Backdoors is one of the methods that hackers use. On the other hand, back up, atomic transaction, digital signature and encryption are examples of security measures.

Market is an aggregate of people who, as individuals or organizations, have needs for products in a product class and who have the ability, willingness, and authority for such product.

By comparing actual cost data and standard cost data, the management will figure out the variances. Material variances show the price and quantity differentiation between actual and standard price and quantity. Likewise, labor variance shows the time and wage differentiation between actual and standard time and wage. Manufacturing overhead has three variances. Volume, capacity and efficiency variances show the difference between actual costs and standard costs. According to these variances, management makes decisions of improvement and corrective actions.

Human resource audits encompass the information about HR policies, procedures and practices. This type of comprehensive examination of the company’s current state can help identify whether HR activities, programs are adequate, legal and effective.

Hard technology and soft technology are the two main categories of the technology. Hard technology represents a variety of tasks in the creation and delivery of goods and services performed by the equipment and devices. Computers, computer chips and microprocessors, communication lines, sensors, robots are some examples for the hard technology. Soft technology is the application of the Internet, computer software, and information systems to provide data, information, and analysis and to facilitate the accomplishment of creating and delivering goods and services. Database systems, artificial intelligence programs, and voice-recognition software are some examples for the soft technology.

Direct: This transition approach, also called “Big-Bang”, is the direct change of the old system by the new system. It completes the change-over in the shortest-possible time.

Revenue cycle deals with sales and sales related activities. The common events that take place in revenue cycle are Receiving customer order, Analysing the credit approval for the customer, Viewing inventories, Accepting order, Preparing products for shipment, Billing, Recording and monitoring receivables, Collecting cash, Sales allowances and sales returns and Preparing reports.

Expenditure cycle deals with the purchasing activities of the business. These activities include purchasing of services, inventories, fixed assets, etc.

HRIS users are the internal customers or internal stakeholders of company. Competing companies cannot be allowed to reach personal information or company data.

The common events that take place in revenue cycle is as follows:

• Receiving customer order
• Analyzing the credit approval for the customer
• Viewing inventories
• Accepting order
• Preparing products for shipment
• Billing
• Recording and monitoring receivables
• Collecting cash
• Sales allowances and sales returns
• Preparing reports

Recurrent information is information that is provided on a periodic basis from periodic reports. Market or customer shares, advertisement watch rates, product or service ratings, price fluctuations, exchange rates, customer complains on product basis are some examples of this kind of information that managers receive on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Drill down is the capability which is about providing details upon follow-up query requests. Drill down process can be performed manually or in an automated manner.

Phase I - Material Requirements Planning (MRP), Phase II - Closed Loop Material Requirements Planning (MRP-CL); Phase III – Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II); Phase IV - Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

Correct order of supply chain life cycle is Commit-Schedule-Make-Deliver.

Market trends, life style changes are good examples of monitored information. Market or customer shares, advertisement watch rates, product or service ratings, price fluctuations, exchange rates, customer complains on product basis are some examples of recurrent information.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems provide the integration of the company internally and externally in order to meet the needs and requirements of the customers and in this way the company has a competitive advantage in the market.

Business analytics address the companywide needs for data and decision analysis while decision support systems focus on the specific decisions and the analytical and informational expectations and requirements of decision makers.

Effective marketing research involves five steps; 1. Defining the problem, 2. Developing a research plan, 3. Collecting problem specific data, 4. Interpreting the data and solving the problem, 5. Decision making.

Management reporting system, prepares specific reports like budgets, variance analysis reports, cost analysis reports and so on only for fulfilling the managers’ information needs. At this point, there comes an understanding that the general ledger system has an interaction between the financial reporting system and management reporting system. The reporting system gets the data from the general ledger system and prepares financial and managerial reports. Thereofre, the correct option is B

Previously just a limited number of data could be collected from a single transaction like amount, date, and parties of the transaction, but with the help of technology, various amounts of data can be gathered from a single transaction. For example, from a single sales transaction, data about customer, invoice conditions, transportation, inventory, personnel, and sales can be extracted. Figure 6.1 shows sample database records for a sales transaction.