Application of Business Intelligence in Retail Industry ZARA is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based in Arteixo, Galicia. Founded in 24 May, 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera, the brand is renowned for its ability to deliver new clothes to stores quickly and in small batches. Zara needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it to stores, compared to the six-month industry average, and launches around 10,000 new designs each year. Zara was described by Louis Vuitton Fashion Director Daniel Piette as “possibly the most innovative and devastating retailer in the world. The company produces about 450 million items a year for its 1,770 stores in 86 countries. The Zara has made of use of Information Systems (IS) and to advance in many areas. This has resulted in huge success for the company. This included application of Business intelligence (BI) involves technologies, practices for collection, integration and applications to analyze and present business information. The main aim of business intelligence is to promote better business decision making.BI describes a group of information on concepts and methods to better decision making in business. This is achieved by employing a fact-based support system. The intelligence systems are data-driven and sometimes used in executive information systems. Predictive views on business operations can be provided by use of BI systems. Predictive views on business operations can be provided by use of BI systems since historical and current data has been gathered into a data bank performance management benchmarking is done whereby information on other companies in the same industry is gathered. Since the Zara’s have large network and therefore dealing with large volumes of data, an enterprise information system has been employed in the firm. This is generally a type of computing systems that involves an enterprise class that is, typically offering total quality service handling large volumes of data and able to sustain a big organization. With this system, a technology platform is provided which enables the enterprise is provided to that information can be shared in all useful levels of management enterprise systems are important in removing the problem of fragmentation of information. This happens when there are numerous information systems in an enterprise. The problem is solved by developing a standard data structure. The Zara being big organization, the enterprise systems is housed in many different data centers, and includes content management system as the main application. The Zara team comprises technology professionals. These include content specialists, network and system engineers, flash developers, database business analysts and administrators, software developers, quality assurance managers and computer and applications support technicians. All these specialists work in tandem to bring about competitive advantage to business by allowing for quick-response capability 

Question 1 

Read through the attached case study “ZARA: Application of Business Intelligence in Retail Industry”. As you read through the case, and based on what you learned in SYS210: Business Driven Technology, tackle the following questions and attempt to answer them using an essay format of no more than 1200 words: 

(a) Describe what is meant by information age and the differences between data, information, business intelligence, and knowledge. 

(b) The main aim of business intelligence is to promote better business decision making Critically discuss the above statement and show how ZARA could gain benefit from applying BI. 

(c) Demonstrate how ZARA can add value by using Porter’s value chain analysis and use it for measuring customer satisfaction.

(d) Reflect on the experiences of working on your TMA and assess how it has developed your understanding of the course concept.