Page 398 - Using MIS

366 Chapter 9 Business Intelligence Systems

Figure 9-24
Google Trends on the
Term
Source: Google

Hadoop product and service named HDInsight. Some companies implement Hadoop on server
farms they manage themselves, and others run Hadoop in the cloud. Amazon.com supports
Hadoop as part of its EC3 cloud offering. Hadoop includes a query language titled Pig.
At present, deep technical skills are needed to run and use Hadoop. Judging by the devel-
opment of other technologies over the years, it is likely that higher-level, easier-to-use query
products will be implemented on top of Hadoop. For now, understand that experts are required
to use it; you may be involved, however, in planning a BigData study or in interpreting results.
BigData analysis can involve both reporting and data mining techniques. The chief differ-
ence is, however, that BigData has volume, velocity, and variation characteristics that far exceed
those of traditional reporting and data mining.

Q7 What Is the Role of Knowledge Management
Systems?

Nothing is more frustrating for a manager to contemplate than the situation in which one em-
ployee struggles with a problem that another employee knows how to solve easily. Or to learn of
a customer who returns a large order because the customer could not perform a basic operation
with the product that many employees (and other customers) can readily perform. Even worse,
someone in the customer’s organization may know how to use the product, but the people who
bought it didn’t know that.
Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating value from intellectual capital and
sharing that knowledge with employees, managers, suppliers, customers, and others who need that
capital. The goal of knowledge management is to prevent the kinds of problems just described.
Knowledge management was done before social media, and we discuss two such KM systems.
However, notice in the first sentence of this paragraph that the scope of KM (employees, managers,
suppliers, customer, and others . . . ) is the same scope as that of the use of SM in hyper-social orga-
nizations. In fact, modern knowledge management ascribes to hyper-social organization theory, as
we will discuss.
Before we turn to those specific technologies, however, consider the overall goals and ben-
efits of KM. KM benefits organizations in two fundamental ways:
• Improve process quality
• Increase team strength
As you know, process quality is measured by effectiveness and efficiency, and knowledge
management can improve both. KM enables employees to share knowledge with each other
and with customers and other partners. By doing so, it enables the employees in the organiza-
tion to better achieve the organization’s strategy. At the same time, sharing knowledge enables