12.1. Chapter Introduction
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Define big data;
- Describe the decision making process;
- Distinguish between the types of decisions by organizational level and type;
- Compare the different types of information systems used by management for decision making;
- Discuss business intelligence, and the tools available to support decision making;
- Discuss some considerations for data analysis projects;
- Define data mining and describe its role in an organization; and
- Describe the difference between a data warehouse and a data mart.
In order for a business to stay competitive, managers must make good decisions based on valuable information. Making good decisions can be challenging, especially with the constant creation of digital information. The increasing number of internet users and the amount of online activity is driving the growth in creation of digital data. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way companies do business and moved the majority of the workforce online. These changing conditions mean that most of the data created has been done recently. In this chapter, you will explore the impact of the increasing amounts of digital data, and the tools that can make sense of it all.
