systems. So business information systems or BIS are basically information systems that businesses use to support whatever it is that they're doing. Now in past lectures we've talked about a Kimbop shop using a credit card reader and a cash register to keep track of everything that they were recording. Well business information systems are a lot more than just a single computer, a single cash register, a single device basically. It's all of the different information systems that allow businesses to run. So some of that is technology but really let's think about what the main part of this is. We're talking about information systems. So information systems that support the business. So information systems were focused on the information that we need to be able to do whatever it is that we do. Now technology usually supports manipulating, transporting or communicating some type of information. So what we normally talk about would be like a computer or a computer network. So let's focus on that for a second. We have a computer. So this would be like a desktop computer. Let's say it's running the Windows operating system. Windows and maybe we have Microsoft Word installed on it. So we have an operating system. We have some software that we can use on the computer. But by itself does that really help us? Well if it's just this computer by itself, does that support our business? It depends what our business is. If we are a print shop, then we don't really need the internet. We don't really need any other support systems. We need the computer. We need at least an operating system and then something to be able to open files that we can print. And then we need obviously the technology which would be a printer. So for a print shop, we would need a printer. We would need a computer and an operating system and then something to open print files. Now, do print shops use other technologies than just a computer? Yeah, they use a lot of other technologies. So instead of just using Microsoft Word, they might use something like Adobe Photoshop. Because they want to not only print photos, but sometimes they offer some photo editing services before they print. Maybe they design posters to be printed. So they need other support systems or support technology to be able to support what business they do. In this case, where's the information? What information do we have here? Well, is the computer information? No, it contains information. It processes information. It can convert, for example, a Photoshop image to a print image or a printed sheet or a poster, things like that. But the actual information that we're interested in is what? Well, the information would be not necessarily in Windows, not necessarily in the printer, but the information would be in, let's say, Word or Photoshop, some sort of software that lets us create something or display some information somehow. So in the case of Photoshop, the information that we have is a banner. So let's say banner, right? So maybe you have a dance party. You want to put some dance people there. So you want to put a banner with people dancing. Now, the information that you want for your business, let's say you're printing the banner, is that you want to say, our office is having a dance party. So please come to our dance party tomorrow at 6 p.m., something like that. So that's the information that I want to get across. Well, the print shop, their information systems actually allow them to create or take the information that I have and do something with it. So I can tell them, hey, I have a dance party tomorrow at 6 p.m. I want to let people know about that dance party. I want to make a banner. Well, the print shop then can take your information and do something with that information. Now, does Photoshop have your information? No. But we can use Photoshop to manipulate the information that you give. So this is an information system. And in this case, it's an information manipulation system. Now, once we design the banner, let's say that we have a JPEG image or it's probably going to be a TIFF if it's high quality. So we have a JPEG image or TIFF. So these are two image types. So using Photoshop, we've designed some information, a banner, but we actually need to print that banner now. So is what in this tools kit, I guess, or all of these systems that we have, allows us to print or allows us to convert that information into what we actually want, which is the banner. So we have something from Photoshop. This allows us to manipulate. But can Photoshop actually produce a banner? No. Photoshop can't produce a banner. Photoshop can manipulate information and make a digital file. What actually produces the banner? Well, the printer. But before we can go from image to printer, we actually have to convert the data. So in this case, Windows is talking to your computer hardware and the computer hardware is talking to the printer. The printer probably has some sort of firmware software that then prints out a piece of paper with the information on it. So this whole system is supporting the business of being a print shop. If I didn't have the computer, I couldn't support image manipulation or design. I could draw out the image and I could potentially paint a banner. But painting a banner versus printing a banner. Painting a banner is much more manual. It takes a lot longer and it's easier to mess up. So this is kind of automating the print shop using our business information system. In this case, the business information system includes one computer, right? One printer. That's not a very good print shop if they only have one printer, but basically one printer. And then an operating system. Now, in this case, we have Windows, it could be OSX, it could be Linux, Unix, basically any operating system will work. And then they have Microsoft Word which could be used to create a banner or Photoshop which could be used to create or design banners, right? So some sort of software, let's say one software. At least one software, okay? So we have one computer, one printer, one operating system, one software. And each of these are part of the overall business information system, okay? So in the case of the software, well, the software helps us with design and creation or manipulation of the information. The operating system helps us manipulate the designed data or the image and then convert it into a form that the computer or the hardware can understand. The hardware then sends this information as ones and zeros to the printer that prints it out on a page, right? So all of this is a very simple information system. It has one computer, one piece of software and a printer, okay? Now, for big companies, they have very large business information systems and they need very large business information systems because information is the business usually, okay? So for example, even a kimbap shop, what information do they have that their competitors don't have? Well, could be something as simple as which kimchi do they buy or how do they make their kimchi, right? Kimchi can really change the taste of a kimbap. So you might have some sort of secret information or possibly even public information about how to make that particular kimchi taste a certain way or maybe it's actually the proportions of rice and vegetables you use. So they could have their own information and based on that information people like their kimbap because they like the way they make it. So their recipe then for the kimbap would be the information that they need to manage. Now, for recipes, we could probably manage it in our head unless you have a lot of recipes that you need to manage. But for main businesses, they have a lot of information that they need to recall very often and they need a very efficient way to pull up that information. So usually the way that businesses store information is in probably at least one database, right? So governments are always trying to make databases for all types of information. Sometimes they're useful, sometimes they're not. It depends on how it's designed and how you intend to use the data. Well, to access the database, this is basically just a piece of software running on a computer. So this is usually called a server. So a server and then we're running some software called a database. Now there's lots of different types of databases. Depending on what you're trying to do, I won't get into database types. Just know that right now what they do is you put all of your data into them. So it could be anything, for example, like customer data. So your customers, what are their names? What do they buy from you? What do they like? What do they not like? That kind of information. In your database, if you know all of your customers, what they like, maybe you know how to better market to those customers. So a database could be about your customers. It could be about your product. How do we make our product? What's the best way to make our product? So there's lots of different data that we could potentially put into the database. So next, the server, we connect to it with computers. We have to have some sort of computers connect to the database. We could connect automatically, but there's going to be problems because humans have a really hard time going through lots of data very, very quickly. So it helps if we have a computer to do that. So we have usually computers, and all of those computers have software. For example, an operating system, and then Microsoft Office, Photoshop, any type of software that they need to be able to access the data in that company. So the software or these computers connect to the database, but how can they connect? Well, they connect over a network. So we have a network, which is also a business information system. So this network, basically all the computers connect to, the servers connect to, and then everyone can pass data or pass information through the network. So now we have a bunch of computers connected together through the network. We have servers and services connected through the network. And then everyone can talk to each other. I can ask the database, hey, do you have information on this client? And then the server can respond whatever information it has. So normally we have at least some computers for our clients. And the clients are basically the workers at the business. But it could also be for the people you sell items to. We have a network that supports connecting to other computers on the inside the organization, as well as servers or services inside the organization like a database. And then the network also usually in modern networks connects us to the internet. So the internet, right? Then all of these computers can now access through the local network, services online like Google Mail, Amazon, any of those services. And people outside of our network can connect into our database and potentially access some of our information. Maybe that's our business, is giving them access to the information that we have. So in business information systems, business information systems are anything that supports the business handling, manipulating, or working with any information that they need to do the business. So in this case, if we have a small company like this, a bunch of computers, that's the hardware, the physical things we can touch. They probably also have some cell phones. So let's put a little cell phone here. So they probably have some cell phones that help manage the information. We have software to help us manipulate the information and make sense of what it's trying to tell us about our business. We have computers, the computer hardware connecting to the network. The network lets us transfer information to another place or other people. Think about before we actually had a computer network or even computers. Everyone had to write information on a piece of paper and then give that piece of paper to someone else. Now a lot of organizations still do it that way, but it's very, very inefficient. Using a computer network to transfer your information is much more efficient, much more effective. And then there's usually some sort of server running a service. And that service almost always has some type of database behind it where we store information, we try to pull information out as quickly as possible. Now business information systems can be a lot more than just this kind of small network. And it definitely is, it could involve sensors. So for example, maybe all of our electricity is on some sort of smart sensor. So every office monitors the amount of electricity that's used in the office. Now how does that support business information? Well if every office is keeping track, let's say we have sensors in every single office keeping track of the amount of electricity. And we can say this office is using five, this office is using two, this office is using four, this office is using one. Well what we can start to do then is figure out why is this office using so much less energy than for example this office. Now does this have anything to do with our product? Probably not, but what does it affect? If we can figure out why or how an office is using so little energy and still be productive, then maybe we can get everyone else to reduce their energy, right? And then overall we can save costs for the business. Now this is not our product, we're not selling this to customers necessarily, but we're just using information about in this case the electricity usage in our building to try to reduce costs. And if you can reduce costs and maintain the same level of productivity then you are being efficient, okay? So there's a couple different ways to make money in business. One is to sell products that people will buy for more than what you actually produce them for. So let's say we produce, I don't know, a toy. We produce a weird shaped toy, right? And it costs us, even with all of these energy costs, it costs us $2 or let's say $201 to make, okay? Well if we can sell it at Cheonwon then we've made a profit, right? Now if we want to make more money we can do a couple things. First we could try to raise the price of the toy to Cheon like $1,101, okay? We could try to raise the price but then maybe less people buy our toy so we don't actually make more money or we could try to reduce the costs. So instead of $201 if we can reduce things like energy consumption then maybe we can actually produce the toy for $101, okay? If we can reduce our costs then we've saved $101 and we didn't even have to raise the price to the end user. Now most companies use a combination of cost reduction plus price increase to try to maximize their profits as much as possible but both ways are perfectly valid. Now the reason I'm talking about this is because what we needed are the sensors. We need to know how much energy is actually being used. That way we have the information to be able to make some sort of decision, okay? And the more information we have the better the information we have the better decisions we can make. So business information systems are really important for businesses not just to manage the information that they do have but also to make sure that they're using that information as effectively as possible. If I have a bunch of information in my database but I never use it then it's worthless, right? So if I have a problem accessing my database or accessing that information then I can't really effectively use that information. Now, yeah, so basically we just have to think about what information do we have how do we want to manipulate it, how do we want to use it and what's the best way to use the information for whatever our business goals are. So think about your business plan that you wrote. Imagine you're doing your business and people are starting to buy your product if it's a product or a service and you want to or you need for some reason to make more profit. But imagine that you can't increase the cost to the customer. What can you do? You can look at how you can run your organization more effectively to still get the same output, work output from the company while minimizing your costs. Now, this can really go too far and if you go too far where you're just pushing people and pushing people to have more output then eventually they get to the point where they're not working very well. So it can have kind of a detrimental effect if you take it too far. So you basically want to figure out how people can be effective. So what's a good example? A good example of that is let's say you're trying to reduce energy costs. Well, you have sensors that say that this room is using five units of energy. Now what you could do is educate the people in the office to not leave the lights on whenever they go out of the room. So if they leave the office, shut off the lights, shut off the heater, for example. Or you could change the lights. So then you have low voltage lights in the office. Now the problem might be maybe this office really needs to read a lot of papers. If they need to read a lot of papers and you change the light to be very weak light then all of a sudden they have a harder time reading. They get headaches easier and their productivity goes down. So even though you saved energy costs, now it's going to take them longer to do their job. So you really have to balance the human side of efficiency and the technology side or the decision side. So in this case, which lights do we use? Now technology, just implementing technology properly can go a long way in helping to make an organization more efficient because most organizations do not use technology well. A lot of people are still in the very old way of doing business where they want everything on paper or they want face-to-face communication all the time. A lot of that can be done away with and it will help increase productivity in an office but you can't get rid of it completely. So there is a bit of a trade-off there. Don't go crazy, just make everything very robotic. That usually doesn't help with productivity too much or your in-product could suffer. So business information systems are anything that helps us to deal with information, any system that helps us deal with information in the business to do whatever the goal of the business is. That almost always includes some sort of small or small-medium large network depending on the size of your organization. That network will probably have computers, phones and other devices including sensors now. There's almost always some sort of centralized server to manage information or to help manage information where everyone can go to get information they need. And then now most networks also connect to the internet because the internet is basically a large database of information that we can use for our business. Now lots of things on the internet are not useful for our business so we also need to balance that a little bit. But for the most part it's very, let's say, useful. So that's it for business information systems. We'll talk a little bit more about actually developing the networks in the next lectures. So thank you very much.