How Much Is a Database Worth Essay

1) Many small business owners have found it financially advantageous to purchase their own building. As one owner remarked upon his retirement, â€Å"We did well with the business, but we made our real money by buying the building. † Explain why this might be so. There are three reasons why a small business owner might want to own the building in which they operate. First, the cost of moving around is expensive. Some small business might need large equipment to operate and completing a move might take months. This would interrupt the flow of the business and put a dent in profits. FlexTime is a good example. FlexTime, a gym has an array of workout machines that would be impractical to move over night. Most all those machines need to be taken apart and reassembled which is costly. The second reason is that historically, the price of commercial real estate has gone up. Which means while the owner is paying off his mortgage the value of the building will be increasing. Finally there is very little commercial real estate being developed. Due to this fact, vacancy rates have dropped and rents are rising. According to Conerly (2011), Very little new construction has been completed, and what has been built is almost all owner-occupied or build-to-suit. Almost no speculative real estate has been constructed this past year. Thus when the economy improves, rents will rise immediately (p. 1). 2) To what extent does the dynamic you identified in your answer to item 1 pertain to a database? Do you think it likely that in 2050, some small businesspeople will retire and make statements like, â€Å"We did well with the business but we made our real money from the database we generated? † Why or why not? In what ways is real estate different from database data? Are these differences significant in your answer? Three times Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L.  Friedman wrote a book titled â€Å"The World is Flat. † Friedman maintains that due to the increase in the use of technology â€Å"the global competitive playing field is being leveled† (p. 8). Now, in 2012 it is evident that his theory is true. In 2050, small business owners will make the above statement because like described about real estate in question one, the owner of the business may sell his database upon retirement. Along with real estate, data or information does not depreciate in value. There are some differences. Some databases have been collecting important data, related to customers, for years. This information could prove to be more valuable than real estate to a competitor in one’s respective industry. Information on customers is priceless. A detailed, in depth database is instrumental in finding out customer needs, habits and reactions to discomforts in the market and can contribute immensely to a small business owner’s success. 3) Suppose you had a national database of student data. Assume your database includes the name, email address, university, grade level, and major for each student. Name five companies that would find that data valuable. And explain how they might use it. Corporate gyms like La fitness and Lifetime fitness would find the student records named above useful. Using the name field they could figure out if the student is male or female. From there they could decide whether to offer jazzercise or boxing classes. Based on what university they belong to the gym can figure out if they have a location in that area to pursue the student. Using e-mail address they could send out promotion deals. Chegg. com is an online company that buys, sells and rents student textbooks. Using the fields; name, major and email address Chegg. om could effectively target students in certain majors and therefore rid their textbooks more efficiently. Major hotels would be all over a student database. Though the university field they could figure out what areas to target which universities. For example, hotels in Florida are likely to send information to students in universities on the east coast, where as Mexico and California hotels might stick to universities a li ttle more west. Hotels in Vegas could use student records like grade level to find out if students are of age. It would be hard to sell Vegas to a student under aged. Delta Airlines would find the information equally valuable because they could promote flights based on university’s vacation schedules along with student names and emails. BikesDirect. com is an online company that allows you to buy, sell and rent bikes. A large number of students ride bikes and for a company like this a student database can be instrumental in their success or expansion. Figuring out which university to target is important. For a bike company they might want to target larger campuses. Through the name field they could figure out gender and email is a good place to send promotions and receive rders. 4) Describe a product or service that you could develop that would induce students to provide the data in item 3. Students in need of tutoring would have to supply the relevant data. If one were to set up a tutoring service that connects all the universities to one database would be useful. From a student’s email account they could request a tutoring session. The university the student provides would be relevant data because the online tutoring service would have to contact one of its tutors in that area so they could easily meet. They would have to supply grade level and major so that the database can match them with a relevant tutor. 5) Considering your answers to items 1 through 4, identify two organizations in your community that could generate a database that would potentially be more valuable than the organization itself. Consider business, but also think about social and government offices. If the Department of Motor Vehicles lost its database it would be catastrophic to the department and our community. The DMV’s database is vast and contains all kinds of records that are important to other government agencies as well. The police department collaborates with the DMV on a daily basis when dealing with traffic situations and suspended licenses. Another organization or agency that has an extensive database is the Department of Labor. They store information like the amount of full time and part time employees, average wage. The Department of Labor’s data is instrumental in figuring out the median income, unemployment rates and the overall direction of the economy.