Computer Applications for Business 1

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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College IT Survey 1998
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Another way to look at it
I bet thesehave changedsince 1998
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Getting to know one another

• Mikes Background
• Now lets hear about you

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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

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The Previous Computing Module
Strongly agree
Agree
Disagree
Strongly disagree
We aim to make it more enjoyable this time no
programming
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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

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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

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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

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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
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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

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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
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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

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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
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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

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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

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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

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Or are they donkeys?
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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!

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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

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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

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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

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The Windows XP Screen
Title Bar
Menu Bar
A window
Minimized Application
Icon on Desktop
Start Button
Task Bar
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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
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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!

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Questions?