Group E

Evelio Madariaga

Maria Minaya

Georgina Santillan

Robert Huesken

1. To what extent do you agree with the opinions presented 1. To what extent do you agree with the opinions presented here? To what extent are the concerns expressed here here? To what extent are the concerns expressed here justified? To what extent might they be due to other factors?justified? To what extent might they be due to other factors?

 I agree that using a spreadsheet is more simple. Setting up and using excel is less time consuming and doesn't require such a knowledge as using a database program. thus the sale Rep. can make a spreadsheet himself with the information he needs without having to hire someone else to create it for him. the information remains confidential to him and he is able to find everything with ease.

2. What problems do you see with the way that the car 2. What problems do you see with the way that the car salesperson stores address data? What will he have to do if he salesperson stores address data? What will he have to do if he ever does want to send a letter or an email to all of his ever does want to send a letter or an email to all of his customers?customers?

  The problem with the way that the salesperson stores the address data is that he stores it with other data. when he might need the address he is going to browse through other information in order to get it . if the salesperson wants to send a letter or an email. he will need to find away to copy and paste the information on the spreadsheet into a word processing program. 

Name Phone Make/Models Notes

John Smith 908.867.5309 BMW/740i 2005 Black/Black interior

Joan Johnson 908.662.4531 FORD/Fusion 2007

White/Navigation

Robert Craig 908.867.7890 ACURA/TL 2006 Silver/Bose package

•A sophisticated database is not needed to meet his needs.

•He’s a used car salesmen and the maintenance of the database will cost him capital by hiring a professional IS team to manage his database.

• The database will also make his information available to other salesmen at the dealership.

•I believe that the cost of maintaining & sharing the data is definitely keeping him from investing in a database, keeping him content with his theme “Keep it simple”.

5. Apparently, management at the car dealership allows the 5. Apparently, management at the car dealership allows the salespeople to keep their contact data in whatever format they salespeople to keep their contact data in whatever format they want. If you were management, how would you justify this want. If you were management, how would you justify this policy? What disadvantages are there to this policy?policy? What disadvantages are there to this policy?

By allowing the salespeople to keep their contracts in any form they want and gives the salesperson the freedom to keep contact information in any format that they desire. Some of the disadvantages to this policy are that some sales people may not be very organized and may not have all their contact information in one place, and this could be a problem when they are trying to find a client or close a deal with a client. Also by not having a database if someone misplaces their contact info they would not be able to retrieve like they would if they had a database.

6. Suppose you manage the sales representatives, and you decide 6. Suppose you manage the sales representatives, and you decide to require all of them to use a database to keep track of to require all of them to use a database to keep track of customers and customer car interest data. How would you sell customers and customer car interest data. How would you sell your decision to this salesperson?your decision to this salesperson?

First I would list all of the positives of having a database and sharing contact information. A database is an easy way to keep track of things, it is a self describing collection of integrated records for sales people to access for certain pieces of information. In this case it would be customers name, telephone number, email, and car interest. Then I would tell him all the disadvantages of not using a database. Hopefully he will be persuaded and see that the positives outweigh the negative aspects of using a database for the car dealership.

  7. Given the limited information in this scenario, do you 7. Given the limited information in this scenario, do you think a database or a spreadsheet is a better solution?think a database or a spreadsheet is a better solution? I think that the sales person that was trying to use a database didn’t know exactly how to do it and that is the reason why he opted to use a simple excel spreadsheet.  A database is a self-describing collection of integrated records, but if you don’t know how to configure the data you will be completely lost and you will of course then prefer to use a simpler way to arrange your data like a excel spreadsheet. You can really tell which one is easier a database or a spreadsheet, I think it depends on how much the person knows Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel, and which one do they feel more comfortable to work with.