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Computer Applications for Business 1

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Title: Computer Applications for Business 1


1
Computer Applications for Business (1)
  • Health Safety Information
  • Goals of the course
  • Help you get the best out of computers
  • And out of the IT staff youll work with
  • Objectives to cover business uses of PC
    packages
  • For assisting in business decision-making
  • To communicate conclusions and ideas
  • This course is for you
  • Content depends on what you know already
  • Youve almost certainly used computers heavily
  • Goal is to glue together Islands of
    understanding

2
How Well Do This
  • Method is to enhance your Business skills by
  • Extending expertise with a Word-processing
    package
  • Developing expertise of a Spread-sheet package
  • Being able to set up and use a database
  • At the end, you will be able to produce reports
    in a variety of styles, integrating the
    techniques youve learnt
  • On the way, youll learn some
  • Basic Computer Architecture
  • Understanding of Operating Systems

3
Relevant Topics
  • Word Processing
  • Setting up and using styles
  • Complex layouts
  • Simple desktop publishing
  • Electronic Mail
  • How to make it work for you
  • WWW Browser
  • Getting information from the Internet
  • Optimizing the use of search engines
  • Digital Imaging
  • Introduction to Databases
  • Where theyre useful
  • How to set them up
  • More on Spreadsheets
  • Presenting data clearly
  • Selecting graphical displays
  • Project Planning
  • Concept of critical path
  • Gantt and PERT charts
  • Internet publishing
  • Writing HTML
  • Producing and processing surveys
  • Unlikely to get hands-on experience with software
    for
  • Accounting
  • Customer relationship mgt

4
Potential Packages to Study
  • Depends on
  • Students knowledge base and needs
  • If you cant use Microsoft Word already, please
    enrol on an ECDL course at the Kenneth Kettle
    Building
  • Well learn about making reports and presenting
    facts
  • How computers are used in Business
  • Their contribution to business success
  • What professional and managerial staff do with
    them
  • Being selfish which skills will give you an
    advantage over your peers?

5
College IT Survey 1998
6
Another way to look at it
I bet thesehave changedsince 1998
7
Getting to know one another
  • Mikes Background
  • Now lets hear about you

8
Goals of the Course
  • Understanding rather than skills
  • Not how to do word-processing etc(which you
    can get from ITCS)
  • Foundation for rest of Computing thread of
    Business programme
  • Basic computer architecture (mainly Intel x86
    and IBM 390)
  • General and PC hardware
  • Introduction to Operating Systems
  • The impact of computers on Business
  • How Managers use Computers

9
The Previous Computing Module
Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
We aim to make it more enjoyable this time no
programming
10
How Computers fit into Business
  • Operations
  • Point of Sale systems
  • Warehouse control
  • Ordering, Logistics
  • Accounting
  • Production
  • Numerically-controlled machines
  • Design
  • Production control
  • Control Management
  • Monitoring of Operations and Production
  • Decision Support tactical and strategic

11
How Important are Computers?
  • Most human achievements happened before computers
  • Shakespeare, Mozart, Michelangelo
  • Even things youd not consider doing without a
    computer, like cracking the Enigma code, or
    building aircraft
  • Theyre important now because we are addicted
  • Manufacturing and commerce run just in time
  • Control is more detailed than previously
  • Business is global
  • Product life cycles are shorter, demanding fast
    decisions
  • And because were more democratic
  • Most of population now has at least one bank
    account
  • Only rich minority used banks 50 years ago

12
A Way to Assess Value
  • Think how you would survive without computers
  • Analyse business processes
  • Look how they use computers
  • Assess how long the business could continue
    without
  • What are the immediate killers?
  • Which processes secure long-term future
  • This analysis was used in my Year-2000 seminars
  • Focus on short-term issues (specific to Year
    2000 none of us believed the problems will take
    long to fix)
  • Look at contribution to revenue short and
    mid-term

13
Business Processes Priority
  • Physical safety (not getting shut down under
    HASAW)
  • Generating Revenue
  • Making Product or Service
  • Getting paid
  • Processing orders
  • Satisfying Customers Partners
  • Delivering product
  • Paying bills
  • Handling enquiries
  • Staff Morale
  • Payroll, working conditions
  • Management Information

Distinguish between Urgency and Importance
14
Our focus is on Management
  • We need to know about production computing,
  • But few of us will actually use it ourselves
  • Physical safety outsourced to building management
  • Point-of-Sale equipment used at fairly junior
    levels
  • As is order-processing, telesales...
  • Making product or service often requires very
    specialized applications
  • So do warehousing and logistics systems
  • We are likely to use
  • Accounting systems, including payroll and
    personnel
  • Financial tracking and forecasting systems
  • Management Information and communications

15
So what do Managers Use?
  • Dont believe everything you read in Dilbert
  • But believe a lot of it thats why its in the
    Library!
  • Business success depends on
  • Communications
  • Formal, including instructions, materials orders
  • Informal, such as e-mail
  • Interpersonal, such as presentations
  • Decision support
  • Understand potential costs and benefits
  • Determine trends
  • React to correct errors and missed opportunities
  • Picking key indicators out of a pile of figures

Thisiswhatwellstudy
16
Communications
  • Formal, such as Electronic Data Interchange
  • Many large companies now order only via EDIIf
    you want to sell to Boeing interface with their
    system
  • NHS now gets most dentists bills over EDI
  • IBM avoids costs of 350M a year by Online
    Education
  • Informal point-to-point, such as e-mail
  • IBM Europe funded a large network in 1979 on
    basis of faster communication of fixes for
    production errors
  • Informal Broadcast, like the Internet WWW
  • Companys Home Page is a high-impact PR resource
  • IBM valued Intranet at 1B in 2000-01
  • Latest trend is tie-in between WWW and line of
    business applications, e.g. on-line ordering

17
Decision Support
  • Some very esoteric systems
  • City trading desk support
  • Oil or commodity trading
  • Others based on more familiar business models
  • Business-case development
  • Trend analysis
  • Market share
  • Profitability
  • Technology substitution
  • Sometimes the decision is reached and implemented
  • More usually you have to convince people
  • Present the figures in a way they understand and
    believe

The assignmentdoes this
18
Lets build a list
  • Word Processing
  • Electronic Mail
  • WWW Browser
  • Graphics/Drawing
  • Database
  • Spreadsheet
  • Project Planning
  • Accounting
  • Desktop publishing
  • Internet publishing
  • Monitoring real-time events
  • Processing surveys

19
Convincing People
  • Major part of most Business activities
  • Creating markets
  • Selling things
  • Encouraging change and innovation
  • Achieved by writing or presenting
  • Story must be logical and coherent(even better
    if its right!)
  • Audience must respect person communicating
  • Communicator must understand audienceand adapt
    to its needs

20
Horses for Courses
  • No one style is right for everything
  • Most businesses have many prescribed styles
  • Different styles used for different purposes,for
    example, in KAC we have
  • Definitive documents for validated degrees
  • Forms for justifying and hiring external speakers
  • Official minutes
  • Informal e-mails and intranet postings
  • The module assignment is practice at writing a
    specific kind of business report
  • Fairly typical of a business case in a real
    company
  • Ability to follow a prescribed style is a vital
    skill

21
Or are they donkeys?
22
In the beginning...
  • 21 June 1948 First stored-program computer ran
    (the Manchester University Baby)
  • Program keyed directly into memory
  • Results displayed as dots on a CRT
  • When program finished, it stopped
  • Next machines used tape or card for I/O
  • By 1949, nearly all the basic parts of computer
    hardware were there
  • though in a very primitive state
  • But even now, computers are very dumb!

23
Data and Information
  • We use the word Data describe the raw numbers and
    characters that come into the machine, and for
    their representation inside it
  • The purpose of the computer is to turn this raw
    data into Information something meaningful
  • Information can be numbers, pictures, sounds,
    graphs or programs the underlying data is just
    a pattern of ones and zeros in memory or on disk
  • Remember
  • The data youre working on has to be in memory
  • Memory is cleared when you switch off

24
Modern Computer Architecture
Processor
Memory
1234567890- QWERTYUIOP ASDFGHJKL ZXCVBNM,./
Output (Information)
Input (Data)
Bus
Other long-term Storage
Disk Storage
  • Processor works on data in memory
  • Other data flows through the bus

25
Practical Sessions
  • Wed better agree some terms for what we see
  • Terms arent needed to do the work, only to talk
    about it!
  • Examples from standard Windows XP Professional
  • Terminology
  • Click means press the left mouse button once
  • Double-click means press the left button twice
    (fairly quickly, and without moving the mouse in
    between)
  • Right-click means press the right mouse button
    once
  • Drag means position the pointer over an object,
    then press the left button and hold it down while
    you move the pointer to a target location the
    object will move too

26
The Windows XP Screen
Title Bar
Menu Bar
A window
Minimized Application
Icon on Desktop
Start Button
Task Bar
27
Three States of a Window
Click on icon
Maximizedfilling the entire screen
Windowedusing part of the screen
Or double-click the title bar
Minimizedreduced to an entry on the Task Bar
Click the entry to restore to previous state
28
Windows Explorer
  • The most useful tool on the system
  • Gives you a view of how your files are arranged
  • Lets you open them
  • ..or rename, or delete, or move, or copy
  • Press Start, select Programs, slide the pointer
    over Windows Explorer and then click
  • Or use the short-cut
  • hold the Windows key down and press E (for
    Explorer)
  • When you open a file, Windows automatically picks
    the right application program for you Word,
    Excel
  • Theres no point in closing the Explorer Window
    ever!

29
Practicals Source of materials
  • Well usually get samples fromhttp//cmg.wkac.ac
    .uk/courses/samples
  • You should create a folder for them in My
    Documents
  • If your space is full, create folder on the
    C-drive (but youll lose it all when you log
    off!) or use a diskette
  • Now create a BS1904 folder my method is
  • Open Windows Explorer (just hold Windows key
    down and press E)
  • In left pane of the Explorer window, click My
    Documents
  • Pull down File menu, slide down to New, then
    across to Folder, then click
  • This creates a New folder, whose name you can
    overtype

30
Downloading
  • Start a Web browser Internet Explorer is easy
    just click on the on the Start Menu
  • Type in the URL (the address youve been given)
  • Right-click on what you want, then use File Save
    As to load the file to your chosen folder
  • Next go back to Windows Explorer to use the file
  • Dont shut down Internet Explorer youll need it
    again
  • Most files we give you will start if you
    double-click on them

e
31
Summary Computers in Business
  • Production the job is using the computer
  • Example check-out, order-entry
  • Automation the computer does the job
  • Example machine tools, telephone exchange
  • Management computers control the business
  • Started with simple accounting, now involves
    complex network of systems, usually centred on a
    database
  • Decision support computers serving
    professionals
  • This is what youre most likely to do with them,
    using spreadsheets and project planning tools

32
Decision Support Systems
  • To address questions like
  • How is the business doing?
  • What happens if?
  • Should we invest in X or Y?
  • Usually needs access to operational data
  • Ideally the real thing, not an out-of-date
    extract
  • Plus tools to manipulate the data
  • Spreadsheets to analyse the numbers
  • Word processor or graphics to present results
  • Project planner to schedule your proposal

33
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