Henry Schein Inc.: The Business - Case Study

Case Study Questions

1. What are some of the key requirements for building a
good data warehouse? Use Henry Schein Inc. as an
example.

Answer:

Besides having the right skills, the other top priority was
ensuring data quality. “It seems kind of obvious,” says Harding,
“but sometimes these projects forget about quality, and then
the data warehouse ends up being worthless because nobody
trusts it.” So at the outset of the project, the team interviewed
about 175 potential business users to determine the information
they needed to access and the reports they wanted to see.
Plus, the team analyzed the old paper reports and the condition
of the data housed in the company’s core transaction system.
Monahan says those steps brought to light the importance of
cleansing data in a system that’s designed for transactional purposes
but not suitable for a data warehouse. That led to a long
period of standardizing transactional codes in order to produce
the sales reporting that business analysts needed.


2. What are the key software tools needed to construct
and use a data warehouse?

Answer:

Of course, building a data warehouse is a never-ending
job. New companies are acquired, products are added, customers
come and go, and new features and enhancements
are ongoing. But from an IT standpoint, the data warehouse
is complete and has 85 percent of the data from the
core transactional system. The next major goal is to provide
the European operation with its own data warehouse system
and tie it into the one in the United States.


3. What is the business value of a data warehouse to
Henry Schein? To any company?

Answer:

One of the most valuable features of the data warehouse
has been the ability it gives users to add more fields to reports
as they are using the system. “Once you create a basic
report, draw a conclusion, and drill further based on those
assumptions, it allows you to use that data and go even further,
as opposed to creating a new report, and another and
another,” Ferraro says. The IT department used to create,
edit, revise, run, download, reprogram, and print piles of paper
reports—daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly—for the
analysis of sales and market trends. But today, business users
search, sort, and drill down for that information themselves
in a fraction of the time. The data warehouse has become “a
part of our culture,” says Harding. “It’s got that kind of aura
about it within the company.”

Case Study 3

Case Study Questions and Answers:

1. Why do you think that Aviall failed in their implementation of an enterprise resource planning system? What could they have done differently?

Answer:

Reasons why Aviall failed would include:

• The ERP system did not support adequately Aviall's business strategies.
• The ERP implemented did not improve the basic operational support system needed be Aviall to provide timely supply chain management.
• The ERP system project did not adequately address the issue of systems integration between applications.
• The implementation of the ERP failed due to inadequate consideration of the magnitude of the project.

What Aviall could have done differently would include the following:

• Project planning through the use of some form of a systematic development process.
• Analysis of the business requirements prior to making decisions about the software to acquire for the ERP system.
• Project management should have been a higher consideration of Aviall.

2. How has information technology brought new business success to Aviall? How did IT change Aviall’s business model?

Answer:

How IT brought new business success for Aviall would include:

• System integrated by using common business databases managed by database software from Sybase, Inc.
• Designing the new combined system to properly access and deal with customized pricing charts for 17,000 customers who receive various types of discounts, and with an inventory of 380,000 different aerospace parts.
• Developing Aviall.com to reduce the cost per order from $9 per transaction to 39 cents.
• Customers are able to transfer their orders from an Excel spreadsheet directly to the web site.
• Customers have access to price and availability information in less than five seconds – a real time feature.
• Sales force spends more time developing customer relationships than processing routine orders.
• Aviall can better match production to demand from the IT improvements.

How IT changed Aviall's business model would include:

• Changed Aviall from a catalogbusiness to full-scale logistics business.
• Aviall became a provider of supply chain management services through the integration of a range of Web-enabled e-business software systems.

3. How could other companies use Aviall’s approach to the use of IT to improve their business success? Give several examples.

Answer:

Examples would include:

• Reposition a firm as a supply chain management services provider through Web-enabled e-business software systems.
• Redesign the customer relationship management system to minimize the routine order processing and permit the sales force to focus on product and service development efforts that will grow revenue.

Case 2: Lufthansa: Taking Mobile Computing to the Skies While Keeping the Mobile Workforce Connected

Case Study Questions And Answers:

1. Are many of Lufthansa’s challenges identified in the case similar to those being experienced by other businesses in today’s global economy? Explain and provide some examples.

Answer:
The challenges that Lufthansa are similar to those being faced by the other business today because company’s need to provide their employees access to work and training outside of the office. The employee experiences other environment as they work in different places and gain knowledge from their experience and activities. It is also part of working and traveling so that they can learn new things.

2. What other tangible and intangible benefits, beyond those identified by Lufthansa, might a mobile workforce enjoy as a result of deploying mobile technologies? Explain.

Answer:

Tangible benefits include of using of new technology and use of the latest device for the improvement of their company. It will lessen the work of the workers and will help them to fasten their work and to be easier in performing the task for their company. Intangible benefits is and easier and more develop company.

3. Lufthansa was clearly taking a big risk with their decision to deploy notebook computers to their pilots. What steps did they take to manage that risk and what others might be needed in today’s business environment? Provide some examples.

Answer:

Lufthansa created a list of parameters that notebook PCs needed to meet before purchasing the laptops. They created their own secure network.

Case Study 1

Case Study Questions And Answers:

1. Could the 2004 Athens Olympics have been a success without all of the networks and backup technologies?

Answer: Not really a successful one because it is need for some sports and events and it also support so that the Athens Olympic will become successful.

2. The 2004 Olympics is a global business. Can a business today succeed without information technology? Why or why not?

Answer: In a big business, it is easy to improve and become more successful if they used new information technology. Applying newly systems that have created and use of different machines and devices will make the business develop faster and increase its profit.

3. Claude Philipps said dealing with “crazy scenarios of what might happen in every area: a network problem, staff stopped in a traffic jam, a security attack . . . everything that might happen,” was the reason for so much testing. Can you think of other businesses that would require “crazy scenario” testing? Explain.

Answer: I think it is not a crazy scenario because we cannot predict what will happen in the future and we cannot say what other people think and what are there plans to do.