Saturday, January 3, 2009

Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality or Applied Corporate Finance

Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality: Methods for Reducing Costs and Increasing Profits

Author: Larry P English

A comprehensive guide to quality improvement from the leading expert in information and data warehouse quality.

Each year, companies lose millions as a result of inaccurate and missing data in their operational databases. This in turn corrupts data warehouses, causing them to fail. With information quality improvement and control systems, like the ones described in this book, your company can reduce costs and increase profits from quality information assets. Written by an internationally recognized expert in information quality improvement, Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality arms you with a comprehensive set of tools and techniques for ensuring data quality both in-source databases and the data warehouse. With the help of best-practices case studies, Larry English fills you in on:

  • How and when to measure information quality
  • How to measure the business costs of poor quality information
  • How to select the right information quality tools for your environment
  • How to reengineer and cleanse data to improve the information product before it reaches your data warehouse
  • How to improve the information creation processes at the source
  • How to build quality controls into data warehouse processes

    About the Author

    Larry P. English is the leading international expert in the field of information and data warehouse quality. He is a columnist for Data Management Review and a featured speaker at numerous Data Warehousing Conferences. Larry chairs Information Quality Conferences held around the world.

    Booknews

    A practical approach to using information quality as a business management tool to reduce the business and systems costs resulting from poor information quality. Argues that information quality is not an isolated function, but an inherent and integral part of the business management and that everyone in the enterprise has a stewardship role in it. Includes a glossary without pronunciation guides. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.



    Look this: How to Win a Local Election or Soldiers of Reason

    Applied Corporate Finance: A User's Manual

    Author: Aswath Damodaran

    Convert theory into solutions

    Applied Corporate Finance, Second Edition converts the theory and models in corporate finance into tools that can be used to analyze, understand, and help any business. With this hands-on guide, you can find real solutions to real corporate finance problems, using real-time data.


    Offering a user perspective to corporate finance, this text poses three major questions that every business has to answer, and provides the tools and the analytical techniques needed to answer these questions.


    1. Where do we invest our resources? (The Investment Decision)

    The first part of the book shows how to assess risk and develop a risk profile for a firm, and convert this risk profile into a hurdle rate. You'll also learn basic rules for estimating the returns on any investment.


    2. How should we fund these investments? (The Financing Decision)

    Firms generally can use debt, equity, or some combination of the two to fund projects. This part of the book examines the relationship between this choice and the hurdle rate for analyzing projects, and shows how to use the financing decision to maximize firm value. You'll also find a framework for picking the right kind of security for any firm.


    3. How much cash can and should we return to the owners? (The Dividend Decision)

    The third part of the book establishes a process for deciding how much cash should be taken out of the business and in what form (dividends or stock buybacks).


    The final chapter in the book ties the value of the firm to these three decisions, and provides insight into how firms can enhance value.



    Table of Contents:
    Ch. 1The foundations1
    Ch. 2The objective in decision making9
    Ch. 3The basics of risk50
    Ch. 4Risk measurement and hurdle rates in practice91
    Ch. 5Measuring return on investments161
    Ch. 6Project interactions, side costs, and side benefits229
    Ch. 7Capital structure : overview of the financing decision275
    Ch. 8Capital structure : the optimal financial mix339
    Ch. 9Capital structure : the financing details396
    Ch. 10Dividend policy445
    Ch. 11Analyzing cash returned to stockholders482
    Ch. 12Valuation : principles and practice531
    App. 1Basic statistics596
    App. 2Financial statements603
    App. 3Time value of money615
    App. 4Option pricing628

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