Primary activities 

are those that go directly into the creation of a product or the execution of a service,
including:
o Inbound

logistics: Activities related to receiving, warehousing, and inventory management of source

materials and components
o Operations: Activities related to turning raw materials and components into a finished product
o Outbound logistics: Activities related to distribution, including packaging, sorting, and shipping
o Marketing and sales: Activities related to the marketing and sale of a product or service,
including promotion, advertising, and pricing strategy
o After-sales services: Activities that take place after a sale has been finalized, including
installation, training, quality assurance, repair, and customer service

Secondary activities help primary activities become more efficient—effectively creating a competitive

advantage—and are broken down into:
o Procurement: Activities related to the sourcing of raw materials, components, equipment, and
services
o Technological development: Activities related to research and development, including product
design, market research, and process development
o Human resources management: Activities related to the recruitment, hiring, training,
development, retention, and compensation of employees
o Infrastructure: Activities related to the company’s overhead and management, including financing
and planning
Within enterprise systems, there are two basic types of data: master data (entity-type data) and business
event data (event-type data).

Master data is the core data that is absolutely essential for running operations within a business
enterprise or unit. It is data about key business entities that provides context for business transactions and
operations. Data designated as master data can vary by and within industries.
Transactional data: Transactional data is data that is generated by various applications while running or
supporting everyday business processes.

HIERARCHY OF DATA

» A character is a basic unit of data such as a letter, number, or special character. A field (a single
cell in a table) is a collection of related characters that comprise an attribute, such as a customer
number or a customer name.
» A record (a row in a table) is a collection of related data fields (attributes) that belong to a
particular entity (person, place, or thing, such as a customer record) or event (sale, hiring of a new
employee, and so on.).
» A table (or file) is a collection of related records (sometimes called entity/event instances), such
as a customer table or a sales order table.