Better data integration. Wider access to well-managed data promotes an integrated view of the organization’s
operations and a clearer view of the big picture. It becomes much easier to see how actions in one segment
of the company affect other segments.
Minimized data inconsistency. Data inconsistency exists when different versions of the same data appear
in different places. For example, data inconsistency exists when a company’s sales department stores a sales
representative’s name as “Bill Brown” and the company’s personnel department stores that same person’s
name as “William G. Brown,” or when the company’s regional sales office shows the price of a product as
$45.95 and its national sales office shows the same product’s price as $43.95. The probability of data
inconsistency is greatly reduced in a properly designed database.
Improved data access. The DBMS makes it possible to produce quick answers to ad hoc queries. From a
database perspective, a query is a specific request issued to the DBMS for data manipulation—for example,
to read or update the data. Simply put, a query is a question, and an ad hoc query is a spur-of-the-moment
question. The DBMS sends back an answer (called the query result set) to the application. For example, end