How Businesses Use Information – Boom Fashions
Types, Purpose, and Source of Information (P1)
Types of Information
There are different types of information gathered from different sources and used for a large variety of purposes
throughout different areas of business – data is facts and figures such that are measurements created by human or
computer that have no purpose yet; data is made into information by processing data into useful material for people
to make sense of.
The first type of information is primary – primary source information is first-hand so it should be entirely accurate,
correct, and unedited. Primary information would be up-to-date for it to be relevant and come from a trustworthy
source as it is obtained directly by you from surveys, experiments, and asking people that will not be bias.
Information from a primary source is usually very time consuming and/or expensive to obtain as a primary source
needs to be tracked down and are usually people which need to be asked and possibly paid for their time and
information.
On the other hand, secondary Information is a source that quotes from another source which may be the primary
source but it is not fully trustworthy as it may be edited or taken out of context, most news sources are secondary as
they choose what stories they want to present and how they want to present them to make them more interesting
for their audience. This secondary information is easily accessed from any source such as the internet and is
simplified and shortened, leaving out details to make information brief so crucial data may be missing but it makes it
cheaper than finding and contacting the original source.
Meanwhile, qualitative and quantitative is the nature of the information; qualitative is spoken or written text that is
not a measurable piece of data but instead an opinion, story, or description that sometimes describes quantitative
information to put it in to context. Quantitative information is a measurable and statistical type of information,
which proves it is a fact as it is gathered via internal sources through recording sales, experiments, and surveys.
Purpose of Information
To use information for operational support is a large variety of purposes which keep a business running through
simple timings and instructions that allow employees to complete their work. A business can control and monitor
the activities occurring in different sectors by using the information gathered from plans, communication, and
previous experiences to make constant decisions on the job. For example, at Boom Fashions, the sales managers
decide what items should be taken off sale or given a special offer from the information they have from monitoring
sales and finance from an Access database.
Business must also analyse information to see what is going well and where the business is progressing or regressing
by making comparisons to data from previous times or their expectations. These comparisons of data allow a
business to predict future sales so they can advertise, assign staff, and buy more stock at the best time to maximise
profits, this is done by viewing patterns/trends such as during holidays by monitoring with weekly sales and costs
reports (like Boom Fashions’ Access and Excel spreadsheets produced by the sales managers) and what is successful
in competing businesses.
Decision making in business must have information to backup reasons for making changes when a problem occurs.
Decisions can be long-term plans to help a business excel or short-term for decisions that are made on the go to deal
with an issue at the time; decisions can be made at three different levels which are operational, tactical, and
strategic decisions. Operational decisions are usually made in a single branch of a store at a moment’s notice, which
continue operations such as the IT support fixing technical issues so employees can work. Tactical decisions are
short-term plans that involve several store departments or branches like stopping the sale of certain items or
employing new staff. While strategic decisions affect all branches or all departments of a business usually in the
long-term (several years) such as changing the allocation of resources so departments get less or more resources or
pay.
Information can give a business a competitive edge by gaining an advantage over competing businesses through
decisions based on internal or external occurrences. These occurrences could be the time of year, a competitor
Types, Purpose, and Source of Information (P1)
Types of Information
There are different types of information gathered from different sources and used for a large variety of purposes
throughout different areas of business – data is facts and figures such that are measurements created by human or
computer that have no purpose yet; data is made into information by processing data into useful material for people
to make sense of.
The first type of information is primary – primary source information is first-hand so it should be entirely accurate,
correct, and unedited. Primary information would be up-to-date for it to be relevant and come from a trustworthy
source as it is obtained directly by you from surveys, experiments, and asking people that will not be bias.
Information from a primary source is usually very time consuming and/or expensive to obtain as a primary source
needs to be tracked down and are usually people which need to be asked and possibly paid for their time and
information.
On the other hand, secondary Information is a source that quotes from another source which may be the primary
source but it is not fully trustworthy as it may be edited or taken out of context, most news sources are secondary as
they choose what stories they want to present and how they want to present them to make them more interesting
for their audience. This secondary information is easily accessed from any source such as the internet and is
simplified and shortened, leaving out details to make information brief so crucial data may be missing but it makes it
cheaper than finding and contacting the original source.
Meanwhile, qualitative and quantitative is the nature of the information; qualitative is spoken or written text that is
not a measurable piece of data but instead an opinion, story, or description that sometimes describes quantitative
information to put it in to context. Quantitative information is a measurable and statistical type of information,
which proves it is a fact as it is gathered via internal sources through recording sales, experiments, and surveys.
Purpose of Information
To use information for operational support is a large variety of purposes which keep a business running through
simple timings and instructions that allow employees to complete their work. A business can control and monitor
the activities occurring in different sectors by using the information gathered from plans, communication, and
previous experiences to make constant decisions on the job. For example, at Boom Fashions, the sales managers
decide what items should be taken off sale or given a special offer from the information they have from monitoring
sales and finance from an Access database.
Business must also analyse information to see what is going well and where the business is progressing or regressing
by making comparisons to data from previous times or their expectations. These comparisons of data allow a
business to predict future sales so they can advertise, assign staff, and buy more stock at the best time to maximise
profits, this is done by viewing patterns/trends such as during holidays by monitoring with weekly sales and costs
reports (like Boom Fashions’ Access and Excel spreadsheets produced by the sales managers) and what is successful
in competing businesses.
Decision making in business must have information to backup reasons for making changes when a problem occurs.
Decisions can be long-term plans to help a business excel or short-term for decisions that are made on the go to deal
with an issue at the time; decisions can be made at three different levels which are operational, tactical, and
strategic decisions. Operational decisions are usually made in a single branch of a store at a moment’s notice, which
continue operations such as the IT support fixing technical issues so employees can work. Tactical decisions are
short-term plans that involve several store departments or branches like stopping the sale of certain items or
employing new staff. While strategic decisions affect all branches or all departments of a business usually in the
long-term (several years) such as changing the allocation of resources so departments get less or more resources or
pay.
Information can give a business a competitive edge by gaining an advantage over competing businesses through
decisions based on internal or external occurrences. These occurrences could be the time of year, a competitor
