Today in class we began discussion on how organizations build databases and what kinds of information might be stored in them. Being a Operations and Information Management major, whenever discussions of how and why companies create databases I pay extra attention to the kinds of things people say. Having studied database management, I think it's interesting to hear the perspectives people in other majors or functional areas have to say about the topic. It's funny how simplified the process has become, I think people lose apparition for how complex some of these programs can be. Having studied databases from the conceptual design to writing the SQL to query the data, I have tremendous respect on how powerful a tool like this can be for an organization. As it applies to marketing, I think that databases can be very powerful tools even a source of competitive advantage. Companies that have the resources and the capabilities to fill these databases with good, clean information and be able to mine that data for useful information, have a tremendous advantage when it comes to knowing their customers.