SAP Lumira Review

Sap Lumira is a powerful business application which allows users to acquire, manipulate, and visualize any data source.  Multiple data sets can be combined into the same view, which allows users to maximize data knowledge and get most up-to-date information.  The demonstration video provided by SAP details a good deal of the application’s functionality.

The data used during the demonstration consisted a database of Olympic athletes including the various athlete’s medal counts, ages, countries of origin, and the events in which the athletes competed.  The data was organized in an Excel spreadsheet and although all of the pertinent information was available on the spreadsheet, it was difficult to perceive any real meaning from the raw data.  When the spreadsheet was imported into SAP Lumira, the application analyzed the data and suggested visualization which were likely provide the most significant value and optimized ease of data interpretation.  Lumira was able to analyze the effect of age on the data set and was even able to display medal data by providing a visualization of the world map with various country’s Olympic medal counts.

For all that it is able to accomplish, Lumira seemed fairly easy to use.  Most of the actions could be completed via a “drag and drop” functionality and settings menus seemed easy to find and intuitive.  This allows users to quickly and easily determine what type of visualization they prefer, the range of the data they would like included in the visualization, as well as what data they would like interpreted.  Overall the application was highly effective at maximizing the usefulness of the data contained on the database.

Access Database

My database is based on the IMDB.com Top 250 list.  My database contains information including the movie title, ranking, rating, the stars of the movie, the director of the movie, the writer of the movie, and the date the movie was released.

Business Process Modeling

I chose to model the process involved in selling a meal to a customer at a restaurant, specifically Applebee’s.  This process involves many tasks including greeting and seating the customer, taking order for both drinks and food, preparing the food ordered, delivering the food to the customer, and billing the client for the food provided.  The process required four different human roles and 1 non-human actor to be completed, including the host or hostess, the server, the cook, the POS system, and possibly the bartender.  The process I modeled assumes that no issues arise which would require a manager or supervisor to become involved.

Identifying Competitive Strategies

I chose to compare www.sportsauthority.com  vs.  www.soccer.com.

1.   The companies’ market segments are different in that Sports Authority offers a wide variety of sporting goods and accessories for many different sports while Soccer.com concentrates specifically in soccer related sporting goods and accessories.  Sports Authority takes and industry wide approach while Soccer.com concentrates on an industry segment.

The different market segments that these businesses appeal to is impacted by their competitive pressures.  Both companies face strong pressure from the threat of substitutes as e-commerce companies.  The Sport Authority faces less pressure from the threat of new entrants because a larger financial investment would be required to take an industry wide approach as opposed to Soccer.com’s industry segment approach.  Both companies face fairly significant pressure from existing rivals as many traditional and online retailers offer sporting goods, including more generalized companies such as Walmart.  Because it is a significantly larger company, Sports Authority faces less pressure from the bargaining power of suppliers and customers.

The competitive strategies are also very different.  Sports Authority offers similar national brands and products as other sporting goods retailers, but is very competitive when it comes to cost and focuses on the industry as a whole.  Soccer.com focuses on an industry segment and is less concerned with cost and more concerned with carrying specialized, quality products.

The “feel” of the website content is vastly different as well.  Soccer.com has a much more polished and aesthetically pleasing appearance.  Soccer.com uses the entire page including graphics all the way out to the edges the page and a revolving banner ad towards the top of the homepage.  The Sports Authority page uses a white background, does not utilize flashy graphics, and leaves wide white margins on the edges of the page.

The user interface “feel” of the websites is surprisingly similar.  Once I moved past the flashy homepage of Soccer.com, the functionality and appearance of the sites were nearly identical.  Both sites employ a standard product category selection option on the homepage, which then provides results that can be further filtered.

Both companies could potentially change their sites to better align with their respective competitive strategies.  Soccer.com should carry the polish and feel of their homepage throughout the site.  They could also potentially utilize live web chat with associates well versed in the various product lines in order to provide more personalized service.  The Sports Authority’s broader market, lower cost strategy makes website updates less relevant.  They are a much more known commodity due to their brick and mortar locations and their lower costs make website flash and functionality less important.  Still, their website could use a bit more polish.

If Soccer.com were to add a live web chat component to the website, both the sales and marketing, and customer service activities would change in the value chain.  Web chat associates would expected to answer questions form potential buyers as well as existing clients with service issues.  The additional manpower would certainly add cost, but could that cost could potentially be outweighed by the value that the associates would be able to provide.

2.  The structure of a company’s information system is highly dependent on the company’s competitive strategy.  A company focused primarily on keeping costs the lowest across a specific industry or industry segment has a reduced need to heavily invest in information systems.  A high cost information system could in fact be counterproductive for a company focused on cost as the system could add cost with minimal value add, thereby negatively impacting profit margins.  A company focused on providing better customer service or products than the competition has significantly more motivation to invest in information systems as their competitive strategy is much more dependent on the customer experience.  Higher prices allow these companies to potentially add more cost to the value chain in the areas of sales and marketing, and customer service without negatively impacting margins.

Personal Statement

My name is Mark Higbee.  I have lived in Fresno since 1990 and I am a business major at Fresno State in the ABBA program.  I am currently a Business Development Officer at Wells Fargo Bank.  I work with businesses in order to make operations more efficient, lower financing costs, and improve cash flow.  I am studying business because I am already employed in the business world and I need a degree in order to become certified as a Certified Financial Planner.  I am probably a practitioner when it comes to computers.  I use computers daily at work and at home, but I’m sure there are many things that I don’t know.  I would like to learn more about how collaboration and social media and how they relate to the business environment in this class.  I do not anticipate anything getting in way of me being successful in this class, but I do sometimes find balancing work, school, and my personal life challenging.