technology terms.doc

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What is a Database?

One of the technology terms that most people have become accustomed to hearing either atwork or while surfing the internet is the database. The database used to be an extremelytechnical term, however with the rise of computer systems and information technologythroughout our culture, the database has become a household term.

The definition of a database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in acomputer system. In order for a database to be truly functional, it must not only store largeamounts of records well, but be accessed easily. In addition, new information and changesshould also be fairly easy to input. In order to have a highly efficient database system, youneed to incorporate a program that manages the queries and information stored on thesystem. This is usually referred to as DBMSor a Database Management System . Besidesthese features, all databases that are created should be built with high data integrity and theability to recover data if hardware fails.

Types of Databases

There are several common types of databases; each type of database has its own data model(how the data is structured). They include; Flat Model, Hierarchical Model, Relational Modeland Network Model.

The Flat Model Database

In a flat model database, there is a two dimensional (flat structure) array of data. Forinstance, there is one column of information and within this column it is assumed that eachdata item will be related to the other. For instance, a flat model database includes only zipcodes. Within the database, there will only be one column and each new row within that onecolumn will be a new zip code.

The Hierarchical Model Database

The hierarchical model database resembles a tree like structure, such as how MicrosoftWindows organizes folders and files. In a hierarchical model database, each upwardlink is nested in order to keep data organized in a particular order on a same level list. Forinstance, a hierarchal database of sales, may list each days sales as a separate file. Withinthis nested file are all of the sales (same types of data) for the day.

The Network Model

In a network model, the defining feature is that a record is stored with a link to other records

- in effect networked. These networks (or sometimes referred to as pointers) can be a varietyof different types of information such as node numbers or even a disk address.

The Relational Model

The relational model is the most popular type of database and an extremely powerful tool,not only to store information, but to access it as well. Relational databases are organized as
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tables. The beauty of a table is that the information can be accessed or added withoutreorganizing the tables. A table can have many records and each record can have many fields.

Tables are sometimes called a relation. For instance, a company can have a database calledcustomer orders, within this database will be several different tables or relations all relatingto customer orders. Tables can include customer information (name, address, contact, info,

customer number, etc) and other tables (relations) such as orders that the customerpreviously bought (this can include item number, item description, payment amount,payment method, etc). It should be noted that every record (group of fields) in a relationaldatabase has its own primary key. A primary key is a unique field that makes it easy toidentify a record.

Relational databases use a program interface called SQL or Standard Query Language. SQL iscurrently used on practically all relational databases. Relational databases are extremely easyto customize to fit almost any kind of data storage. You can easily create relations for itemsthat you sell, employees that work for your company, etc.

Accessing Information Using a Database

While storing data is a great feature of databases, for many database users the mostimportant feature is quick and simple retrieval of information. In a relational database, it isextremely easy to pull up information regarding an employee, but relational databases alsoadd the power of running queries. Queries are requests to pull specific types of informationand either show them in their natural state or create a report using the data. For instance, ifyou had a database of employees and it included tables such as salary and job description,you can easily run a query of which jobs pay over a certain amount. No matter what kind ofinformation you store on your database, queries can be created using SQL to help answerimportant questions.

Storing a Database

Databases can be very small (less than 1 MB) or extremely large and complicated (terabytesas in many government databases), however all databases are usually stored and located onhard disk or other types of storage devices and are accessed via computer. Large databasesmay require separate servers and locations, however many small databases can fit easily asfiles located on your computer's hard drive.

Securing a Database

Obviously, many databases store confidential and important information that should not beeasily accessed by just anyone. Many databases require passwords and other security features

in order to access the information. While some databases can be accessed via the internetthrough a network, other databases are closed systems and can only be accessed on site.

What is a Data Warehouse?

A data warehouse is a place where data is stored for archival purposes, analysis purposes andsecurity purposes. Usually a data warehouse is either a single computer or many computers(servers) tied together to create one giant computer system.


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Data can consist of raw data or formatted data and can be on various types of topics includingan organization's sales, salaries, operational data, summaries of data including reports, copiesof data, human resource data, inventory data, external data to provide simulations andanalysis, etc.

A data warehouse is sometimes said to be a major part in a decision support system. A way

for an organization to use data to come up with facts, trends or relationships that can helpthem make effective decisions or create effective strategies to accomplish their goals.

There are many different models of data warehouses including Online Transaction Processingwhich is a warehouse built for speed and ease of use. Another type of data warehouse iscalled Online Analytical processing, this type of warehouse is more difficult to use and addsan extra step of analysis within the data. Usually it requires more steps which slows theprocess down and much more data in order to analyze certain queries.

In addition to this model, one of the more common data warehouse models include a datawarehouse that is subject oriented, time variant, non volatile and integrated. Subjectoriented means that data is linked together and is organized by relationships.

Time variant means that any data that is changed in the data warehouse can be tracked.Usually all changes to data are stamped with a time date and with a before and after value,so that you can show the changes through out a period of time.

Non volatile means that data is never deleted or erased. This is a great way to protect yourmost crucial data. Because this data is retained, you can continue to use it in a later analysis.Finally, the data is integrated, which means that a data warehouse uses data that isorganizational wide instead of from just one department.

Besides the term data warehouse, a term that is frequently used is a data mart, data marts

are smaller, less integrated data housings. They might be just a database on human resourcesrecords or sales data on just one division.

With improvements in technology, as well as innovations in using data warehousing techniques, data warehouses have changed from Offline Operational Databases to include anOnline Integrated data warehouse.

Offline Operational Data Warehouses are data warehouses where data is usually copied andpasted from real time data networks into an offline system where it can be used. It is usuallythe simplest and less technical type of data warehouse.

Offline Data Warehouses are data warehouses that are updated frequently either daily,

weekly or monthly and that data is then stored in an integrated structure, where others canaccess it and perform reporting.

Real Time Data Warehouses are data warehouses where it is updated each moment with theinflux of new data. For instance, a Real Time Data Warehouse might incorporate data from aPoint of Sales system and is updated with each sale that is made.
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Integrated Data Warehouses are data warehouses that can be used for other systems to accessthem for operational systems. Some Integrated Data Warehouses are used by other datawarehouses, allowing them to access them to process reports, as well as look up current data.

So why should you or your organization use a Data Warehouse? Here are some of the pros andcons of using this type of structure for data.

The number one reason why you should implement a data warehouse is so that employees orend users can access the data warehouse and use the data for reports, analysis and decisionmaking. Using the data in a warehouse can help you locate trends, focus on relationships andhelp you understand more about the environment that your business operates in.

Data warehouses also increase the consistency of the data and allows it to be checked overand over to determine how relevant it is. Because most data warehouses are integrated, youcan pull data from many different areas of your business, for instance human resources,finance, IT, accounting, etc.

While there are plenty of reasons why you should have a data warehouse, it should be notedthat there are a few negatives of having a data warehouse including the fact that it is timeconsuming to create and to keep operating.

You might also have a problem with current systems being incompatible with your data. It isalso important to consider future equipment and software upgrades; these may also need tobe compatible with you data.

Finally, security might be a huge concern, especially if your data is accessible over an opennetwork such as the internet. You do not want your data to be viewed by your competitor orworse hacked and destroyed.

What is SQL?

SQL (Structured Query Language) is the most common standardized language used to accessdatabases.

SQL was originally developed by IBM in the 1970's for their DB2 RDBMS.

SQL version 3 is officially defined by the American National Standards Instititute (ANSI) in theANSI SQL:1999 standard.

Most existing DBMS's currently conform to the earlier ANSI SQL92 standard.

SQL is a nonprocedural language. Oracle produces a procedural version of SQL which it callsPL/SQL.

SQL is supported by every major database system in use today, including MySQL, PostgreSQL,Berkeley DB, Oracle, DB2, Sybase , Informix, and Microsoft SQL .

SQL is often pronounced "sequel".
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What is Data Mining?

Data mining is usually defined as searching, analyzing and sifting through large amounts ofdata to find relationships, patterns, or any significant statistical correlations. With the adventof computers, large databases and the internet, it is easier than ever to collect millions,billions and even trillions of pieces of data that can then be systematically analyzed to help

look for relationships and to seek solutions to difficult problems. Besides governmental uses,many marketers use data mining to find strong consumer patterns and relationships. Largeorganizations and educational institutions also data mine to find significant correlations thatcan enhance our society.

While data mining is amoral in the fact that it only looks for strong statistical correlations orrelationships, it can be used for either good or not so good purposes. For instance, manygovernment organizations depend on data mining to help them create solutions for manysocietal problems. Marketers use data mining to help them pin point and focus their attentionon certain segments of the market to sell to, and in some cases black hat hackers can usedata mining to steal and scam thousands of people.

How does data mining work? Well the quick answer is that large amounts of data arecollected. Usually most entities that perform data mining are large corporations andgovernment agencies. They have been collecting data for decades and they have lots of datato sift through. If you are a fairly new business or individual, you can purchase certain typesof data in order to mine for your own purposes. In addition, data can also be stolen from largedepositories by hackers by hacking their way into a large database or simply stealing laptopsthat are ill protected.

If you are interested in a small case study on how data mining is collected, used and profitedoff of, you can look at your local supermarket. Your supermarket is usually an extremely leanand organized entity that relies on data mining to make sure that it is profitable. Usually your

supermarket employs a POS (Point Of Sale) system that collects data from each item that ispurchased. The POS system collects data on the item brand name, category, size, time anddate of the purchase and at what price the item was purchased at. In addition, thesupermarket usually has a customer rewards program, which also is input into the POSsystem. This information can directly link the products purchased with an individual. All thisdata for every purchase made for years and years is stored in a database in a computer by thesupermarket.

Now that you have a database with millions upon millions of data fields and records what areyou going to do with it? Well, you data mine it. Knowledge is power and with so much datayou can uncover trends, statistical correlations, relationships and patterns that can help yourbusiness become more efficient, effective and streamlined.

The supermarket can now figure out which brands sell the most, what time of the day, week,month or year is the most busiest, what products do consumers buy with certain items. Forinstance, if a person buys white bread, what other item would they be inclined to buy?Typically we can find its peanut butter and jelly. There is so much good information that asupermarket can use just by data mining their own data that they have collected.

What is ERP?
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ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning . ERP is a way to integrate the data andprocesses of an organization into one single system. Usually ERP systems will have manycomponents including hardware and software, in order to achieve integration, most ERPsystems use a unified database to store data for various functions found throughout theorganization.

The term ERP originally referred to how a large organization planned to use organizationalwide resources. In the past, ERP systems were used in larger more industrial types ofcompanies. However, the use of ERP has changed and is extremely comprehensive, today theterm can refer to any type of company, no matter what industry it falls in. In fact, ERPsystems are used in almost any type of organization - large or small.

In order for a software system to be considered ERP, it must provide an organization withfunctionality for two or more systems. While some ERP packages exist that only cover twofunctions for an organization (QuickBooks: Payroll & Accounting), most ERP systems coverseveral functions.

Today's ERP systems can cover a wide range of functions and integrate them into one unifieddatabase. For instance, functions such as Human Resources, Supply Chain Management,Customer Relations Management, Financials, Manufacturing functions and WarehouseManagement functions were all once stand alone software applications, usually housed withtheir own database and network, today, they can all fit under one umbrella - the ERP system

.

Integration is Key to ERP

Integration is an extremely important part to ERP's. ERP's main goal is to integrate data andprocesses from all areas of an organization and unify it for easy access and work flow. ERP'susually accomplish integration by creating one single database that employs multiple software

modules providing different areas of an organization with various business functions.

Although the ideal configuration would be one ERP system for an entire organization, manylarger organizations usually create and ERP system and then build upon the system andexternal interface for other stand alone systems which might be more powerful and performbetter in fulfilling an organizations needs. Usually this type of configuration can be timeconsuming and does require lots of labor hours.

The Ideal ERP System

An ideal ERP system is when a single database is utilized and contains all data for varioussoftware modules. These software modules can include:

Manufacturing: Some of the functions include; engineering, capacity, workflow management,quality control, bills of material, manufacturing process, etc.

Financials: Accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, general ledger and cashmanagement, etc.

Human Resources: Benefits, training, payroll, time and attendance, etc
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Supply Chain Management: Inventory, supply chain planning, supplier scheduling, claimprocessing, order entry, purchasing, etc.

Projects: Costing, billing, activity management, time and expense, etc.

Customer Relationship Management: sales and marketing, service, commissions, customercontact, calls center support, etc.

Data Warehouse: Usually this is a module that can be accessed by an organizationscustomers, suppliers and employees.

ERP Improves Productivity

Before ERP systems, each department in an organization would most likely have their owncomputer system, data and database. Unfortunately, many of these systems would not beable to communicate with one another or need to store or rewrite data to make it possible forcross computer system communication. For instance, the financials of a company were on a

separate computer system than the HR system, making it more intensive and complicated toprocess certain functions.

Once an ERP system is in place, usually all aspects of an organization can work in harmonyinstead of every single system needing to be compatible with each other. For largeorganizations, increased productivity and less types of software are a result.

Implementation of an ERP System

Implementing an ERP system is not an easy task to achieve, in fact it takes lots of planning,consulting and in most cases 3 months to 1 year +. ERP systems are extraordinary wide inscope and for many larger organizations can be extremely complex. Implementing an ERP

system will ultimately require significant changes on staff and work practices. While it mayseem reasonable for an in house IT staff to head the project, it is widely advised that ERPimplementation consultants be used, due to the fact that consultants are usually more costeffective and are specifically trained in implementing these types of systems.

One of the most important traits that an organization should have when implementing an ERPsystem is ownership of the project. Because so many changes take place and its broad effecton almost every individual in the organization, it is important to make sure that everyone ison board and will help make the project and using the new ERP system a success.

Usually organizations use ERP vendors or consulting companies to implement their customizedERP system. There are three types of professional services that are provided when

implementing an ERP system, they are Consulting, Customization and Support.

Consulting Services - usually consulting services are responsible for the initial stages of ERPimplementation, they help an organization go live with their new system, with producttraining, workflow, improve ERP's use in the specific organization, etc.

Customization Services - Customization services work by extending the use of the new ERPsystem or changing its use by creating customized interfaces and/or underlying application


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code. While ERP systems are made for many core routines, there are still some needs thatneed to be built or customized for an organization.

Support Services- Support services include both support and maintenance of ERP systems. Forinstance, trouble shooting and assistance with ERP issues.

Advantages of ERP Systems

There are many advantages of implementing an EPR system; here are a few of them:

A totally integrated system The ability to streamline different processes and workflows The ability to easily share data across various departments in an organization Improved efficiency and productivity levels Better tracking and forecasting Lower costs Improved customer service

Disadvantages of ERP Systems

While advantages usually outweigh disadvantages for most organizations implementing an ERPsystem, here are some of the most common obstacles experienced:

Usually many obstacles can be prevented if adequate investment is made and adequatetraining is involved, however, success does depend on skills and the experience of theworkforce to quickly adapt to the new system.

Customization in many situations is limited The need to reengineer business processes

ERP systems can be cost prohibitive to install and run Technical support can be shoddy ERP's may be too rigid for specific organizations that are either new or want to move

in a new direction in the near future.

What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence is a broad field of study. The major thrust of business intelligence theorylooks at certain factors to make high quality decisions. These factors include customers,competitors, business partners, economic environment and internal operations. Here is somemore information on how these factors help businesses make quality decisions.

Customers: Without customers a business can't survive. Businesses need to sell their productsand services. Business intelligence helps businesses understand their customers better,looking at their preferences, helping businesses adapt to their customers demand. Businessintelligence is used to collect data from customers usually within the marketplace. There aremany ways to collect data from your customers; it can be as easy as a POS system (point ofsale), collecting data on what customers are buying and which products they are notinterested in, collecting data on customer habits and preferences by asking them in surveys orpolls. There are even marketplace specialists that watch customers behavior in the


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marketplace and report back to the companies giving them insight into how their customerrespond to stores, personnel and product and services that a business sells.

Once this data is collected, it is up to an organization to use this data appropriately. Businessintelligence is a process in which vast amounts of data can be viewed and vetted givingmanagers and business owner's important information that can be resourceful.

Competitors: Not only do businesses have to keep customers satisfied buying their products,they also have to compete with competitors that are constantly looking to poach a businessescustomers and make them their own. Businesses today must constantly evaluate theeffectiveness of their competitors and choose smart strategies that not only hold theircompetitors at bay, but also grow their own businesses market share. Business intelligencecan help a business determine the strategies that your competitors are using to stealcustomers away, as well as help your own business to differentiate itself from others,effectively growing a larger and more profitable customer base.

Business Partners: Business partners are essential to any business, whether it is suppliers,payment processing companies, customer support companies or delivery companies that helpyour business throughout its cycle, it is important to make sure that all businesses partnersassociated with your business are in balance with you. Having a supplier that isn't able tokeep up with your demand or having a customer service contractor that is unable to help youwith certain support problems can cause your business to fail. If you want your business towork smoothly and effectively, all business partners must be in line with each other. Forinstance, today many businesses share key data with their suppliers so that their suppliers cananticipate present and future inventory levels and make adjustments, which inevitably helpyour business. Sharing information is key and being able to gather information and sharingappropriate information is where business intelligence is important.

Economic Environment: Another way that business intelligence can help an organization is by

taking into consideration key economic indicators such as consumer spending, inflation,unemployment, upturns and downturns in the economy, etc. Without business intelligence,your organization can't process information effectively in order to modify strategies that fitthe current economy.

Internal Operations: Internal operations are usually defined as the on going day to dayactivities of a business or organization. If your want your business to be successful, you needto be able to view your business's strengths and weaknesses on a daily basis. You also need tosee at any moment, just how much profit your business is making and your liabilities. Withoutdecent foresight, you might make hasty decisions such as commit to new spending or payingoff debt when your business could allocate those funds some where else. Business intelligenceis extremely important to gauge your current state of business, as well as all parts that

constitute the whole of the business together to see where funds are needed, what part of abusiness is weak and what parts of your business is strong.

Once businesses know what to look at to give them information that they need to analyze, itis important to gather this data and then use business intelligence methodologies to siftthrough the data to provide solutions to common everyday business problems. One of theways to accomplish these tasks is with Key Performance Indicators. KPI, are a way thatbusiness intelligence can analyze and evaluate the current state of a business and then usethis information to choose a strategy and then execute this strategy.


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Some businesses track Key Performance Indicators each year or quarter, some each month orweek and if you have the means, many corporations try to track specific data daily in order tofine tune or tweak their strategies.

Computers, databases and a group of analysts usually work on business intelligence'smethodology. Usually each company has their own business intelligence methodology that fit

their specific needs. Some of the more popular ways to create Key Performance Indicators arethrough Goal Alignment Queries, Baseline Queries and Metrics related Queries.

Goal Alignment Queries are a way to determine what your businesses goals are in usingBusiness Intelligence. Is it your businesses goal to grow more market share, to make moreprofit per item, to start a new revenue stream, to find new manufacturer or suppliers, etc.

Baseline Queries help you understand your current approach to collecting data and whetheror not this approach is satisfactory, where its weaknesses are and what its strengths are. Forinstance, if you would like to monitor your customers actions more closely, what are thecurrent tools in place (POS systems, surveys, market research, etc), how do these currenttools perform, which are weak, which ones need tweaking and what tools can be added.

Metrics Related Queries are extremely important in the Business Intelligence process, becausedata can only be beneficial to a company if you can come up with a way to measure it.Metrics related queries looks at data and comes up with solutions to accurately measure datato meet businesses needs. Once data is measurable, you can easily analyze it and determinewhat is working and what is not.

Business intelligence is a very broad topic of study, however If you would like your business tosucceed, it is extremely important to understand the factors of business intelligence andlearn how analyze and use the data created by this methodology.

What is OLAP?

A growing business of a company brings lots of effects with it and huge amount of data thatneeds to be stored and tracked is one of them. So, in order to deal with this data, new andsophisticated methods of data processing are required and OLAP or as others say, "On LineAnalytical Processing", is one of them.

Well, it is really difficult to describe what OLAP really is, but in a nutshell, one can say thatOn Line Analytical Processing is a class of software technology that allows managers,executives and analysts to gain insight into information that has been transmuted from rawdata through different ways. For example, trend analysis, planning, simulating, andbudgeting. What makes OLAP stand out is its ability to perform multi-dimensional

calculations, thus allowing wide variety of reports.

As we all know, bigger the business, bigger are the reports and this is where multi-dimensional calculations help. Such calculations help colossal business to finish in seconds.And how is this possible? A database configured for OLAP exerts a multi-dimensional modelwhich allows for intricate analytical queries with a rapid execution time.


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The main component of OLAP is the OLAP server which is a high capacity, multi-usermanipulation engine designed to operate multi-dimensional data and it sits between a clientand database management systems or DBMS. An OLAP server is designed to support fastextemporized information in any alignment and also designed for rapid calculations.

Following are some of the benefits of OLAP -

1. The main benefit of the OLAP is its steadiness in calculations. The reporting is alwaysrepresented in a coherent presentation irrespective of how fast data is deal withthrough the OLAP server or software and thus allows the executives and analysts toknow exactly to look for where.

2. The other convenience of OLAP is that it allows the manager to tear down data fromOLAP database in specific or broad terms. In layman's term, the report can be assimple of comparing two columns or as complex of analyzing a huge amount of data.Moreover, it also helps to realize relationships that were forgotten earlier.

The term, On Line Analytical Processing, was coined in 1993 by Ted Codd who is referred as,""the father of the relational database". Express was the first software that performed OLAPqueries and was released in 1970 but later acquired by Oracle in 1995. But OLAP was not amainstream product until 1998, when Microsoft, released its own OLAP server called,Microsoft Analysis Services.

OLAP never had wide spread APIs which were enjoyed by other relational databases until1997, when Microsoft, introduced the first real API, OLE DB for OLAP or ODBO and alsointroduced Multidimensional Expressions or MDX query language. MDX provides powerfulsyntax for manipulating the multi-dimensional data.

Following are the types of OLAP systems

1. MOLAP - Multidimensional Online Analytical Processing or MOLAP is considered to bemain form of OLAP and thus sometimes just referred as OLAP. It is known for its fastquery performance which is because of optimized storage, multidimensional indexingand caching. One of the advantage of MOLAP is that array model provides naturalindexing. The main disadvantage is that it introduces data redundancy.

2. ROLAP - Relational Online Analytical Processing is an alternative to the MOLAP andworks directly with relational databases. The main difference between MOLAP andROLAP is that it doesn't require storage of information. One advantage of ROLAP isthat data stored in database can be accessed through SQL tool. But it is considered tobe slower than MOLAP tools by industry people.

Some other types of OLAP which are not wide-spread are WOLAP, DOLAP, and RTOLAP.

What are POS Systems?

POS stands for Point of Sale; POS technology is used mainly at retail locations such as stores,supermarkets, restaurant, etc. When a customer would like to purchase an item or pay a billa POS system is extremely useful to register the purchase, keep track of inventory, purchasedetails such as time, date and store location and input all this data into a database whichthen can be used for data mining purposes.


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POS systems have changed the face of retail. Now, a small or large business can easily keeptrack of what products customers buy. A business can keep data of all purchases and comparethis data from a year earlier or other stores that they own within or outside of a region.

POS systems usually work via infrared bar code readers, a register and bar code reader arehooked into a computer terminal. For instance, when you go to a supermarket, you place your

items on a conveyer belt, the register assistant then scans your item with the use of theinfrared bar code reader. At this time, you see the price of the item and it is added to thetotal of all items purchased, however on the backend of the system, lots of data including allthe information about the product (the price, size, brand name, etc) and the time and dateof the purchase is recorded onto the computer for later analysis.

With POS systems everybody wins. The consumer wins because the check out is fast, reliableand accurate. The retailers win because they are able to keep track of sales easily, inventoryand have tons of data available for further analysis.

POS systems continue to become more powerful. Many supermarkets now keep track of theircustomers by starting customer rewards program. Most supermarket customers join therewards programs and they receive a small key fob with a barcode to distinguish them in thecomputer. Now supermarkets are not only able to keep track of which items are purchased,but who purchased them. The same can be said about store credit cards. When a store hasyour personal information, they can easily keep track of certain customers and the purchasesthey make. These innovations have made marketing to customers extremely focused andprofitable.

Bar Codes are part of the POS process. A bar code is a bunch of vertical lines that an infraredreader can read and interpret as data. The bar code includes a UPC number which stands forUniversal Product Code. Most items that are sold in a retail environment have their own UPCso they can be purchased and tracked efficiently by the POS and computer system.

Besides bar code readers, a UPC can also be input directly into the cash register or computer.Sometimes if a bar code is unreadable, the assistant will manually input the code using akeypad.

What is Change Management?

If you work in a corporation or with a large organization, you might have heard the phrase"change management" used from time to time. Change management has been around for awhile, but has become extremely popular with organizations or corporations that would liketo initiate significant change to processes that can include both work tasks and culture.

A common definition used for change management is a set of processes that is employed toensure that significant changes are implemented in an orderly, controlled and systematicfashion to effect organizational change. One of the goals of change management is withregards to the human aspects of overcoming resistance to change in order for organizationalmembers to buy into change and achieve the organization's goal of an orderly and effectivetransformation.

The ADKAR Model


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Change management has been developed over a period of time and one of the models thathave played an influence in change management is the ADKAR model. ADKAR was a modeldeveloped by Prosci. In this model, there are five specific stages that must be realized inorder for an organization or an individual to successfully change. They include:

Awareness - An individual or organization must know why a specific change or series of

changes are needed.

Desire - Either the individual or organizational members must have the motivation and desireto participate in the called for change or changes.

Knowledge - Knowing why one must change is not enough; an individual or organization mustknow how to change.

Ability - Every individual and organization that truly wants to change must implement newskills and behaviors to make the necessary changes happen.

Reinforcement - Individuals and organizations must be reinforced to sustain any changesmaking them the new behavior, if not; an individual or organization will probably revert backto their old behavior.

Organizational Change Management

Organizational change management takes into consideration both the processes and tools thatmanagers use to make changes at an organizational level. Most organizations want changeimplemented with the least resistance and with the most buy-in as possible. For this to occur,change must be applied with a structured approach so that transition from one type ofbehavior to another organization wide will be smooth.

Management's Role in the Organizational Change

In most cases, management's first responsibility is to identify processes or behaviors that arenot proficient and come up with new behaviors, processes, etc that are more effective withinan organization. Once changes are identified, it is important for managers to estimate theimpact that they will have to the organization and individual employee on many levelsincluding technology, employee behavior, work processes, etc.

At this point management should assess the employee's reaction to an implemented changeand try to understand the reaction to it. In many cases, change can be extremely beneficialwith lots of positives; however certain changes do sometimes produce a tremendous amountof resistance. It is the job of management to help support workers through the process of

these changes, which are at times very difficult. The end result is that management musthelp employees accept change and help them become well adjusted and effective once thesechanges have been implemented.

The Importance of Buy In

For an individual or organization to achieve change effectively, it is important that individualsin the organization that will need to make modifications to their behavior exhibit buy in. Buy


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in means that the organization as a whole understands that the changes that need to be madeare ultimately beneficial to both the individual and the organization. In addition, eachindividual and the organization as a whole will have to work hard to make the necessarybehavior modifications. If an organization tries to make changes which are inherently bad orare not received positively by an organization, it will be much more difficult or close toimpossible to implement these changes without significant resistance.

You can enhance buy in by first explaining the changes you would like to make, citing issueswith current procedures and then communicating the benefits for both the individual andorganization.

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