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BTS330

Lecture: Businesses

and Business Processes

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Today

What is Business Business Areas Organizational Roles Identifying Business Processes

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What is Business?

archaic : purposeful activity : BUSYNESS usually commercial or mercantile activity engaged in as a means of

livelihood : TRADE BUSINESS may be an inclusive term but specifically designates the

activities of those engaged in the purchase or sale of commodities or in related financial transactions. COMMERCE and TRADE imply the exchange and transportation of commodities. INDUSTRY applies to the producing of commodities, especially by manufacturing or processing, usually on a large scale*

*Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

 

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Types of Businesses

– Retail– Financial– Insurance– Manufacturing– etc

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Business Areas

– The organizational areas needed to support a business.

– These can to equate to departments.

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Organizational Roles to Support the Business:

– An organizational structure made up of executives, middle management, supervisory management and operational staff.

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Management

– Executives (Top Management) Those that make strategic and day to day decisions

– Middle Management Those that make tactical and day to day decisions

– Lower Management– Supervisory personnel who make day to day decisions

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Operational Staff

– The individuals involved in the day to day processing of transactions I.e. Bank Tellers; Mutual Fund Sales People; Sales Associate

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Types of systems?

Office Systems– Productivity tools available to employees on a desk

top.– Electronic Mail, Word Processing, Database

Management, Spreadsheets, Desktop Publishing, Presentation Graphics and so on.

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Types of systems?

Operational (Transaction Processing) Systems– Take care of the day-to-day processing of the

business– Information about the transactions that affect the

organization are captured and recorded

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Types of systems?

Management Information Systems– Uses operational systems’ information to give

management the information needed to make management decisions

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Types of systems?

Executive Information Systems– Provide information to executives on how their

company is doing relative to the industry

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Types of systems?

Decision Support Systems– Systems that allow a user to explore the impact of

available options or decisions– ‘What if’ analysis

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Types of systems?

Expert Systems– Simulate human reasoning and decision-making. – Artificial Intelligence.

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Systems that Solve Business Problems

Information systems– Collection of interrelated components that

collect, process, store, and provide as output the information needed to complete business processes

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Information Systems

IS Planning

Level

Type of planning Typical IS applications Organizational Unit Responsible for

Developing

Strategic Strategies in support of organizational long-term objectives

Market and sales analysis, Product planning, Performance evaluation

Senior Management/ Executives

Tactical Policies in support of short-term goals and resource allocation

Budget analysis, Salary forecasting, Inventory scheduling, Customer service

Middle Management

Operational Day-to-day staff activities and production support

Payroll, Invoicing, Purchasing, Accounting

Lower Management; Operational

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Flow of Information

– Horizontally - information flows across departments

– Vertically - information needs of clerical staff, middle management, and senior executives

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Business Processes

– A Business Process could be an event that the business needs to respond to or it could be an event where the business needs to generate some kind of response back

– Can include manual as well as automated processes

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Business Process

“A commercial event is usually triggered by an event (for example receipt of an application form) and has at least one visible domain-specific result (e.g., a contract)”*

* Developing Software with UML by Bernard Oestereich, p. 68.

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Domain

“An area of knowledge or activity characterized by a set of concepts and terminology understood by practitioners in that area.”*

* Use Case Modeling by Kurt Bittner and Ian Spence, p. 332.

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Business Process

“The activities of a business process are usually chronologically and logically related to each other.”*

* Developing Software with UML by Bernard Oestereich, p. 68.

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What is a Business Use Case?

“A business use case describes how a business actor uses a business to achieve a goal and what the business does for the business actor to achieve that goal.”*

*Use Case Modeling, by Bittner & Spence, p. 331.

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What is a Business Use Case?

“It tells the story of how the business and its actors collaborate to deliver something of value for at least one of the actors.”*

*Use Case Modeling, by Bittner & Spence, p. 331.

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What is a Business Use Case?

“… is independent of the concrete possibilities and requirements for its (IT-related) implementation.”*

*Developing Software with UML: Object-Oriented Analysis and Design in Practice,

Bernard Oestereich, p. 72.

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Business Use Cases

How to identify a Business Use Case?– Look for processes the company uses to satisfy the

requests of the business actors Processes could be an event that the business needs to

respond to or it could be an event where the business needs to generate some kind of response back

Can include manual as well as automated processes

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Business Use Cases

Where does a Use case start?– “At the start there is always a commercial trigger, a

commercial event Customer would like to conclude a contract Customer would like to rent a vehicle Marketing department would like a statistical evaluation of

reservations”*

*Developing Software with UML, Object-oriented Analysis and Design in Practice,Bernard Oestereich, p. 74.

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Business Use Cases

Where does a Use case end?– “At the end a result has been produced that has

“commercial value” A vehicle registration A letter to the customer A business management evaluation”*

*Developing Software with UML, Object-oriented Analysis and Design in Practice, Bernard

Oestereich, p. 74.

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Today

Identifying Business Use Cases Identifying Business Actors

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Business Use Cases

How to identify the Actors?– Look for who is placing requirements on the system. – Anybody who is directly or indirectly involved

affected by the system. Directly: someone who will have direct contact with the

system Indirectly: someone who does not have direct contact with

the system but who is involved in the business that is supported by the system

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Business Use Cases

Example of Actors:– Users of the system– Other departments (Marketing, Sales)– Clients or Management– Customers– System Administrators, Service Personnel, Training

Personnel, Support Personnel– System Developers, System Maintenance Personnel– Buyers of the system