American Water Keeps Data Flowing (Page 275)

Q1 Discuss the role of information policy, data administration, and efforts to ensure data quality in improving data management at American Water.

• In the rebuilding procedure of America Water business forms, especially it included three noteworthy exercises by which every one of them had given critical contribution(s) in building up valid information administration. 

• In particular data strategy, information organization and (business) endeavors are the basic exercises, which had empowered the creation and fuse of solid information administration of American Water. 

• On the one hand, the development of new data approach where administration chose to modify association's business forms from decentralized into unified structure was crucial in building establishment of tried and true information administration. 

• As of its present data framework was confining programmed information sharing from one territorial business to others and headquarter, in this way the choice to modify information administration's structure have been considered to be proper and lined up with its prime objective(s) that is, to enhance business efficiencies, give standard vast business procedures and venture wide revealing (dispose of excess and irregularity of information) and in addition acknowledging marketable strategy of Initial Public Offering (IPO). 

• On the other hand, information organization had additionally taken considerable part in enhancing information administration of American Water. Truth be told, the development of existing information into the new information administration framework was not just performed through minor information exchange; rather it required extra attempt(s) by data authorities and intensive examination of business clients. 

• Dynamic engagement of data experts and business clients were getting to be basic as of information have not yet been institutionalized. Before the way that the configuration of information put away in old information administration was not being composed in like manner, consequently it involved data authorities to perform information audit, information purifying and so forth., while business clients were required to distinguish and decide the tenets and principles for overseeing information in the new information administration. This thusly, expanding the obligation and significance of information (by organization data authorities and business clients) in helping American Water to plan heavenly information administration framework, which would serve inner/or outer user(s) with predictable business information(s). 

• Consequently, the effort(s) in which American Water dedicated to understand its objective(s) was by contributing and incorporating data framework that is, Enterprise Resource Planning to supplant its old information administration. 

• With the reconciliation of common business insight, it empowered American Water to view, sort and dissect business knowledge information into institutionalized organization. Subsequently, it disposes of the presence of repetition, incorrect, insignificant and irregularity of information put away in new information administration framework.

Q2 Describe roles played by information systems specialists and end users in American Water’s systems transformation project.

• With standardized data, reports were easier to generate and gave a more complete picture of operations. It made comparisons among operating units easier and allowed business units to review best practices more easily than before.

• Besides, replenishing inventories could be less efficient if more than one data entry per item were used in the database. The database could reflect that a particular item is out of stock based on one data entry while in reality it is in full supply but under a different data entry.

• Management made the business users responsible for the data but not just a responsibility of the information systems department on doing this thing. The business “owns” the data and it is business needs that determine the rules and standards for managing the data.

• Business users were required to inventory and review all the pieces of data in the systems to determine which need to be migrated from the old system to the new system and which would be left behind as they are the one who clear on this as they are the users for the data. Business users were also required to review the data to make sure they were accurate and consistent and redundant data were eliminated.SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence enables business users to view, sort and analyze business intelligence data. It includes generating queries, reports and interactive dashboards.

Q3 Why was the participation of business users so important? If they didn’t play this role, what would have happened?

• Given the fact where they would be the prime individual(s) who is going to execute business operational activities, thus the existence of business users has been perceived as necessarily paramount.

• Apparently, the responsibilities of business users are to obtain the needed material(s) for business operations at the lowest cost which in turn, requiring business users to possess excellent negotiation skill(s). Nevertheless, negotiation skill(s) inclined to have no significance given the absence of strong bargaining power. As business users could only exert vendors, to offer competitive price(s), by purchasing material(s) in bulk, thus the availability of reliable business data would be crucial.

• Based on the given case scenario, information specialists had only standardized business data with various formats from each regional office(s), which afterwards being inserted into new data management system. Yet, the inserted business data was not classified into specific category that can be recognized and understood. This in turn, confining operational department from having proper checking on business current inventory, unable business users to execute procurement activities and also affecting the efficiency and purchasing power of business. As a result, active participation of business users in managing business data into organized structure is deemed to be significant for achieving strong bargaining power and providing other business functions with relevant business data.

• In the absence of business users’ participation, operational department may be equipped with incomplete /or unstructured business data, which might likely lead business users to source excessive /or insufficient number of material(s). Being notified to purchase materials in disproportionate amount, business may likely to incur higher operating cost (unnecessary spending for excessive purchases /or charged by vendor(s) with exclusive pricing due to small order(s)).

Q4 How did implementing a data warehouse help American Water move toward a more centralized organization?

• Evidently, information distribution center that is, fused by American Water is known as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). 

• Specifically, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a data framework, which permitting different information from various inner sources to be put away and shared among business function(s) in headquarter and local business office(s). 

• Preceding the mix of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) into its business forms, American Water end up ready to change itself from decentralized into brought together association as it is presently skilled to get and produce important business information from different territorial organizations without the need to ask for composed report(s).

Q5 Give some examples of problems that would have occurred at American Water if its data were not “clean”?

If the data are not clean, it makes the data warehouse much larger than necessary. For instance, a particular type of material may have two to three different data descriptions. Comparisons and consolidation of the data are more difficult to make when there is more than one description and definition of each data item. It may confuse the users and cause the issue of low accuracy of data.

Q6 How did American Water’s data warehouse improve operations and management decision making?

• American Water is focusing on promoting the idea that data must be “clean” to be effective and has poured an incredible amount of effort into its data cleansing work by identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate, and irrelevant pieces of data and then replacing, modifying, or deleting the “dirty” data.By having clean data in a single data warehouse that is easily accessible and reports are easy to generate, management and users can make better decisions because the data are more complete. Clean data gives a much better picture of the organization and a clearer direction for management. Data mining is much easier and more complete with clean data. By implementing the data warehouse, the whole company and its subsidiaries were able to standardize their business processes so that they were all entering data in the same way and so the work can be more reliable and creating more values to the company.

• With the incorporation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) into its business processes, American Water can be able to obtain and produce reliable business data from various regional office(s).

• Given the availability of credible business data within its data management system, it enabled the top management of America Water to have well understanding toward its business conditions and induced at the ability of top management to consider sound business factor(s) and make relevant decision(s) upon the analysis.